Happy Friday! For many of us (in the states anyway) today marks the beginning of Labor Day weekend with Monday off to relax just a little bit more than normal. Before heading out to your Labor Day plans, make sure you are caught up on gamification, customer loyalty and social media news. We made it easy by compiling our favorite articles of the week!

How Gamification Can Help Attract New Customers Entrepreneur 8/30/2012 There is a common misconception about gamification that leads people to believe that a gamified loyalty program is the same as the rewards program at your local coffee shop. Gabe Zichermann of gamification.co explains the difference and how gamification can help build a new customer base, instead of just rewarding existing customers.

A Sum of Parts: The Point of Points and The Gamification of Videogames Gameranx 8/28/2012 Points have always been a part of games, but this article argues that the emphasis in their meaning and role has changed over time as video game development has advanced. “Instead of standing in for some other, intrinsic, emotional goal, the numbers themselves became the goal.” This change directly influences the way we think about gamification and motivation. While we might not agree with everything here, this is a really interesting theory that is worth a quick read.

Boost Your Blog Audience’s Engagement With Gamification Independent Fashion Bloggers 8/23/2012 We wanted to highlight this article as an example of why gamification fails. Adding a quiz to your blog is not gamification, nor is integrating social media. Gamification requires many of these elements (social, rewards, polls/quiz interactions) working together to create an interactive experience. For bloggers looking for gamification, they should check out BigDoor’s free gamified rewards program.

In Defense of Social Shopping: Driving Sales and Loyalty Forbes 8/28/2012 Despite retail seeming like an obvious place to embrace social media and gamification, we have yet to see a really cool implementation. This is a great look at the trend, challenges and suggestions for brands looking to turn shopping into a much more interactive and social experience.

 Social media poised to drive customer loyalty, Logic Group Survey reveals Retail Times 8/29/2012 Gamification companies, including BigDoor have been talking about the importance of social media in building customer loyalty for a while, but the trend finally seems to be picking up steam. The Logic Group took a survey of British buying habits and brand loyalties and the results are really interesting. Among other findings the survey found that banks, supermarkets and mobile phone networks are the brands that consumers feel most loyal towards.

SA’s bank clients are becoming less loyal Money Web 8/28/2012 We are always talking about ways to increase loyalty with gamification, but we don’t often talk about industries that seem to be suffering from a loyalty drought. This study takes a look at customer loyalty among banks in South Africa, including why consumers are becoming less loyal and what banks need to do to bring them back. There is a lot to learn about customer loyalty here and it’s a great case study for what to do and not do.

Posted in: Game Mechanics, Gamification, Gamification Tips, Loyalty

Happy Tuesday! It’s that time of the week when BigDoor posts our favorite Pinterest Pins regarding gamification, social media and customer loyalty. We found some cool stuff this week including some statistics on social gaming, tips and examples of great customer loyalty and some really interesting stuff on using game mechanics for behavior modification. You can check it all out on our BigDoor Pinterest Board.

Our favorite geeky pin of the week was this awesome Tardis latte art. We’d love to see our local barista pull this off!

Posted in: Game Mechanics, Gamification, Gamification Tips, Loyalty, Social Media

We often talk about using gamification to build loyalty for brands but what about using gamification to manage and engage an already loyal customer or fan base?  As the leading gamification provider for consumer brands we acknowledge that while some brands might be focused solely on building loyalty in their customer base, other brands are coming to us for gamification solutions that can reward, engage or highlight site features for existing fans. A comprehensive gamification solution doesn’t stop at building loyalty, but also should be attractive and engaging to existing brand enthusiasts as well.

While these mega-brands with existing super-fans are quite common, they often don’t have the same level of engagement online, that they carry offline. Gamification is proving to be a great way to pull super-fans online, to engage with brands from home. Two industries that are seeing a lot of benefit from gamification online are entertainment and sports. We’ve seen how successful gamification of an entertainer’s website can be with Chamillionaire, and now the gamification industry looks to be taking over the sports world as well.

Here are a few recent examples:

NFL

The NFL is no stranger to loyal fans. Frequently tied with MLB among sports leagues for “most loyal fans”, the NFL is a dominating force in the US. But while loyal football fans have long supported the NFL in stadiums, there hasn’t been an easy way for fans to show their support online, until now. Last week, NFL announced the launch of its first ever NFL Fan Rewards, a program that gives regular users of NFL.com coins in exchange for consuming content, commenting, sharing and participating in various activities online. The program harnesses the existing loyalty of fans and channels it to online activities like fantasy football, bringing football teams and the fans that love them closer together for a more interactive experience online. The program rewards fans with a variety of NFL merchandise and discount codes as well as a sweepstakes opportunity to win a trip to London to watch the International Series.

FanCake

While FanCake may not have its own unique loyal fanbase yet, it definitely taps into a market of loyal sports fans who love to be rewarded for doing something they already do, watch sports. FanCake, created by Kwarter, links sports fans TV experience, with an iPhone app that gives fans points, quizzes and other mini games in real time while they watch. Users of the app can redeem points earned while watching and playing, for real rewards provided in the FanCake Catalogue. The app’s primary goal is to make watching the game at home feel more fun and interactive, while also rewarding fans who couldn’t make it to the stadium. There has been a lot of buzz about connecting TV views and smart phone use together with games and the sports industry feels like a great place to test this out.

MLB

If we are going to talk about the ways that gamification has been used by various brands within the sports industry, we can’t forget MLB. An early adopter of gamification, MLB.com has integrated game mechanics seamlessly into a variety of their online offerings. Last year they introduced game mechanics into their popular Gameday app, giving fans badges and trophies for witnessing specific in-game events. The Gameday app has become a popular way for loyal fans to watch baseball games they are unable to attend, or see on TV. During last year’s season, MLB handed out more than 5 million badges. You can learn more about the program last year in our MLB Case Study. MLB has continued grow the interactive features on their website and provide new and old baseball fans a way to engage with the teams they love.

Whether your brand has an irregular customer base that could use some loyalty, or an existing loyal customer base, that needs engagement online, gamification is a great way to accomplish both goals. As sports fans here at BigDoor, we are pretty excited to see the innovative gamification solutions coming out from sports leagues, teams and fans online.

Did we miss any other sports/gamification examples? We’d love to hear!

Posted in: Blog, Game Mechanics, Gamification, Loyalty

Happy Friday! We have scoured the internet for the best gamification and customer loyalty highlights of the week. We are pretty excited to see some new applications of gamification as well as some redesign of older gamification websites and tips for improving loyalty programs. If you are like us and can’t stand to go into your weekend without the latest news, read on.

Social Shopping Site Shopcade Introduces ‘Perks’ To Reward It’s Most Influential Shoppers TechCrunch 8/23/2012 Social shopping side Shopcade has introduced even more features aiming at using gamification to build customer loyalty as well as reward super-users on the site. Users will now be able to earn points for sharing, shopping and completing sponsored missions to earn rewards from partner brands. The site hopes to grow its user base and increase engagement among existing users. Retail hasn’t caught the gamification bug the way some other industries have, so this will be an interesting example to watch.

eBay gamifies the auction, with a little help from US Santa Cruz VentureBeat 8/21/2012 This is a really cool example of academia and industry coming together to collaborate on innovative gamification. US Santa Cruz students are working with eBay, the online auction site, to see how game mechanics can engage the eBay audience. The program began with a small test course over the summer, and will expand to a larger course of 30 students this fall. It will be great to see what these students come up with and if eBay implements it!

What’s the Difference Between Games and Gamification MindShift 8/21/2012 Critiques of gamification often come from game designers, pointing out the vast differences between gamification and true games. This article takes a look at games, gamification and simulation in an attempt to parse out the differences and similarities. This is a great read for people thinking about how to add game mechanics to their site who might still be unsure about how best to do it.

Gamification of Scrum Team Practice is More Fun Dr. Dobbs 8/21/2012 This is something we haven’t seen yet! Gamification company Innovation Games has released a game, ScrumKnowsy, designed to help developers improve their Scrum practice. Developers can play challenges or multiplayer experiences to track their alignment with Scrum practices, roles and responsibilities. ScrumTide Partner Jim Complien said of the project, “The goal is to have fun and create value, and ScrumKnowsy helps Agile teams meet that goal.”

Fitocracy Redesign Ensures Your Friends Will Know if You’re Working Out or Not SocialTimes 8/20/2012 Fitocracy, the fitness social network launched last year, has gone through a redesign to fix UX issues that hindered users navigation of the site. The social networking site uses a mixture of gamification and social features to encourage users to reach their fitness goals. Among other redesign features, Fitocracy also updated user profiles, tracking pages and unveiled a new fitness mascot. We love seeing this community grow, as well as see the success of gamification in fitness!

Avoiding Loyalty Fatigue Business2Community 8/17/2012 While we make no secret at BigDoor that we are huge loyalty program fans, we also think this is a great reminder to building smart loyalty programs as well as avoid the pitfalls of bad implementations. Some of the top tips include avoiding too many emails, limiting your terms and conditions and providing rewards with real value to your users. As the internet explodes with loyalty programs, it is important to think about what works, what doesn’t and what companies are nailing their loyalty programs (We have to put a vote in for some of our awesome clients).

Posted in: Blog, Gamification, Gamification Tips, Loyalty, Social Media

Happy Friday! Doesn’t every weekend feel just a bit more relaxing if you are caught up on gamification and customer loyalty news? We think so! Find out what we think is the best industry news below.

Social media making the mundane more fun NineMSN 8/16/2012 Randi Zuckerberg, former head of marketing at Facebook and the sister of founder Mark Zuckerberg, highlighted the gamification trend as a new way for social media to make life more fun and luxurious. Users are seeking apps, games and services that make their lives easier and the trend is becoming more and more common in our lives.

5 Tips to Increase Customer Loyalty adotas 8/15/2012 Customer loyalty is becoming more important for businesses, but what creates the kind of loyalty that businesses want? A recent survey finds that “among active social-network active users, 21 percent stated they would make a purchase based on outstanding customer service from a company, regardless of the item’s price.” This article lists 5 other tips to building loyal customers, including rewards and engagement programs.

What Companies Miss on Their Social Engagement Journey Destination CRM 8/16/2012 Any marketer knows that building a social community around your brand isn’t easy. Focusing attention on brand influencers and advocates in different ways can maximize the benefit of a social engagement plan. Encouraging both these valuable customer types, can be done easily through customer loyalty programs, offering a wide variety of the things users want, mainly: status, access, power and stuff.

The pro’s guide to gamification Net Magazine 8/16/2012 We love seeing someone take the time to produce a comprehensive and thorough guide to gamification, the various applications for it as well as provide some best practices. This is a great guide to gamification as a whole, as well as a great look at BigDoor our gamified rewards program. We really appreciate being mentioned!

How Gamification Can Reduce the Need for Discounts Entrepreneur 8/14/2012 Gamification guru Gabe Zichermann highlighted the importance of intrinsic value in gamification in this 60 Second Solution video. While physical rewards are often great motivators, finding out what emotionally motivates your users is equally as important to success.

Google Gamifies Olympic Doodle X4 Business2Community 8/10/2012 Is there anything that Google can’t do? Riding on the popularity of Olympics, Google created 4 Doodle games for site visitors to play, earn points and share. The search engine giant has so far released hurdling, basketball, slalom canoe and soccer. You can also see all the non-game Olympic Doodles in the article as well.

Posted in: Blog, Gamification, Gamification Tips, Loyalty, Social Media

It’s that time of the week again, where we take a mundane Tuesday and brighten it up with some Pinterest pins! This week we found some really interesting infographics and images about customer loyalty and engagement, game mechanics and social media marketing. You can find all our favorite pins over on the BigDoor Pinterest.

Take a look at this awesome Suzuki concept car that integrates Xbox 360. Enjoy!

Posted in: Blog, Game Mechanics, Gamification, Loyalty, Social Media

Mygamification is alive! Some of you might have noticed that the mygamification blog and social media stream were a bit quiet last week. I apologize for the sound of crickets, but am happy to announce that I’m now back and ready to post lots of juicy gamification content!

The past week, I was on a road trip from Seattle, WA to New York, NY in a 7 day whirlwind helping a friend move. Since even when I’m not in the BigDoor office, I can’t help but think about the cool stuff we do here for customer loyalty, I found myself noting some things to share with you that I learned on the road.

#1 – Loyalty Matters

Being a Seattleite typically means having a coffee addiction. Having a coffee addiction and a love of loyalty programs, quickly led me to become a gold card carrying member of the Starbucks Reward program. I love the perks, free coffee and status I get at Starbucks with my gold card, and will typically go out of my way to drink coffee there above any other place. If you’re familiar at all with the states of Montana, Wyoming or South Dakota, you may know that Starbucks locations are few and far between. While it might have been easier to settle for a coffee elsewhere, I found myself driving out of the way, or waiting longer distances just to add another gold star to my rewards account. While I’d like to say my loyalty to Starbucks stems only from their delicious coffee, I’d be lying. I’m loyal because I like the status and I like earning free stuff, so it’s worth the extra effort. Bottom line, create reasons for your customers to return to you and they will, even if it means driving across a barren wasteland while jonesing hard for an iced Pike Place Brew coffee with light soy.

Seriously, there is nothing out there...

#2 – Onboarding Matters

Pretty much anyone under the age of 25 has bought something at Ikea. During this trip, we made a stop at the Brooklyn Ikea and I was surprised to see signs for their Loyalty program.  Ikea’s loyalty program (called the Ikea Family) is pretty standard for a retailer, discounts on certain purchases with some free stuff thrown in (coffee is one of them, if you’re curious), but what really impressed me was their flawless onboarding of new users. Most people go to Ikea irregularly, and likely wouldn’t see the value in signing up for a few discounts at a store they see maybe once or twice a year. But upon walking through the front doors, visitors are greeted with large colorful signs, pointing to kiosks to sign up. The kiosks are not only located in the perfect spot (before you shop), they also clearly spell out what you get. Best of all, they allow you to input your information, print out your new rewards card and start shopping with discounts in a matter of minutes. How many of us have been interested in a rewards program, but irritated by difficult or slow onboarding? Most Ikea visitors might bypass a mail in rewards form, or a clunky slow system, but Ikea managed to make the process so easy, everyone I was with signed up. Onboarding users into a rewards or loyalty program should be easy, it shouldn’t deter your users and it should give them a hint of what using your product or consuming your content should be like, namely enjoyable.

Who wouldn't stop for this?

#3 Hype Yourself

Are you awesome? If you read this blog, probably, but do your users know it? Do they know about the cool customer loyalty program or gamification solution you have spent time putting together? A loyalty program won’t do you any good if people don’t know that it’s there or what it can do for them. Cue Wall Drug. If you haven’t heard of it, you’ve probably never driven the I-90 corridor between Michigan and Montana, because if there is anything Wall Drug is good at, it’s making you aware of its presence. Miles of billboards tell bored, hungry or sleepy drivers about the wonders that await them should they get off the freeway and spend a few moments at the tourist trap/food mecca that is Wall Drug. By the time you hit the exit, travelling East or West, you are craving their fresh donuts, can’t wait to see their T-Rex, or just excited for a cup of coffee or some free ice water. While Wall Drug was probably one of the coolest things I saw on the drive to NY, I would have never stopped, bought my share of donuts and ice cream or seen a giant Brontosaurus, if Wall Drug hadn’t spent 15 miles telling me about how I couldn’t live without them. It’s ok and should be encouraged to tell users how cool you are, and get them excited for the things you are doing.

While I don’t advise driving across the country in a giant rental truck in the middle of summer for everyone, I can advise keeping your eyes open for new and old techniques that we can apply to the online world to increase user engagement and loyalty. These are a few of the techniques and things I noted about loyalty in the past week, but I’d love to hear yours!

Posted in: Blog, Loyalty, Social Media, User engagement

I love gamification and I hate to see it get a bad reputation. As BigDoor’s marketing specialist, I am fascinated by the conversation surrounding gamification. Gamification is a fascinating space because we have a lot to learn about what works and what doesn’t. At BigDoor, we spend as much time as possible educating publishers on what we think makes gamification a success. So I thought I would start sharing tips related to common questions I see popping up.

Tip #1: Keep your users in mind.

A user that comes to your site because they love your products isn’t going to appreciate a gamification solution that distracts from that. Similarly, a user that is coming to your site for some intrinsic value or status may not care about physical rewards. Take a moment (I recommend more) and think about what your site offers users, gamification can amplify your sites value and increase user loyalty, but it can’t add value where there is none and it definitely won’t succeed if it doesn’t line up with what your users want.

Once you’ve nailed down what people value, ask yourself if gamification can help. Gamification can among other things motivate, increase community and challenge users to engage with content. It can also help overcome the hurdle of registration so many publishers often find themselves facing. If you find that your goals can be met by using gamification, focus on using game mechanics that drive users towards the things they already value or educate them on parts of your site that can get them where they want to go.

Remember, gamification is about adding value to your users. If the average visitor can’t understand the value of the game mechanics you’ve added, something has gone wrong.

If you think you are a publisher that could benefit from gamification on your website, contact our gamification experts at BigDoor to see how we can help!

Posted in: Blog, Game Mechanics, Gamification, Gamification Tips, Uncategorized