Since gamification was introduced in the early 2000s, it has become a go-to for businesses looking for a tool to create an interactive user experience and drive user engagement.
If done right with the right strategies, your user’s satisfaction and engagement levels will skyrocket. Many companies now utilize gamification to attract new potential customers and boost the loyalty levels of their existing users.
This article will take a deep dive into what is gamification, what benefits it offers, and which strategies are the most popular when trying to boost your business.
Table of Contents
Understanding gamification
In-app gamification is the process of adding game-like elements into contexts where game elements aren’t usually found. If you include gamification in your business model, you can expect to boost user engagement, drive targeted user actions, and better user satisfaction.
The aim of gamification is to motivate your users to use your app on a regular basis. They would want to do that because their in-app experience is enjoyable and full of interactive elements.
Gamification’s goal is accomplished by incorporating game-like features like rewards, points, badges, and levels.
The benefits of gamification include but are not limited to accelerated learning, a rise in user engagement, increased user motivation, and a feeling of being part of a larger community of like-minded users.
Gamification strategies
Here’s a closer look into the five most common gamification strategies. Learn more about each strategy and explore an example of a company that already uses it!
Badges
Badges are virtual rewards that your customers obtain after performing particular tasks or reaching predetermined milestones within your app. Badges are represented by icons or images, and users can collect and share them on their social media profiles.
These badges offer a considerable number of benefits to businesses because they nurture a sense of achievement and recognition and improve user engagement. Badges also encourage friendly competition amongst users as they aim to earn more and compare their collections with friends.
Many passive income or active income generating apps use badges with gamification, including Honeygain – the app that pays its users to make money online by sharing their internet connection.
Honeygain introduced a gamification feature called Achievements in 2023, which came a long way to making earning passive income a more exciting experience for the app’s users, known as Honeygainers.
These achievements are dependent on active participation and games. Honeygainers can now collect in-app achievements and earn points, stickers, and badges to show off their money-making journey.
Progress Display
The second gamification strategy in our list is called progress displays. Everyone has come across a progress bar or two in popular smartphone games like Candy Crush or Farmville. In these games, this progress bar fills or changes colour as users move levels or complete tasks.
When it comes to in-app gamification, progress displays are a visual depiction of a user’s progress. Users attain progress through different methods like progress bars, level-dependent progress, or unlocking achievements as users improve.
Duolingo, the hugely popular app where you can learn a new language, shows progress using a colourful bar at the very top of the phone screen. When users answer questions correctly, the bar moves to the right, giving the users a sense of accomplishment and pride.
User Rewards
Everybody likes getting a prize after doing something. Thus, it’s understandable that rewarding your users is important for in-app gamification. It’s also proven to enhance the metrics of user engagement and retention.
Rewards tend to magnify user engagement. This is done by fostering the feelings of progress and achievement. Unlocking rewards and moving towards their goals encourages users to remain active on the app. This leads to longer use sessions, more frequent use, and heightened brand loyalty.
Let’s look at how user rewards have contributed to the successful gamification strategy of the Claudia Dean app.
Claudia Dean, a former dancer at the Royal Ballet School, dreamed of creating a choreography-focused app where users could improve their dancing abilities by learning from her expertise.
Users of the app can collect coins whenever they engage in practice sessions in the app. They can later use these coins to buy merchandise available directly in the app.
In the case of Claudia Dean, the app was able to track the number of coins users earned, which gave the company insights into which features were most popular.
Quizzes
Quizzes are trustworthy tools for engaging users and fostering interactivity in mobile applications. Quizzes are routinely utilized because they motivate users to remain engaged and actively participate in what the app has to offer.
Basically, quizzes present users with questions or challenges that a user has to correctly answer to earn points, rewards, or other in-app perks. There are a few types of quizzes, including trivia games, personality tests, or mini-games like Tetris.
Kids Academy, a prominent education app for children, is leveraging gamified quizzes to enrich the learning experience. These quizzes test the kids’ knowledge and maintain their interest and motivation to learn more.
The interactive quizzes within the app reinforce the curriculum and effectively engage young learners in a fun and meaningful way. The main takeaway from Kids Academy is that gamifying an app means balancing fun, education, and incentives if you want to increase user engagement.
You need to be creative and strategic in mapping out the overall user experience, particularly when the target audience has a short attention span, which tends to be how kids and teens are.
Leaderboards
A leaderboard showcases the top performers in a given game or app. It presents the latest scores and rankings of all active app users. Users at the top of the leaderboards are rewarded with virtual goods, real-world prizes, or bragging rights.
Leaderboards show off the users’ scores, which are updated daily based on their results. Tracking their progress and witnessing their name climb the leaderboard inspires your users to aim for even better scores.
The fitness app Nike+ Run Club is an honourable example of how leaderboards can help improve the user experience. The app’s users compete against one another and challenge themselves to run the most significant number of miles in a week or month.
The success of the Nike+ Run Club app’s gamification master plan is in the thrill of competition and the satisfaction of climbing the ranks.
Leaderboards maintain user engagement and motivate them by immersing them in a competitive environment. It also aids in progress tracking and allows users to witness the results of their dedication.
Implementing any of the five mentioned gamification strategies into your business is almost guaranteed to boost user engagement, brand loyalty, and user retention. Learn from the likes of Honeygain, Duolingo, and Nike+ Run Club and unlock the potential of gamification!
