What are the Benefits of Implementing Gamification in B2B Content Marketing?
Many B2B marketing leaders want to engage with their clients through referral programs or account-based marketing. However, it is not always clear what these terms mean.
How can you create innovative initiatives, as part of a content marketing strategy, with something more engaging than an email campaign?
The fun of gamification in B2B is that it can be engaging and motivating. And, if implemented well, it can help champion the work of your sales team! In fact, according to LevelEleven, 90% of companies claim that their gamified campaigns were a success. It can also be implemented on a wide range of channels.
Today, many industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and, obviously, technology are using gamification to meet their business goals. We’ll explain what gamification in B2B is and if it’s worth investing in for your business!
What is Gamification in B2B Content Marketing?
According to Oxford Dictionary, gamification is “the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g., point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.”
Gamification in B2B marketing terms transforms the way your audience engages with your brand into some form of a game. By adding gamification techniques to your content marketing campaign strategy, you are adding an element of competition between users, which creates an incentive for engagement. Gamification is based on actionable objectives, and this is what makes it so effective. Therefore, B2B businesses can stand out from the competition by including gamification techniques in their campaign strategy.
How does B2B Gamification Work?
From arcade cabinets to iPhones and everything in between, society’s fascination with games continues to push the boundaries of technology and innovation. B2B industries can use gamification to their advantage by applying underlying gaming principles to their content marketing strategy.
But where do you start? Here are a couple of gamification techniques to make your campaign a success:
- Use a point system to reward users for a specific action. Scores can be ranked on a leaderboard to allow users to compete with one another.
- Allow users to level up as they gain more points. Alternatively, you can use an achievement system that rewards them for completing specific goals to encourage specific actions.
- Ensure you reward the user fairly for the effort required to complete the specific action. Nobody will want to follow a complex list of instructions if the reward is a single candy bar.
Is B2B Gamification Worth it?
There are many benefits to be had by utilizing gamification in B2B marketing, here are our favourites:
- By adding simple incentives for completing tasks that your audience might not have initially been interested in, you can ultimately increase engagement.
- You can create a game that matches your budget. Whether you are an established or start-up business, you can customize the amount of capital you invest in building an audience for, say, the release of a new product. The reward can be as little as a $5 gift card or part of a more significant contest to give users a chance to win a product or service.
B2B Gamification Examples
How To Make Gamification Work for B2B Businesses
Our team created a B2B gamification campaign in the manufacturing industry, Aggreko, a global supplier of mobile and modular temperature control equipment and energy services. The campaign, “Aggreko Bucks,” aimed to motivate the internal sales team to help the marketing team develop an asset library. The campaign increased employee engagement while saving money on developing unique branded assets.
- To keep players in the loop, at the beginning of every quarter, they would receive an Aggrekobucks email with new games, bonus prizes and surprises. Players would receive an end-of-the-month email announcing the winners of our social media raffle and photo contest.
- Aggreko used their submissions from the internal sales team to create new marketing and sales collateral to help build the company’s asset library. The submissions and content across all assets, including the new corporate website, product sheets, corporate videos, and social media posts, had to be unique and relevant.
Aggreko’s gamified campaign strategy included the following:
- A scoring system and a leaderboard that rewarded users for completing specific tasks.
- Users with a high score appeared on a leaderboard, spurring friendly competition among members of the sales team and motivating them to create and share more relevant content.
- Points could be redeemed for awesome prizes such as gift cards, televisions, and more!
Important Gamification Strategies
If you are a B2B business considering including a game as part of your next campaign, here are some final tips:
- Start your strategy with a strong concept. Think about the games you like to play and try to adapt their rules and rewards to make them work for your company.
- Keep it simple! Make sure the game is accessible and enjoyable for everyone. There should be no age barriers.
- To get company buy-in, design a scalable game that starts small and can grow as you prove its value and success.
- Develop a robust implementation plan to ensure communication to all stakeholders is clear and that no rule or detail has been missed.
If you are a B2B company and are ready to include gamification in your next campaign, our team at Pace Creative has helped design and develop numerous successful gamification strategies.
If you’re interested in learning more about how gamification in B2B can help you stand out, contact us! We would love to help!
About Pace Creative
Pace Creative is an award-winning full-service marketing communications agency with offices in Vancouver, Calgary and London. When working with our clients, our goal is to evaluate business and marketing needs to turn them into strategic plans and campaigns to get results.
