Let’s take you back to a time when gaming, primarily console gaming, was hugely popular. Remember how thrilled you were to play alongside your friends and how ecstatic you felt about winning over them? Since then, not much has changed, barring the screen. Many of us still play and fixate on games like Candy Crush, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Pubg, Ludo King, etc., and constantly move our thumbs to win over the opponent or reach a goal to get incentivized or clear the stage. In short, regardless of age, gaming has the power to make people feel content and propel them to the next level of exploration.
Thus, with benefits galore, gamification as a concept has also gained traction in the business world. According to reports, the worldwide gamification market was worth $9.1 billion in 2020 and is expected to increase at a phenomenal pace of 27.4% by 2025, reaching $30.7 billion (MarketsandMarkets, 2020). The growth can also be attributed to the fact that this technique has posed a timely antidote to the pandemic after-effects of dwindling customer engagement and retention rates. Therefore, implementing game-like mechanics into the customer journey can result in a significant distinction in terms of user engagement and activation. So, let’s understand the need and the benefits of SAAS gamification.
What is SaaS Gamification?
SaaS Gamification in business means turning a task into an interactive contest to motivate user participation. This process has the ability to keep the customers excited and engrossed for an extended period, as the stimulation to complete the mission delivers a sense of self-fulfillment. Brands extensively use this strategy in their existing software to achieve desired results like improved traffic and conversions and even designing customer loyalty programs.
Benefits of SaaS Gamification
With numerous choices and plunging customer attention, it has become challenging for companies to direct their target audience towards their brand. Hence, to draw clients towards your service or solution, it is essential to make it enjoyable. Therefore, using tactics like exploring features, progressing to the next stage, and subscribing to it, paid and unpaid, makes the solution interesting and acts both as a differentiator and enabler.
Here are a few benefits of SaaS gamification-
1. User Onboarding
The first step of a user journey is to onboard the customer. Once you have cracked this phase, it becomes your responsibility to ensure a positive experience for a long-term relationship. Hence, knowing your customer’s likes and dislikes helps you to either retain them or yield them. Once fully onboarded, experimenting with them becomes more accessible. The crucial point is to have a great UX that addresses an engagement gap and fosters progression. So, find a balance so that users feel a sense of control while using your software, not understanding it.
2. Customer Adoption
Customer acceptance is a crucial step for any corporation, and a guaranteed way to do this is by making it a habit for your customer. Thus, if your solution too finds a way into their everyday lives, similar to Google for search and WhatsApp for chatting, the adoption rate is bound to improve. Another representative of this is job sites that prompt people to complete their profile to open the avenue to new opportunities.
3. Customer Loyalty and Education
Customer loyalty comes with customer education. Until they engage with your solutions and understand its need, they won’t buy them. An ideal example of this is e-learning programs designed for the long-term purpose by being divided into beginners, intermediate and advanced levels. Furthermore, every module ends with a quiz against which they provided some points and badges. This enables making the lengthy tutorial into an exciting gaming experience. For the brand, it results in customer conversion and loyalty.
4. Increases User Retention
It is vital to provide value to the customers throughout their journey as only then will they stay with your solution or platform. For SaaS products, the customers can use the state of productivity as an internal retention trigger. They need to see your solution as a place where they can smoothly and efficiently do their work. Thus, by introducing rewards- in points and badges, the users get motivated to proceed. Facebook’s creation of the Top Fan badge is one instance where they reward to retain. By offering a virtual badge, brands identify their most engaged followers and prompt them to continue interacting on the page as they reward them for their association. In the case of SaaS gamification, some also include monetary rewards, provided it delivers more significant returns.
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Hierarchy for SaaS Game Element
The game elements are categorized in two categories:
1. Dynamics
The dynamics of gamifying a solution center around emotions, advancement, and associations. This would mean plot creation, character development, and twists or levels in the storyline in a game. In SaaS, it means contextual onboarding, i.e., adapting to each user with your product and offering interactive walkthroughs, i.e., a step-by-step product guide leading to activation.
2. Mechanics
Mechanics, on the other hand, trigger actions. Hence, challenges, rewards, and competition would come under this. In SaaS, this could involve awarding them for completing every checklist item or topping up their onboarding progress bar.
Can Gamification Marketing Strategy Fail?
Though gamification is a powerful tool to increase product adoption, engagement, and retention, the equilibrium needs to be maintained so users don’t find it gimmicky. Thus, the additions need to feel subtle and should be fun for customers to interact with them naturally. Ideally, make it a core feature of your product.
To recapitulate, gamifying a process or a product has a vast potential to draw users towards your brand, provided they do it seamlessly. In the case of SaaS, gamification is a behavioral strategy that can excite customers and thus play an integral role in achieving customer success goals like activation, product adoption, and brand retention. Also, weaving in the social aspects like sharing achievements or progressing a level makes people feel accomplished, creating a positive feeling related to the activity. So, gamify your SAAS-based solution and win and retain customers.
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