One of the most effective ways to engage customers and increase sales is to incorporate gamification into your marketing efforts. The right gamification strategies will help you harness the power of this tool to help your business thrive.
Here we'll break down what gamification is and list some helpful gamification strategies for eCommerce businesses to boost sales.
What is gamification?
In eCommerce, gamification refers to the integration of game-like elements into different marketing campaigns and user experiences to keep customers engaged. Examples of gamification can include achievements that customers earn, leaderboards and other competitive components, and goals that customers can reach in exchange for rewards.
Why is gamification important for eCommerce businesses?
If you're not sure how gamification can help your eCommerce business, there are multiple benefits you'll find with these strategies that make them worth implementing.
Reduces cart abandonment
One of the biggest issues eCommerce businesses face is cart abandonment. According to recent research, the average cart abandonment rate in the eCommerce industry is 69.99%, which is an alarming high. There are many reasons why people tend to abandon their carts, and a lack of engagement is a big one.
To reduce cart abandonment, consider creating a sense of urgency that encourages customers to complete their orders by setting a time limit on certain offers. In the process, you can entice more customers to buy before that time runs out.
Grabs the consumer's attention
Brands often struggle to grab and hold customers' attention. It causes them to lose interest and move on to competitors who offer more engaging experiences.
Using gamification, you can effectively get people's attention by offering a level of entertainment value and an overall rewarding experience. Some methods for achieving this may include gamified rewards programs. These keep people invested along with the occasional lottery that gives customers a shot at a big discount or another offer.
Helps collect users' data
With the help of the right gamification tools, you'll be able to collect users' data and use it to develop more personalized and effective experiences for your customers. As an example, you can collect information about your users when they sign up for a rewards program. You may then tailor product recommendations and more based on each user's interests and figure out ways to better connect with these users. It's ultimately an invaluable means of collecting zero-party data that can help you adapt to the cookie-less world we'll soon face as Google phases out third-party data.
Drives more engagement
Gamification is also generally great for driving engagement among consumers. Recent statistics have shown that game-based motivation can lead to a 48% increase in user engagement. Other research has found that gamification can boost customer acquisitions by up to 700%.
Improves customer loyalty
Not only do brands see a huge surge in engagement among their customers when they integrate gamification, but they can also retain them more effectively. One study found that brands saw a 22% increase in brand loyalty and a 15% increase in brand awareness. So, if you want to keep your customers loyal to you, gamification proves essential in this area, too. By retaining more customers, you'll save more money and effort on acquiring new customers as you encourage more repeat purchases and a steady flow of income.
Top 8 gamification strategies for eCommerce businesses to boost sales
With a deeper understanding of gamification's importance in the eCommerce industry, you might wonder how you can successfully use it in your marketing efforts. The following are some of the most effective gamification strategies for eCommerce businesses to boost sales:
- Don’t give discount codes let your customers win them
- Reward customers for their new invites
- Get your customers ready to shop with an interactive onboarding experience
- Incentivize repeat purchases with loyalty programs
- Reward and entertain customers with quizzes and trivia
- Hold a competition and offer exclusive prizes
- Let customers spin the wheel for on-the-spot prizes
- Create leaderboards to increase the competition
Don’t give discount codes let your customers win them
Although you may consider sending customers periodic discount codes to maintain engagement after certain periods of inactivity, you will encourage even more engagement by allowing customers to earn them. A gamified experience could get more people to engage with your brand regularly if they have the chance to win discounts with some effort.
One effective tool available to use to get people to work toward valuable discounts is Storyly. Using Storyly Stories, you can create interactive games that engage users in exchange for a reward. For example, the customer-to-customer (C2C) app Dolap integrated gaming elements into an otherwise non-gaming app. In one instance, Dolap used Storyly Stories to create a "find the surprise code" that would excite its users.
Dolap's game generated a five-letter promo code for a 20% discount that users could unlock. Each of the five interactive Stories enables users to unlock one of the letters. One Story would release every hour, encouraging users to visit the app once every hour to engage with the corresponding Story until they unlocked the entire promo code.
Reward customers for their new invites
You can also create a type of referral program to add a gamification experience to your eCommerce experience. An example of this would be a program that rewards each user for inviting others to your eCommerce platform. When new users sign up, the inviting user would receive a reward. This encourages them to spread the word about your app. You can also encourage the invitees to sign up even more by rewarding both them and the inviting user.
Get your customers ready to shop with an interactive onboarding experience
A smooth onboarding experience is crucial for moving new customers along the buyer's journey toward a sale. One way to go about this is to include a progress bar that shows how far users are in the onboarding progress. It gives them a goal to reach as they progress through the experience. You can get creative in how you incentivize users to continue engaging with your app and website after initially visiting your platform.
With Storyly, you can make your app’s first impression on your users count with an engaging onboarding campaign. For instance, you may display Stories that give out special promos for new users who have logged into your app for the first time and encourage them to make an initial purchase, while putting that promo to use.
One Storyly client who used this particular strategy was SoulCycle. The fitness app encouraged people to get started on their exercise routine through a highly engaging Story campaign. It began with a custom preview card inviting new users to get started on their "Soul journey" in three steps. The user could then swipe through each step within the same Story, moving them right along the onboarding process.
Incentivize repeat purchases with loyalty programs
Loyalty programs remain among the most effective means of increasing repeat sales and keeping customers in the fold. Loyalty programs allow customers to accrue points or other in-app or on-site currency to redeem for various rewards. The more customers spend, the more freebies, discounts, and other prizes they can receive, maintaining their loyalty in the long term.
Starbucks is a prominent brand that's widely known for its strong loyalty program in the form of the Starbucks Rewards Program. As users spend money on coffee and other beverages, they can earn Stars to redeem them for Rewards -like free food, drinks, and more.
Reward and entertain customers with quizzes and trivia
Fun interactions like quizzes and trivia can reward users and keep them returning to your eCommerce platform. These games could ask various questions and provide users with different prizes for getting the answers right or even simply for participating. Your customers may have some fun testing their knowledge while exercising their brains to win a few prizes.
Here is where Storyly can also help. Using Storyly's Question Sticker, you could make your users guess which ingredients a recipe contains and then target users who give correct answers. You may reward them with promo codes, special discounts or other prizes. Also, you can use the audience data you collect through interactive components to personalize content based on the answers users give out.
Hold a competition and offer exclusive prizes
People enjoy good competition, and you can give it to your customers in exchange for prizes. You might encourage users within an app to compete against one another in a raffle. This would give users the ability to win exclusive prizes at random. You could also reward users with promo codes and other prizes for submitting user-generated content in an in-app community. In the process, you'll have the ability to build a brand community that connects users. This makes them feel as though they're part of a larger group of like-minded people and encourages even more loyalty.
Let customers spin the wheel for on-the-spot prizes
This type of gamification strategy offers up a literal game in the form of a prize wheel that gives users a chance to earn rewards in a roulette-style experience. You could allow users to spin a wheel every week, for example, with prizes on certain sections of the wheel. If the wheel stops and lands on a prize, the user will be able to obtain and use it right away. This system is ideal for offering everything from promo codes for use on any item to personalized discounts.
Similar to quizzes and trivia, the spin-the-wheel-style game is a way to consistently engage users while offering compelling rewards that compel users to come back to your platform.
Create leaderboards to increase the competition
Leaderboards are a great way to get people in a competitive mood and ensure they stay with your brand. You could use leaderboards in different ways, depending on your chosen method of gamification.
One potential strategy here is to create a leaderboard ranking users based on specific types of engagements with your app. They might need to complete certain tasks, such as in-app challenges or onboarding steps. You may also rank users based on performance in other gamification experiences, including user contests. Users will want to continue engaging to get to the top of the leaderboard, driving more loyalty and purchases. You could also include different ranking groups in your leaderboard, like the top 10 or the top 100. Additionally, you could use arrows or other signals to show how users have moved up or down the rankings. These drive even more competitiveness as they see either their progress or loss of it.
Conclusion
Gamification is among the best tools any eCommerce brand can use to build a strong connection with users, particularly as they seek fresh experiences that stand out from more conventional eCommerce experiences. People don't want to use eCommerce apps and sites just for high-quality products. They also expect a uniquely involving experience that makes them want to come back.
Using gamification strategies, you'll be able to develop new and exciting interactions that take your eCommerce platform to the next level. The best way to do so is to utilize the right tools for the job.
If you want to get started with gamification for your eCommerce brand, Storyly gives you opportunity to create game-like experiences that engage and convert users. Subsequently, you can harness the power of gamification to drive sales and loyalty. Register for free or book a call to get started with Storyly Stories now.
