Humans have a natural desire to win because it satisfies several basic psychological needs and desires. Win states or winning provides a sense of accomplishment and mastery over a task or challenge. It can also provide social recognition and status among peers. Most importantly, winning can be a powerful motivator for human behavior, especially in the B2B world.
What Are WIN States?
In gamification, a WIN state (short for “Winning State”) is a desirable outcome that a player or user aims to achieve. A WIN state is a key component of a game, as it provides a clear goal for players to work towards and a sense of accomplishment when it is achieved.
In a B2B (Business-to-Business) gamification context, WIN states are designed to motivate users to engage with a product or service, and achieve specific business outcomes, by providing them with a sense of progress and achievement. WIN states can be designed in various ways, such as:
Achieving A Goal
The user is rewarded for achieving a specific goal, such as completing a task or reaching a milestone. For instance, a user completes a quiz, demonstrating improved knowledge or skills relevant to their job role.
Competing With Others
The user is rewarded for outperforming others in a competition, such as a leaderboard or a challenge. A leaderboard or a challenge can effectively achieve WIN states in gamification, as it provides a competitive environment. It encourages users to compete with one another by displaying their performance relative to others, creating a sense of competition that motivates users to perform better than their peers.
Collecting Rewards
Collecting rewards can give users recognition for their achievements, such as points, items, badges, or titles that display their level of accomplishment. This helps increase user motivation and drive engagement.
Experiencing A Story
The user is rewarded for progressing through a narrative, which may involve making choices and facing challenges. Stories create a sense of engagement for users that captures their attention and motivates them to explore different product or service aspects, boosting motivation to take action.
But how do you set up the winning states in your gamification design? I propose implementing the Revenue Generating Behavior (RGB) when setting up winning states for B2B gamification marketing campaigns.
What Is RGB?
Revenue Generating Behavior (RGB) refers to any action, behavior or activity that directly contributes to generating income for a business or organization. It includes a wide range of activities, such as selling products or services, acquiring new customers, upselling to existing customers, increasing pricing or reducing costs, optimizing marketing and advertising campaigns, and exploring new revenue streams or business models.
Other examples include the following:
- Visiting your website
- Registering on your website
- Signing up for your newsletter
- Filling out the online form
- Clicking on your ads
Revenue-generating behavior is essential for business growth and sustainability. Focusing on your revenue-generating behaviors can increase your profitability and expand your customer base. This can help you achieve your financial goals, reinvest in operations, and remain competitive in the industry.
Benefits of RGB In B2B
In a Business-to-Business (B2B) context, revenue-generating behaviors can have several benefits, including:
Increased Revenue
By focusing on activities, such as gamification lead generation, that directly contribute to generating income, your B2B enterprise can improve its bottom line and achieve financial stability.
Better Customer Retention
Revenue generating behaviors can help you better understand your customers’ needs and provide them with more value. By doing so, you can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, which can lead to long-term customer relationships and repeat business.
Improved Sales Pipeline
You can improve your sales pipeline and generate more qualified leads to help close more deals and increase revenue by focusing on RGBs to promote win states in your gamification marketing campaign.
Competitive Advantage
Optimizing your sales and marketing strategies, such as gamification, reducing costs, and exploring new revenue streams, allows you to differentiate your business from competitors and gain a competitive advantage.
Business Growth
Revenue generating behaviors can help you achieve growth goals. You can expand your business and take advantage of new opportunities by reinvesting your profits into understanding and engaging with your customers through gamification marketing.
RGB as a Gamification Marketing Driver
It’s paramount to lay out your RGB in chronological order. I recommend doing it according to the buyer’s journey. I always remind our marketing team that no action is ignorable or too small. Every user action is valuable, which can trigger winning more clients.
For instance, if a prospective player clicks on a button during the first contact or game trial, consider it a huge progress. Adding such a button to your game plan can help motivate the player because it increases the chances of winning. However, if you miss this part, the player may not finish the game because of a lack of motivation.
I always advise the B2B marketers I work with to ensure the RGB element is present in their gamification campaigns. I recommend launching unique combinations of digital promotions through banner displays, email blasts, newsletters, and social media marketing for gamification campaigns.
Designing A Good Game Plan With RGB
RGBs can be incorporated into gamification to incentivize users to spend money, make purchases, or engage in other monetizable actions.
Designing a good game plan that considers RGBs requires a strategic approach that considers several factors, such as defining your goals, identifying your target audience, determining your monetization strategy, optimizing the user experience, promoting the game, and analyzing game performance.
Because user interactions and actions make up the RGB, marketers can use it to design a good game plan. Every game designer must ensure that the user feels utmost satisfaction when hitting the Win-State to reinforce positive behaviors.
A poorly designed game experience, the user can’t progress and feels a gratifying experience. The result is a punishing experience.
I suggest adding RGB toward the end of every B2B gamification campaign. Players can voluntarily provide their email addresses to receive updates from the client with respect to the gamification topic.
As a B2B marketing expert for many years, I have learned many things about developing a good game plan. Every client is unique, with a unique target audience, products, and services that can be used for creating B2B gamification strategies.
Disclaimer note:
The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ThinkLogic Media Group or any company and their associates.
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