Read This & Receive +5 Data Points!

Did You Know? Spotify’s mobile app downloads increased by 21% during the first week of December 2020, which is attributed to their annual “Spotify Wrapped” campaign. (Source)

It’s hard to cut through the noise in today’s society, whether that’s getting found in Google, getting people to engage with your content on social media, or getting people to open your daily data-heavy emails.

About those 5 Data Points…

Humans’ attention spans—or a complete lack thereof—are fascinating to me. Check out these stats pulled from an infographic on Wyzowl:

• From 2000 to 2015, the average human attention span dropped from 12 seconds to 8.25 seconds, a 29% decrease.

• That 8.25-second attention is less than the estimated 9-second attention span of a goldfish.

• The average office worker checks their email 30 times every hour.

• The average person picks up their phone more than 1,500 times each week and uses it for an average of 3 hours 16 minutes each day.

• The average web visitor reads 20-28% of the words on a page.

• The average visit to a web page lasts 10-20 seconds.

Social media platforms spam users with personalized feeds encouraging never-ending scrolling. YouTube recommends video after video after video. Google’s SERPs keep getting busier.

There’s just so. much. stuff.

One of the most effective marketing strategies to evolve from all of this noise is gamification—a form of interactive marketing where companies offer customers the ability to do more than just read content and purchase products. Here are some examples, many of which you’re already familiar with.

• Loyalty Rewards Systems: Rewarding customer purchases, activity, and interaction with points they can redeem for discounts, special offers, and more.

• Progress Bars: Ever create a profile for a website or company and see that progress bar or percent complete trackers with a checklist of tasks? Humans have an innate need for completion and progress bars tap into that.

• Contests: Whether it’s on social media, in a brand’s app, or somewhere else, contests generate interest, engagement, and social sharing.

• Leaderboards: Contests beget leaderboards, where your users can see how they stack up.

• Shoutouts: This newsletter is an example with the “Meet a Subscriber” section in every email. Also think about social media accounts tagging users when answering specific questions, which promotes engagement through the reward of recognition.

• Achievement Badges: Earning accolades for accomplishments, such as a hiking or fitness app giving users badges for progress.

• Daily Login Bonuses: Rewarding users for coming back every day.

• Augmented Reality (AR) Experiences: Think about apps that let you virtually try on clothing or redesign your home’s interior, which turn shopping into a fun, interactive experience.

• Personalized Profiles: People love learning about themselves (and posting those insights on social media). Think about personality quizzes or profiles like the Meyers-Briggs “16 Personalities” test that everyone’s done twice (once to see your real result and a second time to get the result you want…right?) or those notifications you receive about how much you’ve used some app in the last week.

Those examples span myriad aspects of the user experience and can be applied to a wide variety of industries, but they all have the same common goal: to drive consumer interest and engagement.

How well does gamification actually work?

Like, super well. Let’s look at some stats and examples to highlight how effective (and pervasive) gamification is.

• 48% increase in customer engagement according to this study.

• 69% increase in math scores for students playing a math game for four months, which demonstrates better engagement and retention.

• 72% of people say gamification motivates them to complete tasks and work harder on the job.

• 70% of Global 2000 companies use gamification in some way.

• Engaged customers are more valuable: 37% more revenue in retail banking and 44% more visits with 29% more spending per visit in consumer electronics (which combine to be an 85% increase in value).

• Overall, engaged customers are worth +23% in profitability over the average customer while disengaged customers are worth -13%.

• 13% increase in comments, 22% increase in social shares, and 68% increase in content discovery for brands like Pepsi, Nike, and Dell who incorporated gamified elements into their websites.

• 21% increase in app downloads for Spotify attributed to Spotify Wrapped as mentioned in the intro.

One of my favorite examples of gamification

I love my dogs. My wife and I adopted them in 2020 and 2021, and they’re the stereotypical mixed breed rescue dog mutts.

Like many other dog owners, we were curious about what breeds our dogs were, since there isn’t anything super obvious by their appearance (other than Olive clearly having some pit bull in her). We ponied up for the Embark DNA test, which boasts over 1.5 million dogs tested.

As it turns out, “some pit bull” is putting it mildly.

That’s the summary table on her profile, but when we initially got the results, it was packaged in a “breed reveal” interactive similar to this one, which does the slow reveal for each breed with information about them.

From there, you can explore genetic traits the Embark DNA model predicts your dog might have and compare whether your dog actually does have those traits, which is a pretty fun gaming element that makes you go “wow, they were right about that” more than a few times, increasing belief in and the perceived value of their product.

However, one of the most gamified features is the “Doggy DNA Relatives” page, where you can see which of those 1.5 million dogs is most closely related to your dog.

We found Olive’s close family!

If you click on any dog’s name, you’re taken to a page comparing your dog to whichever dog you clicked on.

Then you get the actual DNA comparison.

Then you get a side-by-side breed comparison.

And it even shares their respective journeys.

Interestingly, that comparison page is public facing, meaning anyone can see it. Here’s an example with Olive and her top family match, Kodismo. A lot of Embark’s pages are public and not login-protected, which I imagine really promotes social sharing and brand awareness.

For repeat engagement, Embark also emails you regularly when new DNA matches are found.

Of course I’m going to click “View Now” to check out her latest match.

Oh, and you also can click on any dog’s profile to see an actual game where you can try to guess each dog’s breed mix.

Embark is a fantastic example of gamification for many reasons:

• Swabbing and mailing back results requires activity.

• The 2-4 week process keeps you on the edge of your seat.

• The results are personalized and interactive.

• All results and comparisons are shareable.

• They keep you engaged by emailing you new DNA matches.

• They also have a referral program to encourage you to share.

You really can spend hours getting lost in all of the data (and dogs), which provides substantial ROI on the initial cost and time investment, plus the annoying 2-4 week wait.

Imagine if you paid the $100 or whatever it costs these days, struggled through the swabbing process, and then had to wait almost a month just to get a report…and that was it. I mean, cool, we learned about our dog. Good to know. But Embark is interactive. It feels so much more personal and valuable.

Gamification is all around us. As you go about your day, try to stop and observe the different ways brands are fighting for your attention and engagement.

• What are great examples of gamification that stand out to you?

• What ideas do you have for how you can gamify your brand or another existing brand?

• What types of gamification are most effective on you as a customer?

I’d love to hear from you, so don’t hesitate to reply!

Everyone say, “Hi!” to William T 👋

Question: If you could have any superpower, but it had to be completely useless, what would it be?

William T’s Answer: “If I could have any superpower but it had to be completely useless, I would say the ability to see 1 minute into the future but it takes 5 minutes to load.“

That seems especially useless to me, William.

Now, for an on-topic ChatGPT-Generated Joke of the Day…

ChatGPT-Generated Joke of the Day 🤣

What do you get when you cross a snowman and a dog?

Frostbite!

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