Detailed explanation of gamification operation methods!

There are many problems in the user operation growth of the product:

• In order to improve user retention, we created a sign-in function, where you can get points for signing in every day. However, the effect of continuous sign-in is too poor, and the improvement of active retention is not significant.
• In order to promote user conversion and payment, a lucky draw game was created, where customers could win gifts by shopping and spending. However, this method was effective in the short term but costly in the long term, and promoting conversion and payment was not sustainable.
• In order to guide users to spread the word and attract new members, we organized an invitation campaign where friends could get red envelopes when invited. However, the user motivation to participate was still not high, resulting in a small scale of spreading and attracting new members.

So how do we solve these problems and difficulties?

Ultimately, the operational growth issues of user active retention, conversion to payment, and communication and acquisition of new users are all issues of user investment.

Only when users continue to invest time and energy in the product, increase the duration and frequency of product usage, achieve active retention, and then generate high-value behaviors such as conversion payment and communication and acquisition of new customers, can the operational growth goal be achieved; therefore, one of the ways to solve the operational growth problem is to increase user investment and guide high-value behaviors, which is also the role and value of gamification.

Gamification is increasingly used in Internet products. This article discusses the value of gamification to product user operation and growth, and shares how to better design and apply gamification in products.

The full text is quite long, and the main directory structure is as follows. I hope it will be helpful to you:

1. What is gamification: a tool to keep users engaged

1. What is gamification?

You may be unfamiliar with gamification, but you must be familiar with games: games refer to entertainment activities in which users voluntarily participate under the constraints of rules, goals, and structures. Gamification ≠ games, but the two are still related.

In his book "Gamified Thinking", Kevin Werbach defines gamification as the use of game elements and game design techniques in non-game scenarios in order to achieve specific goals; to put it more bluntly, gamification is the deformed application of games in non-game products, combining the characteristic advantages of games with the needs of target products to design game-like functions or activities.

Among e-commerce products, Pinduoduo has a lot of gamification, and there are corresponding real games:

Gamification has four major characteristics that help us understand gamification as a whole and grasp the direction when applying gamification:

• Goal: The target result in gamification, which motivates users to participate;
• Rules: restrictions and guidelines for achieving goals, guiding key user behaviors;
• Feedback: Positive or negative feedback on user behavior, strengthening user motivation and behavior;
• Voluntary participation: Under the combined effect of goals, rules, and feedback, users are willing to participate in gamification voluntarily.

Taking the gamification of Pinduoduo Orchard as an example, the goal is to plant fruit trees and get free fruits. The rules are to complete tasks to get water drops, and the water drops grow fruit trees. The feedback is that the fruit trees grow after watering, and there is also a progress bar. Voluntary participation means that users accept and recognize the gameplay of Pinduoduo Orchard, and continue to actively grow fruit trees.

2. Why gamification works

From the user's perspective, gamification meets the needs of users. With interesting gaming experiences and diverse rewards, users continue to voluntarily participate in gamification to achieve the goals of gamification.

From a product perspective, gamification provides products with sufficient space for user operations. Users’ participation in gamification gameplay increases their active time and frequency. Gamification guides users to generate high-value key behaviors, which helps products achieve goals such as active retention, paid conversion, and promotion.

Gamification better satisfies both products and users in a two-way manner, which also determines the effectiveness of gamification.

2. How to use gamification: guide users' high-value behaviors

1. Applicable products for gamification

Most Internet products are suitable for gamification, including e-commerce products, travel products, online education, content information, and mutual financial insurance products. Different degrees and forms of gamification design can be carried out based on product and user characteristics.

Products with greater gamification input and output and higher priority have the following characteristics:

• The core services of the product are stable and mature: Gamification is a relatively large investment project. Only when the core services of the product are stable and mature can it better support the attempt of gamification and increase the possibility of successful gamification practice;
• Meeting users’ medium- and high-frequency needs: Products that meet users’ medium- and high-frequency needs can use gamification to improve user retention. Users with low-frequency needs have weak motivation to use products frequently over a long period of time, and the input-output ratio of gamification is low.
• Rich content for selection/consumption: The product has a wealth of selectable or consumable content, which can ensure that the increased user investment through gamification can be promptly converted into the expected user value and generate revenue. After all, the purpose of gamification is not just to get users to play games.

2. Gamification application process: Four steps to start gamification

1) Clarify the application goals of gamification

Gamification can help achieve the product's operational growth goals. Active retention, conversion to payment, and new customer acquisition can all be used as gamification application goals.

Gamification projects can be large and comprehensive, covering multiple specific goals, or small and beautiful, aimed at achieving a single specific goal. Different application goals determine the subsequent gamification design and investment.

2) Define the user’s high-value behaviors

After determining the application goals of gamification, you need to focus on the desired high-value user behaviors. Only high-value behaviors of users can bring real value to the product and help achieve the product's operational growth goals.

This step requires solving two major problems: ① What behaviors of users in gamification can promote the achievement of goals? ② How to define these high-value behaviors and monitor and measure them using data indicators?

3) Analyze user characteristics within the product

Not all users are the same, and layered research on user characteristics can help gamification apply to more users. Users can be stratified based on user attributes (such as age, gender, region, income), user behaviors (such as consumption preferences, commonly used functions), and life cycles (such as new users and loyal users), and user characteristics can be identified and targeted in gamification design.

4) Develop a gamification scenario framework

After determining the gamification goals, key behaviors, and user characteristics, you can move on to the gamification context and framework design to form the main body of the game.

The gamification context is the skin, which is the scene that users intuitively feel, and the gamification framework is the skeleton, which is the rules and feedback framework created by users.

The playability of gamification is directly reflected in the game context. The game context design determines the fun of gamification to a certain extent. Good context design can highlight the characteristics of the product, reduce the user's understanding cost, and enhance the effect of gamification.

When considering gamification scenarios, it is necessary to combine the characteristics of product services and user groups, and design game scenarios in combination with life and entertainment scenarios.

Let’s look at three examples of gamification scenarios:

As a social e-commerce platform, Pinduoduo’s main selling point is low prices. Fruits and fresh produce are also its advantageous categories, which fits its user characteristics. Therefore, Pinduoduo chose the orchard scenario as the gamification scenario.

As a means of transportation, Didi Chuxing provides a variety of transportation services such as express cars, private cars, and bicycles. The parking space grabbing game that uses parking spaces as a game scenario is very consistent with Didi's characteristics; and Dingdong Maicai, which focuses on fast delivery and fresh dishes, cleverly uses the scenario of raising fish in a fish pond, which is also very consistent with the product characteristics.

Speaking of gamification frameworks, there are two main types of frameworks:

• Engagement loop: Promote the effective operation of the loop formed by user motivation → behavior → feedback in gamification to ensure user participation;
• Advanced mechanism: The game difficulty and experience are constantly improved during gamification, reflecting growth and continuously enhancing user participation motivation.

In gamification design, the two are often used in combination to ensure the effectiveness of gamification in terms of playability and growth.

After completing the four steps, you can clearly define gamification goals and high-value user behaviors, pay attention to user characteristics to guide subsequent gamification design, and form game scenarios and frameworks.

In order to better achieve operational growth goals, it is necessary to use scientific gamification design to deploy appropriate game elements to form a comprehensive and complete gaming experience that allows users to continue to participate.

3. Gamification Toolbox: DMC Model

Gamification gameplay consists of specific gamification elements. The DMC model is a classification of gamification elements:

The motivation element is the overall concept in the gamification system. It is the driving force that drives users to participate in gamification and guides the top-level thinking of gamification design. The gamification of Internet products generally relies on reward mechanisms and comprehensive game experiences to ensure motivation.

Mechanism elements are process rules that drive game progress and enhance user participation. They are strongly related to the goals of gamification and are also the core content of gamification design. For example, the prop trading mechanism can increase revenue, and the team friend mechanism can promote user activity and attract new users.

Component elements are the basic units of gamification, which intuitively constitute the content and experience of gamification and ensure the effectiveness of game mechanisms and dynamics. The PBL model commonly used in the Internet user growth system comes from the gamification component elements: points, badges, and leaderboards.

When applying the DMC model, you need to think about the application from top to bottom, gradually select appropriate game elements, and build gamification functions or activities. When the DMC model is effective, it works from the bottom up. The components ensure that the mechanism can operate effectively, and the mechanism ensures the motivation to enhance user participation.

4. Four major mechanisms of gamification

The mechanism elements in the gamification toolbox are particularly important. They are responsible for achieving gamification goals and guiding the deployment of game component elements. Combining the goals and characteristics of Internet products, four main gamification mechanisms are summarized and further shared with you.

1) Interaction Mechanism

Excellent interactive game mechanisms can enhance the fun and playability of gamification, allowing users to have a game-like sense of participation and interaction, understand clear goals and real-time feedback, better engage in gamification, and even create a flow experience.

Flow refers to a psychological state that occurs when people concentrate on performing a certain behavior, entering a state of selflessness and forgetting the existence of time and the surrounding environment.

JD Orchard’s calendar sign-in, Duoduo Orchard’s watering competition, and Duodian Manor’s protective cover all use creative components and gameplay to enhance users’ gamified interactive participation experience.

2) Social Mechanism

By adding social mechanisms to gamification, on the one hand, competition and interaction among friends can increase user active retention. Friendships are also users’ assets in the product, reducing user churn. On the other hand, the friend mechanism helps spread the word and attract more new users.

In gamification, friends are not only users of gamification, but also users of the product.

Social mechanisms are even more common in gamification gameplay, mostly through friends, teams, etc.

3) Hook mechanism

The term "hook" comes from the word "hook" in the Hook Model, which means fish hook.

One is a value-preemptive hook, which directly provides users with discounts, rewards and other values, guides users to complete specified behaviors such as consumption, and increases conversion consumption; the other is a value-postemptive hook, which informs users of rewards in advance, guides users to complete specified behaviors the next day/next time to obtain rewards, and increases user retention.

4) Fission mechanism

The hook mechanism ensures user retention and conversion, while the fission mechanism promotes the spread and acquisition of new users in gamification. The design of the fission mechanism can bring direct growth in the number of users, which is one of the high-value behaviors of users and has huge value to the product.

Attracting new members through gamification can, on the one hand, reduce the sharing pressure on the initiator and improve the sharing effect; on the other hand, it can also reduce the impact of marketing information on the invitees and improve the conversion rate of the invitees.

The four major mechanisms of gamification have different focuses. The interactive mechanism improves user activity and retention, the social mechanism takes into account both user acquisition and retention, the hook mechanism focuses on user conversion and retention, and the fission mechanism pursues user dissemination and acquisition.

Gamification projects are generally more complex, and companies need to invest more resources and costs to develop and operate gamification projects. Therefore, gamification projects also undertake more product goals. User activity, retention, payment, and new user acquisition are unified in one gamification project; and ensuring user participation is a huge challenge for gamification design, and the four major mechanisms can help you find the right direction.

In fact, here is the complete application process of gamification:

3. Rethinking Gamification: Correctly Responding to New Internet Trends

Gamification provides new possibilities for achieving product and business goals, but it also carries the risk of failure. When applying it, you need to pay attention to the following:

• Don’t over-pursue commercial results: Gamification should not be used as a cheap marketing method, but as an important tool for product services and user experience;
• Cannot be used as a tool to exploit users: ensure that the rules and objectives of the game are clear and avoid deceiving users;
• Do not conflict with laws and surveillance: pay attention to user privacy, avoid malicious marketing, and violate relevant laws and regulations.

In addition, gamification can not only play a role in Internet commercial products, but also has more possibilities and potential to change and influence other industries and society, which deserves further exploration.

Finally, gamification alleviates the contradiction between product goals and user experience, allowing users to help products achieve goals of active user retention, conversion to payment, and promotion through an interesting gamification experience, and even generate brand value and create product differentiation.

Is gamification the future? certainly.