Why You Should Consider Adding Gamification to Your Customer Loyalty Program

Gamification is one of those buzzwords you often hear during brainstorming sessions, but when it comes to loyalty programs, it’s become much more than just a fad. Having a gamification component to your loyalty program or app is one of the most proven ways to keep customers happy and engaged with your client’s brand. That said, many have found that when they try to incorporate gamification into a business without proper research and data intel on their customers and target audience, they often end up feeling as if they’re performing without a net. The same goes for sophisticated customer retention solutions, such as robust loyalty programs.

It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that most loyalty programs centered around the “buy some/get one” punch card model, along with the occasional direct mail special coupon offer. But with the exponential growth of eCommerce and the birth of the smart, sophisticated modern consumer, loyalty programs have branched out from simply rewarding purchases with basic rewards. To keep today’s customers engaged, loyalty programs must offer a wider range of incentives and attractions. While this can prove to be a challenging endeavor, if you have a program built on a data-driven platform like FiO’s Customer Loyalty Platform you can build a customer loyalty program that creates real Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).

Why Gamification Works Well for Customer Loyalty Programs

Transactional loyalty programs – like the coupons and percent-off discounts discussed above- have proven less and less effective, and brands are beefing up their customer loyalty programs to set themselves apart and drive greater engagement. This is critical, considering that:

• 58% of consumers said they’re more loyal to brands than they were five years ago.
• 63% of consumers indicate they belong to between one and five loyalty programs.
• 77% of consumers feel brands could be doing more to earn their loyalty.

This is where gamification entered the picture. There isn’t one perfect approach to a gamified loyalty program or one surefire type of contest that will ensure engagement. Gamification requires using game elements or design techniques as part of your marketing strategy to influence customer behavior and engagement. Modern marketers know that gamification induces powerful emotions like excitement, intrigue, and happiness to influence specific actions and reactions. How do they know this? Through the use and analysis of behavioral and sentimental analytics.

Increasingly, brands are leveraging both gamification and behavioral analytics in their loyalty programs as a differentiator and a key component in the personalized, customer loyalty loop. While the theories behind what engenders brand retention and brand loyalty are changing constantly, loyalty programs that have included a gamification component to their apps or eCommerce sites have routinely reported higher engagement numbers and bigger growth than those who stick with the basic “some for one” model.

To achieve this and have your gamification efforts be a successful endeavor right out of the gate, take note of these five key elements to creating a loyalty program that is engaging and addictive to your customer base.

1. Figure Out What Behavior You’re Trying to Inspire

Are you hoping to increase the frequency of visits or average transaction amount? Are you trying to generate some hype around your business and get people talking in an effort to acquire new customers? Or do you simply wish to make sure your existing customers don’t abandon you for your competitors?

Different game design elements can trigger different outcomes and to encourage loyalty, but you must motivate customers to keep coming back. A common way to do this is to develop multiple steps that allow them to collect points to redeem for rewards. And if your customers are interested in achieving goals, performance graphs and progress tracking tools could be the way to go.

If you want to use your existing customers to attain new ones, for example, you might do something similar to Uber and offer your loyal customers attractive rewards and discounts for getting a friend to register.

On the other hand, if your goal is simply to encourage people to visit more frequently, take a page out of Starbucks’ book and offer your loyalty program as a seasonal contest where they win a “turn” every time they make a purchase, all with the goal of acquiring holiday-themed badges and rewards toward specific prizes.

By having a clear idea in mind of what you want your loyalty program to achieve, you can gear your gamification to inspire certain behaviors that will create sticky customers and inspire brand loyalty.

2. Encourage Customers to Adopt Digital

You need to go beyond asking a customer to download a mobile app or scan a loyalty card with every purchase. Using gamification paired with making a purchase online or through social media enables you to incentivize digital adoption and greater engagement with your loyalty program, while also helping them have a seamless experience inside a store and while online shopping. This is providing a true omnichannel interaction, and it creates a unified, cohesive brand experience that builds connection and loyalty.

Behavioral data used in customer data platforms like FiO’s Customer Loyalty Platform provides valuable insight into what consumers respond to, how, and why. With the benefit of this predictive analysis, it’s clear to see that today’s customer is looking for a seamless, personalized experience throughout a brand’s entire ecosystem. By building this unified concept into every touchpoint and having them earn loyalty stock throughout, you’re not only giving continuous brand exposure, you’re also building another brick into the loyalty bridge every time they buy from your brand. To Know more about Why You Should Gamify Your Customer Loyalty Program please visit here :https://www.groupfio.com/why-you-should-consider-adding-gamification-to-your-customer-loyalty-program/