Posts

BLOG: Gamification Series #3 – Achieving daily engagement with digital products

So far in this series of blog articles, we have explored how to drive business objectives using gamification techniques which play on our inbuilt desire to complete tasks and our satisfaction we get from our effort being celebrated.

Today we’ll be taking a look at how to specifically target increased regularity of engagement on digital platforms such as apps and websites. It’s commonplace in the digital space to use gamification techniques to build positive habits around using products on a regular basis. In the case of the popular language learning app “Duolingo”, the technique of “streaks” is used to great effect to help its users remember to spend some time every day studying their language of choice.

We’ll be delving into the Duolingo case study to explore the methods behind their implementation of the “usage streak”, and looking at how the same principles can help to bring fans back to a digital sports product or service on a more regular basis.

For the purposes of this article, I’ll mostly refer to an ‘app’ as our target digital product, but the same methodology is fully applicable to a website or pretty much any digital service/platform.

Usage streaks

Digital platforms often employ a variation of the “usage streaks” technique to help drive very frequent (daily or weekly) engagement with their product. The concept involves tracking and clearly visualising to the user how frequently they use the app or website. The aim for the user is to build up a “streak” of continued use for as long as possible without breaking the said streak. Most often, the desired engagement frequency is once per day, but the concept is somewhat flexible to other regular or well-defined intervals and can even be used over short periods of time perhaps for a one-off or a special event.

This technique can be easily adapted to accommodate a prize element, perhaps where users are rewarded with increasingly valued prizes for reaching a higher and uninterrupted streak.

Streaks are effective because they encourage users to put ever more time and effort into the app or website whilst building a usage habit.

The user doesn’t want to break the habit of using the product because doing so will forfeit all of the rewards which come in part from the effort which they have built up so far. This helps to ensure that the lure of potential prizes for reaching large unbroken streaks is always in the user’s mind when they pick up their phone. There is a fear of letting oneself down by forgetting to use the product one day, since it’s known to the user that doing so will result in them having to redo all of their hard effort to date to catch back up to the same point.

When paired with a well considered reward system, this technique can be very effective. There are two different types of reward to consider, both equally applicable. First is the rewarding of physical prizes at streak intervals. Pick streak thresholds at which to reward the user with a prize; these could increase in value as the streak gets higher. You can even set highly sought after “ultimate prizes” for extremely long usage streaks which could help with marketing campaigns and promotion.

Regardless of the actual prizes you pick, the key is to make the next prize always within reach… It may take 30 days to reach the prize you wanted, but if you are on day 23, you’ve only 7 days to go! Give up now, and you’ll be set back to day 1 again.

Second is to reward with prizes of personal and social value; essentially something with which to recognise and celebrate a user’s personal achievement. Ideally, such a reward should be easily shared with friends and peers. Typically this form of reward would be digital, meaning that it’s inexpensive and easy to distribute and as such can help to fill the gap between physical prize thresholds.

The key here is to (a) make the user feel proud of their achievement and (b) give them something which they can share with their peers to earn social respect. In existing products, this often takes the form of a personal “congratulations” screen, or a personalised shareable graphic which can be shared to social media, or even a badge which forever certifies the user’s achievement.

Case study: Duolingo

Duolingo is a very popular language-learning platform with a mobile app at the centre of its offering. Duolingo is monetised with adverts which appear after the conclusion of most lessons (lessons typically last between 5 and 15 minutes depending on format and ability). They also have a premium subscription service which offers some benefits in addition to removing the ads.

Duolingo incorporates a “Daily Streak” feature which clocks up the number of consecutive days in which a given user has completed a lesson. Upon completing the one required daily lesson, the user is shown a screen which confirms the advancement of their daily streak and congratulates them on getting so far. For reaching certain milestones, the user is also given a shareable graphic which they can post to social media or share via chat messages. Furthermore, there is an Achievement system which awards digital badges to the user’s profile for crossing big streak milestones for the first time.

Duolingo daily streak indicator. Screenshot of Duolingo on Android

Users keep track of their daily streak progress on the main app landing page, where it is clearly represented by a symbol of a flame with the number of current consecutive days streak. Users are also sent push notifications in the last few hours of the day to remind them to complete a lesson if they happen to forget, an effective backup prompt.

Whilst it is clear that the more frequently the app is used, the greater the opportunity for Duolingo to earn revenue through its ads, the streak technique serves to benefit the user as well. The streak makes you feel good about yourself as you do more practice, and the fear of losing the streak is enough to make you keep going. It helps to remind users to do their daily practice for their own personal benefit. With each day, you get closer and closer to beating your previous best and having something worthy to be proud of and show off to your friends.

It also helps to ensure that out of all the tools that language learners use, Duolingo is the least likely to be forgotten about or skipped, even on the busiest of days. As superficial as it might be to miss one single day of study, the feeling of being set back to the beginning or missing out on that next Achievement badge draws you back. You “may as well” just complete a lesson to ensure you keep on track.

This feature brilliantly combines the world of business and their corporate objectives with the key themes of self improvement which Duolingo’s users strive for, to build a product which satisfies both through engaging gamification.

Duolingo further plays on our emotions by making very good use of graphics and animations to further discourage users from forgetting to practice. If the user attempts to quit out of a lesson prematurely, they receive a graphic of the platform’s mascot, Duo – a green multilingual owl – on the verge of tears seemingly distraught that you could possibly neglect to study. In contrast, completing streak milestones depicts Duo with a broad smile, confetti and balloons. The mascot is represented throughout the user experience along with other characters to reinforce positive motivation and encourage you to not give up.

In-app graphic of Duo looking disappointed. Screenshot of Duolingo on Android

The streak feature makes it progressively harder to put the app down by building increased perceived value in your progress on their platform. So in summary, Duolingo is very effective at achieving daily retained users by engaging them through the key motivating factor which drove them to download Duolingo in the first place – their desire for self-improvement by learning a language… the embodiment of the notion that practice makes perfect. It creates a gamified value proposition to its users; “keep practising daily and we’ll celebrate your success with you”. Give up and you’ll lose out, not just in terms of progressing your linguistic skills; you’ll also have to start your streak over again.

Driving daily use among sports fans

The Usage Streak concept can be applied to any digital product. It doesn’t necessarily need to target daily engagement either.

In the case of digital products in the sports industry, the method can be targeted towards driving regular matchday behaviour.

Consider a team who wants to drive more frequent usage of their app or website. They can reward users who visit their digital platform every match day to check the scores by giving away merchandise or match tickets to users with the highest match day usage streaks. This can be presented in a fun, interactive way to users too, such as by collecting a digital stamp on their card for each successive matchday usage until they have enough to earn a prize.

This implementation provides clear indication to users about how to participate, which prizes are on offer, and how far they have progressed towards earning a prize. In doing so it keeps interest levels up and helps to show how tantalisingly close the next prize is. It doubles as a fun way for fans to track the matches they watch (either on TV or in the stadium), so that they can look back and recall their memories from throughout the season.

Streaks are not just applicable to matchday engagement, they are also a great way to run promotions or as part of a special event. For instance, a broadcast partner, club or league may be looking to increase the number of subscribers to their Premium Subscription or Video On Demand (VOD) service(s). In such a case, they are able to run a special content plan over the span of one or two weeks whereby a free piece of content (such as a video) is released on the platform for free every day during the promotional period. Users are encouraged to create a free account on the platform and come back every day to watch the new piece of freely released content. Users are able to see their current streak of days for which they have viewed the free piece of content, with each day being checked-off the list. If they come back every day during the promotional period, they can earn themselves a free one month subscription to the platform.

This approach not only gives the user added value in the form of a free piece of daily content, but it also gives them practical first-hand experience of the platform which may help them to make a decision to purchase a subscription once the promotion is over.

It serves both to drive increased usage numbers during the period of the promotion and beyond by demonstrating the value in the services offered, and gamify the process of earning a prize. The prize of 1 month’s free subscription further helps to build trust in the platform through giving users extended first-hand experiences, and can ultimately help to drive purchases.

Whether the user wins the free subscription or not, all participants will have had the opportunity to sample the benefits in one form or another. The platform may choose to expand this concept by introducing discounts for subscription purchases rewarded for reaching lesser daily streaks, further increasing the chance of a purchase.

Apply this to the context of a club shop or online store and you’ve got a way to encourage fans to purchase merchandise through rewarding them with discounts for daily interaction.

Variety is the spice of life, and the same is very much true for gamification. While a series of daily videos may be good, video content may get a little time consuming to produce.

An even better approach is to mix in different types of content for the user to engage with.

This could be articles, matchday previews, photo gallery, and more, and is highly advantageous since it puts less strain on the club’s video content team, spreading the load out, while making the experience for the fan more enjoyable (less monotonous). This is a technique commonly used throughout gamification and is described brilliantly in Nir Eyal’s book “Hooked – How to build habit-forming products” as being like a refrigerator which contains a single different random food item every time you open the door. The key is that the variety of possible products in the fridge always creates a surprise when the door is opened, which is a lot more engaging than if the product were always the same.

This applies to our selection of daily content in the same way – it varies randomly every day to make the experience more interesting. It helps users to appreciate each individual daily content piece much more since there’s no guarantee what tomorrow’s content will be, further heightening the perception of value in the services offered to them.

Increased Regularity of Use Leads to Increased Revenue

Of course, this process isn’t all about distributing prizes. The product stakeholders are ultimately looking to generate revenue from this. This technique gets users to open our app or website (and to interact in some specific way if desired).

The technique is designed to prompt the user to use the product every day and begin a usage journey. It’s then up to us as to how we choose to direct the user to the subsequent steps in that journey.

Once on the app, we can prompt users to participate in other features, such as to read articles, check scores, see the date of the next fixture and consider buying a ticket, or browse the online shop.

Regularity helps keep the product relevant in the minds of users by creating prompts to interact with it, leading to a greater likelihood that they will choose to use the app in situations where they might have time to use their mobile device or computer. In other words, we help the user to become more accustomed to our product in general by building trust through repeat usage with the intention of this leading to preferential consideration of our app/site over competing options.

With all this increased usage and relevancy, we can turn a digital product into a key driver of sales and revenue.

Consider how much more desirable an advertising spot on your website would be if users were coming back daily, or how much more likely a fan might be to purchase a subscription to your platform.

Streaks are a great way to keep fans coming back to a digital service, whether it be over a short period (such as a week or two, or even during a match day) or as a longer term proposition (to engage fans throughout the season).

Next Week…

In the next blog, we’ll explore how a variety of digital platforms successfully engage entire communities of fans. Ranging from viral videos to digital community projects and video games, we’ll uncover how to unite users together around your digital product to share a common goal and help drive the levels of usage that you desire.

Previous Blogs…

Blog #1 – Delivering Great Digital Experiences with Gamification

Blog #2 – Driving Retention to Meet Business Objectives

BLOG: Gamification Series #2 – Driving Retention to Meet Business Objectives

In the previous blog we reviewed how gamification techniques could be applied to our digital products. From now on, we’re going to look at specific example case studies of techniques used across a variety of industries in the digital space and delve into the reasonings and outcomes of using them. We’ll also look at applying these techniques to users of apps and websites in a sports contexts to create great digital experiences for fans. In this blog, #2 in the series, we will be taking a closer look at a gamification technique which will enhance fans’ digital experiences whilst delivering on targeted business objectives.

Gamification technique #1: setting personal goals and challenges

The first gamification principle we will cover in this series is the setting of personal goals or objectives. Our aim in this topic of gamification is to bring users back to a product more frequently than they would otherwise do and reward them for coming back, consequently extending the average usage lifespan and frequency of engagement.

The technique of setting “personal goals and challenges” is highly versatile and revolves around the idea of presenting users with a series of small tasks.

The user is given a reward for completing certain tasks and is able to track how many they have completed. Tasks can directly relate to business objectives; for example, in the case of a football club, selling more merchandise. An example task in this case might be “Purchase an item of merchandise from the club shop”, from which we can then reward the user with a discount on their next purchase.

The tasks get progressively harder and require more time and effort to complete. They usually relate to the use of main features of the product across different scenarios. Once a user completes a task, the next one appears and there’s often a choice of several different tasks to complete at any one time.

With this technique, rights holders can turn a series of relatively standard points of contact with the fans into a fun, interactive game in which participants can win prizes and earn social recognition.

The benefits

The implementation of this technique offers a number of benefits. To start with, the user is shown how they can earn rewards by using the digital product; this is a clear, obvious value exchange between the user and the app supplier (namely: “Do this, earn that”), providing more incentive to use a digital service.

Rewards don’t have to be physical prizes, they can be digital ones like discount codes or a digital badge to certify that the user completed the task. The latter provides official and social recognition and taps into the innate human desire to collect things (programmes, ticket stubs, club shirts etc) and boast about it over social media and other channels.

Secondly, this technique directly targets our aim to increase retention on the digital platform, as we are asking the user to participate in tasks which explicitly require progressively more time and effort to complete. We have the power to tailor the requirements for fulfilling each personal goal to help return usage and retention, like setting a task to be be completed over a number of days (weeks, months etc), or by requiring a certain action to be performed a certain number of times.

By slowly increasing the effort involved in tasks, the user is eased into having more contact with the product instead of throwing them straight in at the deep end.

Essentially this aims to help a new first-time user become a highly engaged user much quicker and with greater likelihood. The non-linear scale of progression further means that the user is rewarded, albeit in a smaller way, more frequently during the most critical period of use (during their first few days/weeks using the product), but can still be rewarded (perhaps with bigger rewards) later on.Small victories are very important for the user in building positive association with a product.

Thirdly, this technique helps the product to become more sticky; harder for the user to forget about and uninstall.

This is because they will have built up perceived value in the platform; a knowledge that they have put time and effort into progressing through the tasks to reach a certain point. If they uninstall now they won’t stand a chance of earning the next reward. There can also be considerable personal and social prestige in having put so much effort in. It’s something to be proud of or brag about and show off to friends. It becomes a challenge or game to try and complete the hardest tasks. Repetitive tasks which require regular interaction (e.g. every day) are then brought to the forefront of users’ minds, and can even lead to the app being dropped into casual conversation among friends or colleagues. One can imagine a conversation between friends who all use the same app saying “Oh I managed to complete that task over the weekend”, “No way, really?? That must have taken you forever!”. Take the daily HQ Trivia quiz app that was popular in 2018; we frequently played and discussed our progress in the InCrowd office!

Finally, and perhaps most importantly in regards to ROI, we can write tasks which are derived directly from business objectives. We offer fans a value exchange in a similar way to a loyalty scheme (which, incidentally, I would argue is also a form of gamification).

As a side note, this process can also be used to help new users of a product by providing tasks which help to guide the user through basic functionality. In essence adapting this feature to act as a tutorial or guide, further reinforces positive outcomes early on in the user’s experience.

Case study: Call of Duty

Let’s take a look at this technique in action.

For our first case study in this series we will turn to the video games industry and to the current iteration of one of the most popular games of all time; Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (MW). MW makes use of setting personal goals in a couple of key ways…

Members of the InCrowd Call of Duty squad preparing for the start of a match! Screenshot: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare “Warzone” on PC, captured using NVIDIA GeForce Experience.

The multiplayer portion of MW has a number of weapons for the user to use in battle. Each weapon has a collection of attachment upgrades used to fine-tune the performance of the weapon for different scenarios and to the user’s preferences. However, these attachments are earned slowly over time as the user uses each weapon more and more. Some of the best and most frequently used attachments are earned last, requiring the most amount of time and effort to acquire. Furthermore, not all weapons are available to use when the user first plays the game; they are required to complete very specific challenges to ‘unlock’ them. The net result is that if you want the freedom to access and use any weapon and attachment configuration of your choice, you must first prove your worth by taking the time to complete the associated challenges.

Moreover, MW offers users the ability to apply a camouflage to their weapons – with designs ranging from mundane and bland to exciting and colourful. Each camo is associated with a certain type of challenge requiring that the weapon be used in all manner of different specific situations. Some challenges are very straight forward to complete, yet require progressively more time to unlock. Other challenges are much more challenging to complete! The best, most visually engaging camos are the hardest to unlock and require a considerable amount of dedication to acquire. It’s very easy to spot a seasoned player in a game of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare!

The developers of MW have even gone so far as to add a special Golden camo which is earned for unlocking all of the others; this is a true accolade to earn. But it doesn’t stop there; at the time of writing there are three additional camos earned for going above and beyond that, including one for unlocking the gold camo for ALL weapons – a massive feat!

Yes, that is my golden crossbow which I’m showing off to you. One of the hardest weapons to use in the game, this exemplifies every aspect of this gamification technique from increased retention to perceived value. Screenshot: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on PC, captured using NVIDIA GeForce Experience

Furthermore, every day, users are given a fresh set of “Daily Challenges” to complete, often with some form of digital in-game reward. This keeps the game interesting and gets players checking back every day to see what’s up for grabs. There is always something new to entice players, reinforcing a habit of checking the challenges regularly.

These examples show how such a gamification technique can be constantly evolved as users complete more challenges.

The possibilities are pretty endless, especially if they are focussed on achievements; humans innately want to be bigger and better than their counterparts!

Rewarding time and effort

So to recap: the game presents a challenge in earning weapons, attachments and camos. The user must spend time slowly acquiring these as they play. Camos allow players to show off their skill with their favourite weapons and represent the effort which has been put in to earn them.

This simple process carries out two main jobs:

(1) it directly drives the levels of usage which the owner desires by demanding time and effort from the user. (2) It builds perceived value in what the user is earning through dedication and skill.

Neither of these statements would be true if everything was available to use (“unlocked”) from the beginning. The effort required, and the ‘glory’ of earning a golden camo results in users coming back to play more frequently, perhaps using free time which they would not otherwise have occupied with playing the game (something I know I am guilty of!).

Infinity Ward and Activision (the principle developers and publishers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare respectively) use this method to drive the engagement statistics which they require to make the game a success. If they did not use this approach, users would only play when they are naturally inclined to do so through stimuli external to the game itself, such as a friend suggesting to play or finding some free time on a weekend.

However, MW ensures that the glory of earning a highly prized camo is always on the minds of its users, relying less on natural prompts to play and instead generating its own. The lure of a shiny golden weapon is too hard to resist to fans of the game… this results in more frequent prompts to play whenever a free moment arises, tapping into the human instinct to want to reap the rewards of their hard earned efforts.

The concept works particularly well because it presents a clear value proposition to users: “Put in the effort, and we will reward you”. Looking at this from the business point of view, this translates to “Use our product as frequently as we would like, and we’ll add more value to your experience”.

It’s fascinating that the reward doesn’t even need to be physical. In this instance, the user receives a digital reward, something to allow them to show-off to their friends and rivals in-game, and give them a more ‘complete’ experience… and being digital, it doesn’t cost much (if anything) to reward them. Digital rewards can be duplicated to match the requirement (almost) completely free.

A selection of camo options available to customise weapons in Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Screenshot: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on PC, captured using NVIDIA GeForce Experience

Application in digital products for sports

We can take the fundamental elements of this technique and apply them to almost any digital product. Consider a football club. They want to sell more tickets, increase purchases at their club shop, encourage fans to eat and drink at the concession stands and get fans more engaged with the club.

Through their digital platforms, the club can release a series of challenges and rewards to celebrate fans who go the extra mile. This could be surfaced on their app or website for users to keep track of their progress.

“Challenges” could include:

  • Visit the home ground once this season
  • Buy a ticket for you and one other person
  • Check the full time scores via the app for every match during the season
  • Make a purchase at the club shop this season
  • Purchase a drink at the bar on 3 separate occasions this season
  • Read the club history page on the club website
    …and more.

You’ll notice that these example challenges involve different areas; ticket sales to food and drink to digital platform usage, and each clearly address a business objective. Challenges are a great way to join the dots between different business areas and assets which the fans consider integral to their experience as a supporter. This can further help fans of all manner of backgrounds and circumstances be part of (and feel closer to) the club by carefully designing challenges which all fans can participate in and benefit from.

As part of the value exchange, via the chosen digital platform the club can give fans a fun personalised graphic which they can share to their social media or chat messages to show how far they’ve progressed. In combination with the rewarding of digital “achievement” badges, this gives fans social recognition for their achievement and feels a sense of appreciation from the club for their commitment.

The club could also give away rewards such as discounts on merchandise, a free drink at the bar or recognition via club social channels, all helping to communicate the value exchange and drive the targeted engagement. Rewards would need to be proportional to the effort required and budget available.

Additionally, a form of loyalty scheme can be used to reward users according to the number of challenges they’ve completed. The more challenges completed, the better the benefits from the scheme, with distinct tiers differentiating users according to the effort they have put in.

As you can see, this is a fun, rewarding way for fans to engage more with the club, while the club benefits from increased engagement in the particular areas targeted as per their business objectives.

It’s up to the club how to reward fans, be that digitally or physically. Provided that the user is given something to show for their effort, the value exchange remains intact.

The majority of us are naturally drawn to completing tasks – we never want to leave things half completed and we want to tick boxes – driven by the satisfaction of completing a task. The reward (no matter how small) exploits that piece of human nature and gives us an extra incentive;

“If I just play a bit more, I’ll unlock this item”.

“If I spend an hour extra cycling today, I’ll get to the top of the leaderboard”. “Only two more holidays and we’ll be gold members”.

All of this gives the user additional reason to consider doing something. In their mind it builds a case for (rather than a case against) using the digital product. In this way it becomes a prompt – something which the user takes into account when making decisions, such as whether to bother picking up their phone to open an app, or which holiday package provider to go with.

Increased revenue and new inventory to sell

Application of this technique aims to ultimately lead to increased revenue. By incentivising fans to use the club app and website more often and with greater engagement, the increased usage traffic allows you to serve sponsor adverts to fans more frequently, leading to greater sponsorship revenue and a higher demand for your premium digital advertising spots.

The concept as a whole generates new inventory to sell and opens up great new opportunities for brands to build a closer, more meaningful relationship with fans.

Brands can ‘own’ the rights to sponsor everything from the name + branding of the challenges, to providing the prizes and featuring on the shareable personalised graphics.

We often put our hopes and ambitions at the forefront of our thinking on a daily basis, never quite able to escape thinking about them every now and then. Helping users to complete personal achievements through digital products keeps the product in-mind and relevant, helping to ensure users regularly spend time interacting with it, rather than forgetting about it.

Additional case studies

This same concept is used in a plethora of different products. Avios reward passengers for frequent flying, giving them access to progressively better and better rewards with a clear progression system and visual prestige of being a gold member. Strava encourages greater use of their app by setting exercise challenges which users can opt-in to in order to earn badges. The Trainline also rewards fans with badges for choosing to book their tickets through them rather than competitors

All are examples of the gamification of physical “real life” processes applied to a digital world, intended to drive more frequent, longer term engagement from their customers.

Next week:

This week we’ve covered how to achieve audience retention; next week we’ll be diving into how we can drive regular daily engagement. We’ll take a look at DuoLingo, a leading language learning app which encourages its users to complete lessons everyday, following its gamified approach to education. We’ll see how similar principles can be used to increase engagement levels among fans on match days.