PROMOTION GAMIFICATION 

Retaining customers is more difficult than winning them. Customer promotion, well-known to the marketing community, is a strategic goal that is fully focused on customer promotion. The presence of promotion in Marketing’ s 4P model, designed by the marketing guru Philip Kotler, further illustrates this. In general, all brands have the aim of retaining the current customer. 

The first thing that people who want to get information about your brand will do is to ask questions to those who have experienced that brand before.

Therefore, it is important to keep the existing customer pleasant, to ensure the continuity of shopping and to establish the awareness of being a reference for new customers.

What is promotion?

It is a communication process consisting of conscious, programmed and coordinated activities for the purpose of persuading the customer, carried out under the control of the producer-marketing company, in order to facilitate the sale of a business’s goods and services. ”

So, at what stage does gamification come into play?

Marketing incorporates different methods into its processes in many subjects. With the gamification method, fictions are formed mainly on loyalty.

For example, a 10% discount is used to attract potential customers, while gaining certain percentages, gains, or privileges on every purchase they make is called promotion. Accumulating points, as shopping is done at certain points in structures such as credit cards, is gamification. Having these points used in certain periods and offering to multiply the points by making purchases from different places successively at certain limits is also advanced gamification. This is the simplest method.

It is also a gamification that brands set up their websites and stores before the customers and create game-like experiences for them. Taking ideas for product and service design, sharing the product specially produced for this idea with the relevant customer and specifying its name is a gamification setup.

We can easily use gamification in various areas where we will involve the customer in the process. Because shopping itself is a motivating thing. Brands are trying to attract this motivation towards themselves. With gamification, customers become more and more internalized by their current shopping motivation. Instead of shopping from any place, the idea of shopping from x places turns into behavior with gamification. In this way, the brand uses gamification for its customers; “Not only you, but also those who think like you, your friends, family and social circle should also shop for me.”

Promotion Gamification Examples

Bring your friend, get a 10% discount, and 3 friends will be given 1 product as a gift. Campaigns that consider using the power of the existing customer to the fullest. Here, the company manages to reach other potential customers through word-of-mouth advertising methods through a brand ambassador. Reaching different audiences is a very important goal for a brand. Because it is a very costly and long process to reach new customers and include them in the system. At this stage, companies are considering fewer demanding methods for the first stage. Feeding a concept such as bringing a friend with advanced gamification is also a method developed later. The process, which started as a friend in the first place, turned into a process such as a discount or gift if your 3 friends went shopping. With the win-win method, a structure has been created that will also reflect on its customers. Share a recent example of the product you want to buy, click on your link, 50% discount if 5 people shop, and if 10 people shop, the product turns into a free situation for you. This further strengthened the brand ambassador structure.

It means that brands that can keep the customer in the long term follow them and make them shop successfully. The clearest gamified examples of this are brand behaviors that support sustainable shopping. For example, printing a stamp at every coffee purchase with the card given at the coffee shops and giving free coffee when the stamp spaces are full is an example of promotional gamification. This is a simple but good example of customer promotion gamification. Or the newspaper’s giving a product in return for a fixed-term coupon is also an example of promotional gamification. The most important part to pay attention to in this and similar examples: It should come to the mind of the customer in this type of possible shopping and direct the spending to this place.

Examples Of Failed Promotion

If a car brand had a campaign like in other examples, they would be greatly disappointed. Campaigns such as buying 3 cars, getting 1 free car or buying a car every year for 7 years free, are basically gamification but unsuccessful promotional gamification with the wrong audience, wrong product, and wrong target.  Therefore, it is necessary not to think only of the main product while doing promotional gamification. If we go with the example of the car brand, instead of buying more cars, fiction that will guide the customer about products and services would be more ideal. Giving a maintenance gift to the customer who buys a car after every 3 days of maintenance takes the customer away from other, perhaps cheaper, alternatives for vehicle maintenance and enables the brand to use the service process directly. By examining such examples, we should create a special setup for our own brand, product, and service.

In this way, we can easily achieve the promotion we expect with gamification.

What Can You Do?

For promotional gamification, firstly, preparation should be made. If you have a brand with an e-commerce system, your business will be organized by software update. In general, you need to provide your customers with the opportunity to create profiles in your application or on your site.

In this profile, we can also offer personalized usage patterns. For example, even the question of whether you want to use the app with a black theme or a white theme triggers you to be a thoughtful brand. Undoubtedly, the most beautiful award that can be received from a brand is a product of that brand. If you intend to give such gifts, prepare an area where you explain in detail how they were earned. Explain the rules you expect customers to follow. Rules satisfy many. It shows your seriousness and shows that they are in a fair campaign.

Define tasks for them on various topics. These tasks should be in a sequence from simple to difficult. In this way, people will begin to fulfill the tasks they have focused on. Specify critical periods, quotas, and gains for missions. Create different levels. The customer who shops once and the customer who shops every month do not want to be seen in the same way.

Motivate Your Customers!

Produce various badges and some of these badges can be awarded based on quests. For example, there should be a badge that anyone who completes that task can earn. You should also create custom badges. For example, a certain number of people should have these badges, which are valid for a short time. This would be to reward the individual’s special work. You can get better motivation if the user has the badges for a certain period. For example, a person who wants to keep their badge for 1 month and earn it in the next month will be more willing to perform the task than others. You can expect them to accumulate some badges as well. In this way, you will activate the collecting motivation of people. You can have the earned badges listed on your avatar, next to your name on the leaderboard, on your profile or in the badge chest, according to their weight. This will motivate people to increase their visible badges.

As a result, in a market where competition is high in every field, using the gamification method will give you a very good advantage in order to retain customers.

In this way, you will both continue to retain your existing customers by taking advantage of the game’s motivation, and you will be able to motivate your potential customers for various gains by being included in this system.

* Source: http://www.mku.edu.tr/files/1035-fb793721-427a-4b54-a1fb-eb1aab6aac48.pdf