Reinforcing corporate communication through gamification

Reinforcing corporate communication through gamification

According to a Gallup study, only 13% of employees worldwide feel involved in their work. A statistic that underlines the urgent need to improve corporate communication, both internal and external, and human interaction within organisations, particularly by adopting innovative approaches such as gamification.

Traditional methods of corporate communication are now coming up against major challenges. They are no longer adapted to new communication flows, new ways of working (notably with the rise of teleworking) or new consumer expectations of brands. This can lead to a gradual disengagement of its audience, both internally and externally, and thus to a decline in the productivity and attractiveness of organisations.

Gamification offers an effective solution to these challenges. By introducing interactive and playful mechanisms into its corporate communications, the company can better address the expectations of its various stakeholders and strengthen their attachment to the group.

Here are some tips and practical examples of how to use gamification as a tool to transform your corporate communications.

What is corporate communication?

Corporate communication encompasses all of an organisation’s communications aimed at both its internal and external stakeholders. It includes marketing campaigns aimed at the company’s customers, as well as exchanges with external partners (suppliers, investors) and, of course, employees/applicants.

Business communication is therefore a major challenge for organisations, enabling them to maintain good relations and transparent communication with all their stakeholders.

The various forms of corporate communication include :

  • Public relations: to raise your profile, strengthen your branding or improve your reputation both internally and externally;
  • Crisis communication: to manage the problems the company may encounter, reassure its partners and guarantee its future, etc.

What are the key issues in corporate communications?

Corporate communication is a major challenge for companies. It plays an essential role in all aspects of a company’s business and plays an active part in maintaining its attractiveness and therefore its profitability.

The main challenges in corporate communications include :

  • Building and maintaining a solid reputation and a strong brand identity. Corporate communications help shape the way we perceive an organisation. It helps to differentiate a brand from its competitors and therefore to strengthen its credibility with all its stakeholders.

  • Improving employee commitment and satisfaction. Internally, corporate communication fosters a good corporate culture. It enables the company to communicate its vision, values and objectives more effectively. It is therefore a good lever for mobilising and motivating your teams and strengthening their attachment to the company.

  • Managing crises and change effectively. Corporate communication is essential for managing any crisis or change likely to affect the organisation. Properly orchestrated, it can mitigate the negative impact of problems encountered by the company, reassure customers and mobilise employees to resolve the crisis or adapt smoothly to change.

  • Strengthening relationships and partnerships with stakeholders. Finally, corporate communication encourages collaboration with all our partners, from customers to suppliers and, of course, employees. It allows us to share information, but also to better understand their needs and respond to them in a timely and relevant manner.

Gamification to boost corporate communications

Gamification, or the introduction of game elements, is an excellent way of boosting corporate communications. The interactive, playful aspect of gamification enables organisations to better capture the attention of their various audiences, engaging them effectively and enhancing their brand image.

Gamification to add power to messages

Companies now have a wide range of channels for communicating with their internal and external stakeholders. They can use email, their website or application, but also social networks to transmit information to their target audiences.

The whole point of the game is to capture consumers’ attention and give these messages greater impact. The interaction and the original way in which the message is conveyed mean that the information is much more strongly and sustainably integrated.

Games also improve message retention, making them more memorable. For example, employees are more likely to remember the organisation’s strategic objectives if they are shared via a playable format such as a Quiz.

The game mechanics can also be used to apply this new knowledge in a fun way (on the ongoing transformation of the organisation or its CSR policy, for example). To do this, the company could offer a Game of Differences, a Memory game or even launch a QWL challenge.

Example: DPD’s Zero Waste Quiz

DPD offered its employees a quiz designed to raise awareness of waste reduction. The aim of the operation was to tackle this sensitive subject in a fun and light-hearted way. Thanks to this corporate communication initiative, participants could win prizes (boxes, zero waste kits), reinforcing the commitment to this internal awareness-raising campaign.

DPD - zero waste quiz - corporate communication

Promote the brand to candidates, employees and business partners

Gamification also makes it possible to offer a different kind of corporate communication and therefore to focus the attention of audiences on the company. Gamification offers the ability to make your brand more visible on the market, more attractive, but also more convincing.

Play mechanisms can therefore be used as part of internal training and employee development programmes. They can also be shared with external stakeholders (investors, partners) to promote the company’s innovations. With consumers, gamification can maximise the time spent with the brand (via a sports game, for example) and highlight its initiatives (sports or cultural sponsorship programmes, etc.).

Example: The Lidl Voyage in-house game

In order to reinforce the feeling of belonging to the brand and to highlight the travel offer, Lidl set up a Tiny Wings in 3 different universes. The campaign enjoyed high levels of engagement, with over 10k games played and an average playing time of 5min 15s.

Lidl - tiny wings travel game

Boosting stakeholder engagement

Gamification makes communication media more interactive and attractive. It encourages both employees and customers to actively participate and engage with the company’s content.

For example, animations can be used to encourage stakeholder participation in company events and initiatives. Gamified communication encourages participation in activities and stimulates the involvement and enthusiasm of participants.

Overall, gamification helps to create more playful and positive working environments. It injects pleasure and fun back into daily tasks and makes the activities associated with corporate life more enjoyable and rewarding. By offering attractive prizes, the company also helps its partners to feel valued and motivated.

Example: Lidl’s Made by you Pizza

Lidl asked its employees to create the brand’s next pizza using a voting mechanism. The activation engaged Lidl employees, who generated 21.6k votes throughout the campaign.

Lidl - pizza made by you

Conclusion

Gamification is a powerful way of boosting your corporate communications? Whether you want to communicate with your internal or external stakeholders, marketing games are extremely effective at capturing attention and engaging with your brand. Discover our interactive gamification mechanisms and tailor them to your corporate culture and strategic objectives!

In 30 minutes, we show you how to launch your own high-performance interactive marketing campaign

6 Easter marketing ideas for every purpose

6 Easter marketing ideas for every purpose

Easter is one of France’s favourite holidays. According to a study by Usine Nouvelle, 45% of them take the opportunity to buy Easter chocolates. But this is not just a time for chocolate makers.

Celebrated between the end of March and the beginning of April, Easter is synonymous with the return of spring and fine weather. It’s a time of renewal. Brands can use it to boost their communications (by presenting their spring collection).

Retailers can take advantage of their audience’s attention and commitment at Easter to achieve their objectives (awareness, conversion, customer knowledge, etc.). In this article, we share 6 original Easter marketing ideas to boost your campaigns.

Easter: what are the marketing challenges?

Beyond its religious origins, Easter is popular in France. It conveys family and sharing values that brands can use to boost their communications.

Whatever their sector of activity, brands can use this marketing time to :

  • Support their customers in their purchases. It’s a convivial holiday, and retailers can take advantage of it to connect with their audience through interactive content. They can share tips and resources for decorating the home, enjoy chocolates without overdoing it, or treat their loved ones with a gift guide.

  • Entertaining your audience with fun content. Les marques peuvent se positionner sur cette date du calendrier marketing pour proposer des contenus divertissants autour de l’histoire de Pâques, de l’arrivée du printemps, etc.

  • Presenting new products. Speaking of spring, it’s a crucial time for brands to renew their catalogues. In the clothing industry, it’s the arrival of the spring/summer collections. An Easter marketing campaign can be used to present your products and encourage your audience to make a purchase.

6 ideas for Easter marketing campaigns

Easter is an event with a strong graphic identity. Chocolate eggs, bells and little rabbits are legion. To stand out from the crowd and achieve their objectives, retailers have to rival each other in originality by proposing innovative marketing formats that capture the attention of their audience.

Need some inspiration for differentiating your communications this Easter? Here are 6 original campaign ideas.

1. A Swiper collects product preferences

The quality of the customer database is a key factor in the success of a brand’s marketing strategy. A contact list that is not regularly enriched will have a negative impact on open, click and conversion rates.

The challenge for brands is to collect quality data that will enable them to understand the expectations of their prospects and customers. The Easter campaign can be used to clean up your database and segment your audience by collecting product preferences or identifying prospects.

Retailers can capitalise on a gamification mechanism that facilitates customer knowledge: Swiper. This format makes it possible to test the preferences of customers (potential and current) by asking them to choose between two proposals. Using this first-party data, brands can qualify their leads and retarget them with tailored offers.

customer knowledge swiper

2. A Flappy to generate new leads

Brands are taking advantage of the consumer attention surrounding the arrival of spring to reach a wide audience and raise their profile. Gamified marketing is a lever for visibility because it allows you to stand out from the crowd with an original format. And because it captivates audiences with engaging mechanics and attractive prizes.

Lidl used gamification to boost its Easter marketing campaign. By offering a Flappy personalised to match this universe (the avatar was an Easter bunny), the supermarket giant was a great success, with 92k registrations and a high opt-in rate (67%), demonstrating participants’ interest in the brand and the special occasion.

The commitment around this Easter marketing campaign was very important. Users played 4.6 games, giving Lidl high visibility.

Lidl - Flappy marketing Easter

3. An interactive quiz to animate your audience

Easter is a great time to animate your audience and keep in touch with consumers as other commercial holidays approach. Retailers are taking advantage of this opportunity to engage their communities with themed formats.

The interactive quiz is ideal for achieving this objective. Users are inclined test their knowledge about Easter or the brand (particularly if rewards are promised to participants). Brands can take advantage of this to raise awareness of their history or share their commitments, strengthening audience attachment.

product promotion quiz

4. A game of differences to highlight the new collection

The Difference Game is a mechanism that can help brands increase the amount of time they spend with their prospects. Cette attention peut être mise à profit pour showcase their spring collection. Participants are challenged to find as many differences as possible, discovering the specific features/advantages of each item.

Spot the difference

5. A treasure hunt to boost your conversion rate

The Treasure Hunt is the gamification mechanic aligned with this highlight. Brands can organise gamification events online, replicating the famous IRL chocolate egg hunt, to engage their audience and boost sales.

Chocolatier Lindt exceeded its lead generation target with 19k opt-ins thanks to a virtual egg hunt. The campaign engaged a targeted audience, with each participant spending an average of 1 min 40 on the game.

The game was accessible via a gatecode (code required to access), each code being written on a rabbit purchased in shop. This operation offered shoppers a chance to win a family weekend. This compulsory purchase strategy boosted sales during this period.

Lindt - Treasure hunt

6. A puzzle to build audience loyalty and boost registrations

Once brands have succeeded in capturing attention, they can take advantage of this to convert their leads and build customer loyalty with mechanisms that enable people to sign up to their newsletter or website.

The Easter campaign for the QVDF (Qui Veut du Fromage) brand featured a puzzle game accessible after registering on the site (via JWT). It enabled the brand to recruit new subscribers. The aim was to boost the brand’s visibility during this period. Thanks to the attraction of instant wins, the campaign was able to engage customers and prospects while directing over 2,000 clicks to the pages.

QVDF - Easter marketing puzzle

Conclusion

Gamification is a powerful tool that makes it easy for your brand to engage audiences during a marketing high point like Easter. Customise an interactive mechanic tailored to your strategic objectives and boost the impact of your campaign by offering a differentiating and captivating experience to your prospects and customers!

In 30 minutes, we show you how to launch your own high-performance interactive marketing campaign

What is segmentation in marketing? Complete guide and tools

What is segmentation in marketing? Complete guide and tools

A study carried out by Harvard Business School reveals that 95% of products launched on the market fail to find their audience because of poor segmentation.

Brands understand the importance of personalising their offering. But also the way in which they communicate with consumers. That’s right, each buyer has unique preferences and expects companies to address their needs effectively.

Before setting up a campaign or launching a new product, brands need to understand their audience and segment it into groups. In this article, we will look at the issues involved in segmentation and the techniques for segmenting your customer base and boost the campaigns ROI.

Segmentation in marketing: what is it?

Segmentation in marketing consists of dividing your market (i.e. consumers interested in a product or service) into sub-groups. Within these groups, we find buyers with common characteristics that are relevant to the brand. These may be demographic or behavioural profiles.

By identifying and targeting consumer segments, companies can tailor their products, services and marketing efforts to meet the needs and preferences of their audience.

For example, segmentation in marketing has enabled the men’s skincare brand Old Spice to identify a group of customers it had not thought to address: women who buy this type of product for their partner.

What are the different types of marketing segments?

There are 4 types of segmentation in marketing:

1) Demographic segmentation (the who). This strategy consists of segmenting your audience on the basis of characteristics such as age, gender, education, income, profession (in the B2B sector) and so on. The advantage of this approach is that it is easy to implement (the data is simpler to collect).

2) Psychographic segmentation (the why). Here, the brand groups its prospects and customers according to their interests, values, aspirations or personality traits. Given that these characteristics are subjective, this is a more difficult strategy to implement. It is more effective because it strengthens understanding of the market.

3) Geographical segmentation (where). Une marque présente à l’international peut segmenter ses clients en fonction de leur pays de résidence. Elle adaptera la langue qu’elle utilise, mais aussi la tonalité des communications en fonction des codes spécifiques aux pays.

4) Behavioural segmentation (the how). The brand groups buyers according to common behaviours (the way they interact with companies). This can include their consumption habits, online browsing, brand loyalty, etc. This data is easy to collect (on its website or social networks) and makes it possible to personalise the customer experience.

Why use segmentation in marketing?

Segmentation in marketing requires effort and resources. Nevertheless, it is a strategy to better understand its audience and personalise its campaigns, boosting their ROI.

The advantages of segmenting your customer database include :

  • Better use of resources. Segmentation enables you to focus your marketing efforts and budget on consumers who are likely to want to buy. It is essential to target its marketing or emailing campaigns and make the message more powerful and more likely to convert.

  • A stronger brand image. Une entreprise qui comprend à qui elle s’adresse et adopte des messages alignés avec les valeurs de ses clients aura plus de chances de fédérer une communauté. C’est aussi un facteur de différenciation. Il donne aux entreprises un avantage concurrentiel sur les autres marques de son secteur.

  • Optimised profitability. Companies have seen their acquisition costs soar. The ROI of marketing campaigns (particularly Ads campaigns) has become a key factor in maintaining profitability and viability. Segmentation in marketing makes it possible to target the audience for digital advertising and convert more with the same budget.

Gamification as a marketing segmentation tool

Before you can create customer segments, you need to collect qualitative data. Data collection is an increasingly complex area of marketing activity. The announced end of third-party cookies proves that it is essential for brands to ‘own their data’ (by collecting first-party data). Elles ne dépendront plus d’autres acteurs pour refine customer knowledge.

To maximise these third-party data collection levers, brands need to use tools that will enable them to build up enriched, reliable and relevant CRM databases. Gamification is one of these tools, as animations and competitions offer a number of advantages:

  • They enable a wider audience to be reached: 1.5x more users are prepared to share their data via a gamified experience.

  • They are more engaging and captivating. En moyenne, les expériences interactives gamifiées génèrent 40x more engagement in terms of time spent with the brand.
Gamification - segmentation tools

Brands can therefore use gamification in two ways to collect data:

  • By asking participants in a game to fill in a collection form (before or after the experiment).

Game mechanics - segmentation

Segment the data collected via an interactive experience

Once the brand has fed its CRM with relevant data on its audience, it can begin to segment it for a better engagement in future campaigns.

A tool like Segment (combined with a Playable Marketing platform) facilitates this work. The data is processed directly via the tool, which can then be used to automatically create up to 30 customised segments. Brands can then adapt their communications to ensure they deliver the right message to the right person, via the right channel.

Companies will also be able to A/B test their segmentation strategy The tool offers greater visibility over the performance of each campaign, with detailed reports enabling the impact of each action to be monitored in real time.

Conclusion

Maximise the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by making sure you’re sending the right message to the right people. With Adictiz’s Segment functionality, you can capitalise on the data collected during your interactive campaigns and segment your audience so that you can personalise each message you send out. And to make your segmentation efforts easier, download the free our webinar!

In 30 minutes, we show you how to launch your own high-performance interactive marketing campaign