Although most of us know that webinars can be an excellent tool for sales, publicity or training purposes, while at the same time being inexpensive to host, very few leverage it. That is because most of us shy away from conducting or even at times attending informational webinars because we think that it is boring. Since very little interaction and engagement is expected at a webinar, the general assumption is that attendees are likely to drift off. Also, the fact that most webinars are available for viewing on-demand lends to a certain complacency among the attendee to view the content later (which does not necessarily happen).
Let’s discuss some lesser known yet proven tips on how you can convert your webinars from boring to buzzworthy. Read on to uncover the potential of gamifying your webinars and how it can take your virtual events to places.
Before we go into details on how to make webinars engaging with gamification, we will discuss what gamification is and why it is suitable for B2B companies.
What Is Gamification?
eConsultancy describes gamification as an application of gaming techniques used by brands to connect with their consumers in a much more meaningful and interactive way. The technique offers challenges, a sense of competition or achievement, and rewards for the participants.
The purpose of gamification is to apply the mechanics of games in a non-gaming context to engage the participants by using their affinity towards competition by setting goals to aim to win.
As brands now understand the power of gamification, they are gradually integrating it into their marketing strategy. Hence, it becomes important to integrate it into webinars to leverage the customer's love for interaction, competition, and gaming fun.
Some of the mechanics that gamification involves are leader boards, points, reward user activity, badges, and levels. By integrating the gaming design techniques and mechanics into the strategy for marketing within the webinars, they can focus on driving the desired results.
Since the marketing technique involves the user aiming for the desired goals, popular rewards that are offered in such a scenario are
- Discount on products or free products on achieving a milestone
- Monetary prizes
- Access to content earlier than anyone else
- Points that can be redeemed
The entire prospect is to engage and increase the bottom-line growth for any business. So while gaming techniques have been there in B2C marketing, now on a single platform with webinars in place, it is also being used in B2B marketing.
Strategies To Gamify Your Next Webinar
Many companies in the market offer a single platform to connect every event you hold for your business. So, why not get in touch with such an organisation and conduct your next webinar to help you gamify the next session.
In case you are unsure how to gamify the webinar, here are six strategies you can employ:
1. Plan It Out
It would help if you had a plan: the webinar's objective and the outcome you intend to achieve. You can create the themes and levels in a logical and sequential order. Remember, you need to tie each aspect together. Typically, in a 60- to 90-minute workshop, you can cover between 3 and 5 ideas or concepts, so you need to have that many levels. Finally, we recommend you create your game levels and achievements based on the ideas and topics.
2. Decide on a Rewarding System
Since the primary target is to keep the audience engaged, you need to decide what kind of interaction you seek. We suggest giving the participants some handouts with scorecards to let them know their participation is being tracked. It is up to you to design the badges and points and how they will be assigned to the participants.
3. Reward Immediately to Keep Them Engaged
Once you have decided how you will be rewarding them points, like asking questions or contributing with some suggestions, it is time to give them the points. If you start rewarding them with points as soon as the interaction begins, participants will start listing to what you have to say more carefully.
4. Make It Fun
Even though you know everyone is listening to you, start the rewarding of points and earning badges a fun thing to make it more engaging. Instead of just asking questions, why not create teams to collaborate and compete against others while helping each other gain more information and knowledge about what you are pitching.
5. Keep It Moving and Upbeat
One of the essential techniques is to keep moving the content fast. Keeping the mood and the screen movement upbeat will let you easily award the badges and points you have designed to the participants. But also remember to create a bit of a slow-down tension as you near the ending or the segment where you will be rewarding the last badge or points.
6. What Will the Participants Win?
You must decide this based on the pitches you are making. But the participants should have fun while attending the webinar, and they would also know what they are playing for when listening to you. The reward can be anything tangible or intangible, but you must keep in mind that they should be engaged.
It is time to make your next webinar a place that is interactive, collaborative, and engaging instead of a place where you lecture, and participants listen to you just because they have to—no more boring and dull webinars from now on!
Why Gamification Works for B2B Companies?
As mentioned earlier, gamification has already played an essential role in the B2C sector, and it is now being used in B2B too. The simple reason it works irrespective of the field where it is being used is that it taps into our innate instinct to compete against each other. By incorporating this addictive yet simple technique into the b2B marketing strategy, you can gain more than you have ever considered. So how does it help?
Generating Leads
The idea of buyers getting emails and calls for direct sales is a passe now. Hence lead generation is one of the biggest challenges that B2B companies face. This can be eradicated with webinars and gamifying. You can use it to drive the top funnel leads and increase your audience reach.
When you gamify the webinars, you are engaging more audience and creating better opportunities to generate leads that are meaningful.
Magnets For Loyal Customers
Generating good leads is one thing but turning them into loyal customers is another game. This game you can achieve by gamifying the webinar. When your leads know they can get some reward by listening to you and signing up with your company, trust us when we say they will share the correct details with you. The reason is we all love rewards for the actions we take.
An Immersive Experience
Compared to passive engagement tactics associated with social media channels and blogs, gamified webinars are known for driving engagement. It gives you the opportunity to understand the potential target audience's concerns. It is a way to build a long-lasting relationship and drive loyalty.
In Conclusion
When you make webinars engaging with gamification, you get a loyal audience member and make the content easy to understand. But you need a trusted partner who can offer you a technically enhanced and equipped platform where you can easily conduct the webinar while gamifying the session.
