9 Strategies to Gamify Your Startup

Scott Gerber is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, a non-profit organization that promotes youth entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment. The YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs grow businesses.

Gamification is hot right now. More and more startups and established brands are building mobile apps and platforms that offer awards, badges and other fun ways to reward and recognize influencers. It’s a great way to build a community organically around a product or service and impact customer retention.

But like any shiny new marketing strategy, gamification won’t necessarily yield more sales — or better engagement — unless it’s applied thoughtfully, in a way your users can relate to.

I asked a panel of successful entrepreneurs for their best tips for successfully “gamifying” a brand. Below are nine pieces of advice on implementing a game strategy that gets results.

1. People Love Measurements

 When approaching the gamification aspect in your business, ask yourself two questions: Why are we in business? And how do we visually display the reason why we’re in business to our customers to make them feel like they’re involved in something greater than themselves?
Once you answer these two questions, you’ll be able to come up with some sort of gamification element that gives your customers a measurement. When people have a measurement, they work harder to see that measurement increase. For example, road signs are gamification at its finest; they share the number of miles travelers have left until their destination, which gets drivers antsy to cross that finish line.
- Brett Farmiloe, Markitors

2. Gaming Equals Retention

 I often recommend startups and mobile app developers create a “gaming environment” within their software, even if their concept is not a game. This small, but critical feature is referred to by most as “gamifying.” It simply helps retain more users by allowing them to compete and enhance their experience. “Gamifying” influences the users’ behavior positively.
For example, Nike “gamified” exercise by allowing people to track and share their exercise results, such as distance and time spent running. By choosing to “gamify” your product, you are allowing users the ability to become more motivated and participate further with your product.
- George Mavromaras, Mavro Inc. | Praetor Global LLC.

3. Create a Sequence of Badges and Bonuses

 I recommend setting up content-rich programs in levels where the client has to fulfill the requirements of one level before moving on. It’s easy to do with programs like Wishlist for WordPress and Customer Hub for Infusionsoft. And once set up, it’s easy to maintain for a large volume of clients.
This type of sequencing will not only help clients get best results, but get the same sense of accomplishment and pride as advancing to the next level in a game. Completion badges can be awarded and bonuses unlocked along the way to encourage engagement and growth.
- Kelly Azevedo, She’s Got Systems

4. Appeal to Your Customers’ Competitive Drive

 By adding gamifying features, such as badges, accomplishments and instant (micro)rewards, you can motivate your users to engage more with your product, which increases both direct engagement and retention. By creating leaderboards, competitions and group features, and rewarding users for inviting their friends, you can create an environment which encourages platform growth. My best advice is to think of ways in which you can create an optimum environment for users to express their innate competitive spirit.
- Christopher Pruijsen, Letslunch.com

5. Promote the Prize

 Whether it is publicity, recognition on your website or through social media, or an actual, tangible prize, gamification — or any game, really — is only as effective as the prize at the end. Make sure that it has value to the demographic you are trying to reach and is truly something that will help grow what you are trying to accomplish.
Too many people think that gamification is just another must-have concept, but it is only effective if it is thought out from implementation to reward. Having a high-ranking publicly may be enough for some, but a free vacation may be a better gift if your demographic isn’t social media savvy.
- Aron Schoenfeld, Do It In Person LLC

6. Small, Quick Rewards Are Best

 It’s logical to assume that a big prize will entice consumers and ultimately drive their behavior. However, from what we’ve learned at RewardMe, small, quick rewards are most effective at driving consumer behavior. If you’re a restaurant looking to increase customer frequency, then one small drink prize per week is more effective than one full dinner entree prize per month; if you’re an ecommerce store looking for brand awareness, then frequent giveaways of low-cost items are more effective than one extravagant giveaway given only once per year.
Small and frequent is more effective because it helps you stay top-of-mind with the consumer, and you make them feel good because someone is always winning your prize.
- Jun Loayza, Lion Step Media

7. Create a Community

 Poshly’s first website has immense gamification elements — our users answer fun, fast questions about themselves to be entered to win beauty giveaways. But beyond gamification as a user acquisition strategy, we implemented a full feedback loop, where we also publish and promote the winner, her style and her prize on the site. Poshly Giveaways has the effect of creating a sense of community beyond the games; seeing the winners showcased in a really strong way gets other users excited about becoming Poshly members, or if they’re already on our site, re-engaging with the latest content available on Poshly.
I recommend identifying ways to truly celebrate your users through gamification, in a way that builds your community to be stronger and more engaging than ever.
- Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

8. Encourage Social Sharing

 As your users accumulate a collection of well-earned badges, they’ll inevitably want to flaunt their hard work to their friends. The best way to elevate the “gaming” experience within your app — and simultaneously get some marketing benefits — is to allow users to embed their badges and/or widgets on their websites and social media channels.
- Logan Lenz, Endagon

9. Check Your Budget

 Before you gamify your website, you should first check the price and ensure that it is within your budget. Gamification is still fairly new, and as with any marketing strategy, success is not guaranteed. First, unless you’re well-versed in coding, you probably will not want to take on the project yourself. You could hire an independent developer to do the work, but this is typically quite costly.
Your best bet is to enlist the help of a business specializing in gamification, which can provide a toolkit, as well as guidance and support, while setting it up. Another option is to hire a gamification provider to do the work for you, such as Gamify, Big Door or Badgeville.
- Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

 Source: http://mashable.com/2012/11/02/startup-gamification/