How to Gamify Your Programs and Boost Engagement
Apr 26, 2021
In this episode of The Dreamer’s Lounge Podcast, we’re focusing on one of the things I get asked the most by clients: how to gamify your programs. Gamification is kind of a buzzword now (which is funny because it’s been around forever), but the core of it is about helping people approach something in a more fun or whimsical manner. It can really help you see success with your programs, but you have to go about it in an intentional way. In the episode, I’ll talk about the ways I help gamify courses for clients and give you some of my best tips for gamifying your own programs.
But before we dive right in, welcome! You’ve now entered into The Dreamer’s Lounge! I’m Ariel Schiffer, and I have made it my mission to take out the digital trash one bad course at a time. I am the creator of The Course Alchemist, Industrial Organizational Psychologist, and Curriculum and course design expert.
This podcast is for entrepreneurs who are looking to elevate their digital product suite so their offers speak for themselves. Nothing is worse than being oversold into something that under delivers just like an overpriced bottle of wine. So, if you’re ready to develop high quality offers, bring in consistent revenue, and have a business with long-term results for you AND your clients, grab your drink and join us inside…
And today, I’ll show you the best way to gamify your programs. For all the details, be sure to listen to the ENTIRE episode on your favorite streaming platform!
What is gamification?
Gamification is the application of typical elements of game playing to other areas of activities, such as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service. Essentially, it’s making the experience of interacting with a product or service more like a game.
This easily leads to online learning because you can use elements like scoring, competition, rules, and rewards to help guide people through your programs and courses.
Most restaurants have some kind of point system where the more you buy, the more free things or discounts you can earn. That’s just one example of gamification. But so many other industries use it too. Even the U.S. Army found a way to gamify their recruitment tactics!
Steps to gamify your program
There are a few results we want from gamification:
- Engagement: helping people feel excited to interact with your product or service
- Completion: helping people finish your course or program
- Retention: making clients excited to buy from you again
Now that we know the results we want, we can work backward to figure out the steps to get there. There are a few steps to gamifying:
- Understand the behavior you want your clients or learners to elicit.
- Think of ways to reinforce the desired behavior.
If this feels a little like dog training to you, you’re right! It is similar. Gamification is just another way of reinforcing desired behavior, but it’s a very effective one if you do it right!
Tips for gamifying.
Here are my best tips that I recommend to all clients when it comes to gamifying:
- Think of your favorite games, and ask yourself what elements you can incorporate.
- Make it an experience people want to share.
- If your course or program already has a theme, lean into it.
- Don’t do anything without a clear intent behind it (don’t throw something in just to do it, and don’t make it too complicated)
- A little goes a long way (don’t overdo it, or you risk losing people)
How to Gamify Your Programs and Boost Engagement: The Bottomline
Gamification is much more simple than people think. It all comes down to thinking of the desired behavior you want to see and then thinking of a fun way to reward that behavior. I encourage you to have some fun with it and don’t make it harder than it needs to be.
Thanks so much for stopping by The Dreamer’s Lounge! I hope that this episode helped you come up with some creative ways to gamify your programs. If you enjoyed the episode please take a second to rate & review. Each review helps me fulfill my mission of improving the quality of learning in the online business industry. Don’t forget to take a screenshot, share it in your Instagram stories and tag me @dreampro_. See you next week!
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