Did you know that if you send an emoji of a basketball to a friend in Facebook Messenger, it automatically starts a game and you can compete to see who can make more baskets? It happens because Facebook invests in gamification for apps.
We now that have much more resources to improve user experience and increase app growth. There are some strategies that can make your app more interesting that it already is. Gamification is one such strategy.
First of all, what is gamification?
The Facebook Messenger example is just one of the possibilities to improve interaction for your app. Basically, gamification is a way to add some tools in your app to make user experience more playful.
The intent of Messenger is to be an app that you can send and receive messages, see if your friends are online and related stuff. But, with gamification marketing strategies, it’s possible to make the app more dynamic and attractive.
Another gamification example is employed by the app Waze. It was developed to be a GPS to help people drive. But, the app functions like a game too. You can collect points which increase by how much you drive and level up in the app.
Specifically for apps, how to use it?
First of all, the idea has to work with the purpose of your app. It doesn’t make sense to create funny filters like Instagram if your app has nothing to do with photos. And always think that gamification tools are not the main feature of the app. Rather, they complement the app.
Anyway, you can create some challenges completing which depends entirely on the user. You shouldn’t force anything. People completing those challenges, can accumulate points and rewards. It’s a incentive for your app to be more useful.
Study some apps that already did that. For example, if your app provides the option of buying things inside it using credit cards, depending on how much score a user has, he may convert those points to cash and make purchases.
It’s important to give always positive scores. Negative numbers can disengage the user. And, obviously, try to invest in a good design for the game, to be comfortable to the client.
Why should be used in your business?
For ASO, optimizing an app to have features that make it much more useful can attract more users. It helps retain customers.
An app that’s popular with high number of downloads can get higher rankings. But, an app that has lots of downloads with lower number of uninstalls is much more valuable.
That’s why it’s important to invest in one more tool to make the app grow, independently of the service that is made. Mobile gamification is not a new news in the market, but not everybody invests in that.
It means that your app have the opportunity to be one step forward. The user experience is a letter in the sleeve to people give importance to your app.
You can increase downloads and get more retention using gamification. But, the idea has to be well constructed. Otherwise, the experience can be a failure and it can be a point when the user gives up on your app.
Remember that we said that App Store Optimization is important to your app? This process can help you to know if your bet in gamification is working or not, by means of reviews.
Ratings and reviews can be optimized too and be a signal for you understand what has to be improve.
So, if you still have some doubt how ASO can work with reviews and other process of optimization for your app, we advise you to talk with one of our specialists in App Store Optimization from RankMyApp!
