Game On: Q&A with Dave Aicken

• Tweet

In 2012, gamification will shed its buzzword status and become a bona fide part of the marketing mix. Dave Aicken, CEO of Centryc shows you how to get your game on.

Gamification has fast become a buzzword for businesses. What would you identify as the first steps for taking an ROI-driven approach to gamification?

The end objective should always be customer engagement and creating a compelling reason to engage rather than a specific technique or tactic. Realising that a ‘like’ on Facebook isn’t the be all and end all of engagement helps to frame your approach. Once you’ve shaken off the buzzword hype, the first step is to put in place mechanisms for the customer and the brand – to allow customers to register and to allow the brand to interact with customers in real time via one or more channels. The most compelling ‘game’ is where both brand and customer benefit so ‘push’ initiatives tend to have declining returns as customers become more game-savvy. Engagement has to be two-way to build a real brand connection and ultimately ROI.

How important do you think real-time initiatives are becoming to the future of customer engagement?

 Real–time is critical. The level of engagement is directly related to the customer’s ability to share the experience they are having, while it is happening. Feedback from friends, as well as the program operator (or brand), in real time has huge potential to heighten the evolving experience while positively influencing advocacy, spend and retention.

What would you identify as the most useful metrics for tracking and measuring customer engagement and how can businesses use these to tailor a more effective marketing strategy?

We measure engagement via multi-channel interactions and have seen interaction level translate into a positive sales trend. Real-time tracking and measurement also means your can test the success of complex triggered offers delivered via any channel and adjust instantly based on live feedback. The way customers behave as individuals and in groups is the most powerful metric you can get. Once you know what people are doing, you can then test, tweak and tailor your incentives to maximize response in terms of uptake, up-sell and the propensity of your customers to share their experience with other potential customers.

What are your top tips for a business looking to introduce gamification to its marketing mix?

1. Get your strategy right first and make sure gamification can deliver a worthwhile benefit to the customer and the business
2. Give your customers the tools to share their experience with others both at the venue with them, and those elsewhere.
3. Harness the power of collaboration. People love to work together and group success is far sweeter than individual.
4. Build in customer achievement recognition.
5. Reinforce positive behaviours with appropriate rewards.
6. Build in the mechanisms to leverage the gamification data stream in the rest of the business.

Article by Neha Kale

Neha is a writer and editor for The Media Pad, publisher of Power Retail. She has a background in business, arts and film journalism and an interest in new media and digital strategy. She is looking forward to exploring how marketers are impacted by the online space for Power Marketer. Neha is a magazine junkie whose other addictions include coffee, travel and live music. She likes to run but has a long-time allergy to team sports.

Comments