One of the most common examples of gamification is that of Starbucks loyalty program. Customers can download the official app and earn “stars” for every purchase they make. They can then redeem these digital rewards for free drinks or food.
However, you can use gamification to incentivize any kind of interaction with your site. For example, bloggers can give readers badges for commenting on posts. You could also reward users for signing up for accounts or subscribing to your mailing list. Education and training sites often award students virtual stickers for completing lessons.
This can provide a wide range of benefits to your brand. First and foremost, gamification drives user engagement. It incentivizes interaction with your website by promising some kind of reward in exchange.
Additionally, playing games triggers the release of dopamine in our brains, which can cause visitors to associate positive emotions with your website. This can lead to increased brand loyalty and keep users coming back to your site.
Overall, this makes gamification excellent for lead generation as well as user retention. Whether you’re trying to get a new brand up and running or are hoping to grow an existing site, you stand to benefit from implementing different types of digital rewards.
Understanding digital rewards in Gamification
In order to incentivize users and encourage them to engage with your site, you’ll need to offer them something to work towards. Gamification enables you to create three types of digital rewards – points, achievements, and ranks. Each can be further broken down into multiple custom “types”.
You can combine rewards and types in any way you want to create your own unique gamification system. Below, we’ve explored the basics to give you a starting point to work from.
