Welcome to the last leg of gamification! Now, it’s time for me to talk about incentives and rewards, a crucial part of the B2B marketing budget.
Incentives and rewards refer to what you can give to players or users within your means to entice them to take further action. They are great gamification motivators because they offer positive reinforcement, goal orientation, feedback, competition, and personalization. By leveraging these motivators, businesses can create a more engaging and motivating gamification experience that drives desired behaviors and achieves business objectives.
Common Types of Incentives and Rewards In Gamification
Incentives and rewards are essential components of B2B gamification as they help drive engagement, motivation, and loyalty.
Here are some common incentives and rewards in B2B gamification:
1. Recognition and Status
This is a non-monetary incentive that recognizes the achievements of the players and rewards them with badges, levels, or titles. It creates a sense of accomplishment and prestige and motivates players to continue playing and achieving.
2. Points and Leaderboards
Points are a common reward in gamification that can be accumulated and redeemed for prizes or privileges. Leaderboards track the performance of players and create competition, which motivates players to perform better.
3. Prizes and Discounts
These are tangible rewards such as discounts, coupons, or free products or services. They are often used as incentives for completing certain actions or achieving specific goals.
4. Social Rewards
Social rewards are incentives that appeal to the social needs of players, such as recognition from peers or the ability to share achievements on social media. These rewards tap into the players’ desire for social connection and validation.
5. Learning and Development
B2B gamification can also be used as a tool for training and development, offering rewards such as new skills, certifications, or career advancement opportunities.
Important Incentive Considerations For Launching Gamification Campaigns
When choosing incentives and rewards for B2B gamification, it’s important to consider the following factors:
1. Alignment with Business Objectives
The incentives and rewards should align with the overall business objectives, such as increasing sales or improving customer satisfaction. They should motivate players to take actions that contribute to these objectives.
2. Relevance to the Target Audience
The incentives and rewards should be relevant and meaningful to the target audience. For example, a reward that appeals to IT directors may not be relevant to tech support employees.
3. Balance of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards
Intrinsic rewards, such as recognition and status, are often more effective than extrinsic rewards, such as monetary incentives. The incentives and rewards should strike a balance between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards to appeal to different types of players.
4. Variety and Personalization
The incentives and rewards should be diverse and personalized to the players’ preferences and motivations. This can include offering different types of rewards or allowing players to choose their rewards.
5. Measurability and Transparency
The incentives and rewards should be measurable and transparent, so players can track their progress and understand how they can earn rewards.
6. Budget Limitations
The incentives and rewards should be cost-effective and aligned with the budget for the gamification program. This can involve finding creative ways to offer rewards, such as providing free downloadable content (eBook, whitepaper, etc.) and other non-monetary incentives.
Not all B2B marketing clients have a generous budget for gamification. Therefore, I highly advise B2B marketers to consider the client’s budget limitations carefully.
SAPS Model
The SAPS model of Gabe Zicherman includes the following:
Status: B2B marketers recognize users for their efforts and reward them for it, such as through social media mentions, ensuring brand loyalty.
Access: B2B marketers offer users unique or exclusive access to something, like a free pass for a webinar or a free download for a whitepaper or eBook.
Power: B2B marketers give loyal users an opportunity to complete the game by providing them with the resources they need to win with flying colors. Each game stage unlocks new opportunities to learn, and with knowledge comes great power.
Stuff: B2B marketers provide vouchers, free trials, and other tangible rewards.
According to Zichermann, one of the biggest gamification mistakes is assuming that stuff or cash is the ultimate reward. But tangible rewards have limitations and cause serious deficits in a gamification campaign’s incentive scheme. Monetary rewards can turn users off, are expensive or too cheap, and rarely motivates people.
With my several years of gamification research, I found an interesting trend. As you proceed from Status to Access and Power to Stuff, the incentives and rewards become more expensive for the client but less impacting and retentive to the player or user.
While most people are Socializers or play games for monetary rewards, many B2B clients are Achievers and Explorers. Providing them with meaningful gamification experiences and rewards is more important than tangible ones. Let me explain this concept further with these two examples of incentive schemes:
Empowering Rewards
Empowering incentives and rewards in B2B gamification involves designing them in a way that motivates and engages players to achieve their goals.
Rewards that are aligned with revenue-generating behaviors can increase motivation among users. Players are more likely to engage in behaviors that are directly tied to their goals and are rewarded for their efforts.
By incentivizing revenue-generating behaviors, businesses can collect valuable data insights into player behavior and preferences. This data can help inform future marketing and sales strategies, leading to better business outcomes.
When I discuss incentives with clients, I prioritize rewards that can empower users to take action or revenue-generating behaviors (RGB). That way, they can reach the Win-State.
Some reward contexts to consider include the following:
Social Treasure: Such as a free coffee set or lunch set
Fix Action Rewards: Examples include vouchers, earned lunch, or gift cards
Random Rewards: Like a mystery box
Rolling Rewards: Like lottery
Sudden Rewards: Like an Easter egg
Reward Pacing: Such as brand-themed pens, coffee mugs, and other collection sets
Gamification Platform Creation
After I assess the game plan and content per the client’s approval, the next step is creating a gamification platform. A gamification platform is a digital area (e.g. website, app, etc.) where users play. Your web team can help you with this task. You can use a base game plate to finish it in about two weeks. If a new game plate is necessary, creating the gamification platform can take about four weeks.
In conclusion, the incentives and rewards in B2B gamification should align with the players’ motivations and goals, and should be designed to create a sense of accomplishment, recognition, and progress. When done well, gamification can be an effective tool for driving engagement, motivation, and loyalty in a B2B context.
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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