ScreamingBox Technology & Business Rundown

SPEAKERS
Damien Roux, Christopher Bradley, Dave Erickson, Botond Seres

Dave Erickson
Is Gamification for business? Is this really a game changer? Find out how you can use Gamification to grow any business on this month's ScreamingBox podcast?

Dave Erickson 00:35
Is it all a game? Principles and hacks of Gamification and using it to grow your business? Welcome to the ScreamingBox technology and business rundown podcast. So what is one of the fastest growing business trends in the last year, AI chat? You would be surprised. Want to find a way to grow your business and stand out from the crowd? Today I,Dave Erickson and my co-host Botond Seres are going to try to game the system by talking to Damien Roux and Christopher Bradley, from the SaaS gaming platform Drimify.com. We are going to go in depth to find out why companies large and small are finding that Gamification may be a great way to lure in, educate and connect with potential customers and grow your business. Damien is one of the co-founders and CEO of Drimify, and as a creative entrepreneur, passionate about the superpowers of Gamification, and how to use them to drive engagement and boost business growth. Christopher is a content creator and Product Specialist at Drimify, who graduated and worked in journalism before moving into content creation and marketing. Drimify is the SaaS gaming platform trusted by businesses around the world to connect with people and effectively communicate brand and product value to a new audience. So Damien did I get everything correct?

Damien Roux 02:03
Yes, we're good. Yeah.

Dave Erickson 02:04
So do you want to just give, kind of, a real brief account of how you started Drimify and why you did? .

Damien Roux 02:11
Yes, sure. Yeah. So everything started, like back in 2005-2006. So I was with my business partner. So when, yeah, when the idea, and we were friends from school, we've been playing sports together. And so after a while, we all went in. We both went in different directions for universities, but we managed to catch up again and we said that we would like to start, maybe working together on small projects. And after a few projects, we said, okay, okay, what, why not starting, like a business. So we created Dream Like, which is a creative digital agency, where we help businesses with their marketing with their global communication, creating websites, creating logos, branding, business cards, and things like that. When business cards were still a thing. And then after a while, quite quickly, in 2007, we started creating games because we created a network of websites for kids. And we managed to, it was games for kids. And we managed to reach up to 16 million unique visitors per month in different languages, different countries. So we were getting like quite a lot of traffic on those websites, quite a good mix, and that's when brands targeting kids like Disney, Mattel, Hasbro. Sony came to us and said, Okay, now we would like you to develop games for us, but doing product placement. So creating games, for example, when they were launching a new movie or a new project for kids. So that's how we started in the kids' game industry. And slowly, slowly, when we saw that it was working really well. We said why not doing it for any kind of business because everyone loves playing. So it's fairly easy, like to reach people and to engage with them through games. So we started creating more games for b2b and b2c customers. And then from there, it was working well. So we said, Okay, we need to be able to replicate this quickly and efficiently. So that's how we created Drimify as a platform to make sure that anyone in the world could create a game and customize it in a matter of minutes, just like what we were doing. So yeah, so that's how we started uh Drimify.

Botond Seres 04:27
How can Gamification help businesses engage customers and improve brand loyalty? I mean, in my experience, Gamification usually boils down to, Hey, here's a video, watch it then answer this multiple choice question. I'm sure that's very far from what you're doing. So I'm incredibly interested.

Christopher Bradley 04:48
So there's really a couple of ways that you can sort of develop loyalty with your customers through Gamification. The one that most of your listeners will probably be familiar with is things like loyalty programs. So one of the key sort of mechanics of Gamification, is actually like a progress bar. If you think, whenever you play video games, there's always a progress bar, you see how far you are through the game. With, like a loyalty program, you know, it just shows you how many points you've accumulated, how much you're, how close you are to the next reward. So it's almost like a visual, like, representation of how much you've invested and that can be like enough to kind of make people think you know what I'm going to, I'm going to stick with this because I'm this close to like the next level or whatever, like, certainly, over here in the UK, we've got like points with all the supermarkets that you're at, which always kind of in my mind kind of nudges me towards the one that I've got a club card with, I kind of stick with that, on the more sort of, I guess, sophisticated and the modern Gamification allows, if you think through, like marketing games that we create, so what you're doing is like you're cutting through this, like a bit of see of sameness and sort of the digital advertising space where, I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when you feel like a company is trying to get your attention, it can be quite, you can be quite closed off to it because everyone's trying to sell you something. With, like a gamified experience, it's, it's more interactive, and it kind of, you're inviting someone to come in and have an experience to play something, maybe it's like a challenge, or maybe they're playing like a little basketball game or something where they're like racking up points. But what that does, you know, when you play, play equals effort, play equals concentration. And that makes people just a little bit more receptive to like, you know, targeted branded messaging, so you can get your message across to people, and have them actually retain it. And as you rinse and repeat, and keep doing that, you can actually build a relationship with that customer over time. There's, you know, I can give examples, but there's just so many different kind of game mechanics that you can apply, depending on, you know, what you're doing, like, from like a branded PacMan game to, you know, even just like a quiz. But yeah, if you keep doing it, you give them that experience. And you just, yeah, you just keep going, keep going back to it really, if that, if that makes sense. Does that answer your question Botond?

Botond Seres 07:06
Totally. That Answer, answers, it's very well, can we get into a bit of a bit more detail into specific Gamification experiences? So I was explained that a couple of things come to mind for me. One is the loyalty programs with airlines, which honestly, I never thought of as Gamification. But apparently, it is. Another one is, both McDonald's and Burger King have this thing where you get loyalty points for levels, and coupons based, based off of that. But I think the one I interacted, interact, with most is actually mobile games. And it's crazy to me that it's alwaysBejeweled every time on three times that the foundered, it's visual. Can you shed some light on? Why there are these patterns? Is everyone just copying each other? Or is there a psychological reason for why this works? For why specific patterns of Gamification is work better than others?

Damien Roux 08:30
No, it's just because it triggers emotions. So game playing and playing games, triggers emotions, so it's part of the human nature. So even kids, you know, like before they know how to speak, or before they can walk, kids are playing. So that's the first thing you do in your life, I would say, after wetting, maybe eating but yeah, so, so that's why I like games are part of everyone's life and yeah, when you go toMc Donald’s and get like rewards, when you run now on Strava, you can get badges and rewards when you reach some milestone or when you you beat your personal record. So I think most of the people don't really realize that Gamification is already part of your everyday life. Anything you do, or even like TripAdvisor, if you go and leave reviews on TripAdvisor, you get badges and you can go, like, one level higher. So that's Gamification as well. It's like giving you something back in exchange of an action. And playing is the same and, you know, like, so that's what that's that's why Gamification is working so well, is because it's part of our nature and part of our life already

Dave Erickson 09:40
Botond. Does that kind of answer the question for you? To be clear, I think what you're saying is, is that when you've experienced Gamification, you've seen a certain style of Gamification, mostly. But is there a reason for just using a style and you kind of said what it was? Could you say it again? It wasn't 100% clear, what is the style of Gamification that you've been experiencing?

Botond Seres 10:06
The one I've been experiencing most is very familiar with the game, Virtual World.

Damien Roux 10:10
It's more like, oh, it's more gaming and casual gaming than really a principle of Gamification. Because that's why it should not be mixed up really, because Gamification is applying game logics to things that are not playful.

Christopher Bradley 10:28
There's a difference between Gamification and just like a game like Bejeweled. So with Bejeweled, the game is the game, you're just passing time with Gamification, think of it as like a means to an end or a vehicle. You're using Gamification, to achieve a desired response of someone, maybe that is capturing data. And maybe you will use a casual game like a branded equivalent of Bejeweled, for example, but there's always like an end result that you're looking for. And then with Gamification, think about applying game mechanics to like, you know, trying to get people to achieve something like a good example, you see it a lot in, like sort of the fitness space. Like if you’ve ever done a challenge on Strava. You know, you've got points and not points, or you've got leaderboards on like segments and stuff. And that's, you know, you'll, you'll struggle to name an area where, like Gamification hasn't kind of started to make its presence known. Like, it's, it's really everywhere now. But yeah, think about it as Gamification is a means to an end. It's not, we're not here to entertain people. But I mean, that's kind of like a side effect of it, I guess. And it's, it's a means to an end.

Botond Seres 11:37
Right? I'm thinking about these interactive ads, specifically. You know, there are video ads, and there are sort of gamified ads. I'm not sure if that counts as Gamification when the ad itself is, is a self contained piece of the game. So it is a vehicle for driving my engagement with the, with the, advertisements.

Damien Roux 12:03
Yeah, sure. Yeah. And it's really good because, for example, we are working with a lot of publishers, so big websites with a lot of traffic, where they are using games, just like you said, like in advertising, to keep people engaged, or so there are two, there are many different things where our game is, is improving the KPIs of a website is first the time spent. So for example, if you're on a website, and you see you read an article, or you watch a video, that's good, but if there is a game, you will spend more time on that page. So it means better KPIs. So it can help for SEO, it can help for retention on the website. So games are, are used for that. And then you can also use games to do advertising campaigns as part of the game. So that's what I was talking about earlier with product placement and in game advertising, where, for example, let's say you've got a big website, and Coca Cola, they want like they want to run a campaign on your website, you could create a game and customize the game with the Coca Cola branding, and people on your website would play with it. So it's a way for you to engage with the audience and also to get them to get the advertising message across.

Dave Erickson 13:18
Is there a, you know, you have a pretty large collection of games that you've worked with over time. Is there a particular style or type of game that is most used currently for Gamification? Or is it spread pretty evenly abo… throughout these types of games?

Damien Roux 13:38
Again, it will depend on the, on your goals and the objectives for the campaign or the project. So you could be using quizzes, or questionnaires in general, if you want to educate people, or if you want them to, or if you want to test their knowledge. So those games like have triggers are really good for that. But then you can also create instant win game mechanics. So let's say you've got an e-commerce website and you want to give away promo codes. So when people are reaching your website, they get onto your homepage, there is a popup, or there is a banner telling them, play a, play and win. So they will maybe spin the wheel or use the scratch card game to give away promo codes. And then this will increase the conversions and this will also boost the sales. So yeah, so that's the instant win. And then we've got all the casual games you are talking about the match three example or even, like all the games that are like casual games and popular games that you can customize with your own graphics. So yeah, I would say that everything is quite spread quite evenly and it will really depend on what you are trying to achieve. So yeah, so there is no like, there is not one recipe. It's mainly like trying to use many different games to bring variety also in your marketing, not always giving people, like the same game mechanic.

Botond Seres 15:04
It sounds like there is a specific mechanic for a specific goal that seems to work best. I mean, the one you just mentioned, Damian, the instant win mechanic is something that I see everywhere. And feel free to just avoid this question for the sake of your business. But I was wondering, does Best Spinner ever land on the biggest rewards? Or does… it does?

Damien Roux 15:35
It does. No, no, yes, it does. And you even get like 100% winning games. So we've got some clients that no matter what you do, you will always win. So yeah, no, no, it does. And, yeah, it's a proper, like game effect. So if you're lucky, you're gonna win the biggest prize, right?
Botond Seres 15:52
For me, it's always the lowest prize.

Dave Erickson 15:57
Well, obviously, you set up, kind of, a matrix in the game, where so many people get this percentage get the lower end prizes, and so many percentage get middle prizes. And I'm sure there's a way that you set up the scaling of the awards.

Damien Roux 16:16
When you create an instant win game, we've got an algorithm behind it that will define the distribution rate and all the things. So basically, you set, you set the start date for your campaign, you set the end date. So if you've got, let's say, 10 days, you've got 10 days of campaign, and you've got 10 prizes, the system will try to make one prize to go every day. But if for some reason someone is not, like people are not playing on day number three, the prize from day number three will be pushed to day number four. So on day number four, you will have more chances to win, but it's all random and it's all still based on luck, unless it's a 100% winning game. But it's more like a dispatch that's being made on the smart wins through the algorithm than us setting up in advance what should happen, if that makes sense.

Dave Erickson 17:09
It does.

Botond Seres 17:10
So I was wondering, what are some of the most important elements of Gamification programs?

Dave Erickson 17:17
Maybe we can narrow it down just a little bit. How about for an example of a small business, say a b2c business that is starting off selling their products on the internet. Let's use that as kind of a case example that might narrow it down a little bit.

Christopher Bradley 17:35
Yeah, quite. I mean, quite possibly, it could be like a survey or something, which is an easy way to kind of get information, like get people to give you their opinions, give you information. But I guess I from another way for, from a b2b perspective where Gamification might be really useful, because we talked about like creating experiences, creating something that's memorable is, you know, if it's an a pitch or a meeting, or a trade show, for example, you're meeting other businesses that you might want to work with. If you've got like, like gamified content at your stand, especially with a leaderboard it's, it's quite a good icebreaker as well and just opens up conversation. Like that's another way that it could work from that perspective and that works b2b and b2c, you know, depending on the context. And then, like, another way, you could do it from like a b2b perspective is, you know, we have, we have something on the Drimify platform called a product recommendation quiz, where it almost works, as like, a digital salesperson. So like, it'll ask you a series of questions and depending on your answers, like there'll be multiple choice answers, and each of them will correspond to, you know, an end result. And in a b2b sense, like say, it's like a SaaS platform and you offer, like, various products, you answer the questions and at the end of it, it's like, you'd probably be best served by this, which, you know, is something you could integrate on, say, like a landing page, like as a b2b site. I mean, ultimately, what you've got to think about in the b2b space, whether it's like a business or an individual, everyone's a person, you know, like a big part of how people decide how they do businesses, it's personalities. It's how you make people feel, you know, that's how you influence and, you know, Gamification can be a really big part of that.

Botond Seres 19:21
Yep, I think you are really hammering home the fact that pretty much everything we see around this is gamified these days. I mean, the one you just mentioned, Chris, the one where we get a series of questions, and some system somehow helps us find the right product for us. That's just another example that I never even thought was Gamification. So I'm, I'm really curious what, what else is, is flying below the radar.

Dave Erickson 19:51
I think that might be one of the issues with the concept of Gamification is there's so many Gamification options that, you know, if a business was saying to themselves, I want to use Gamification somehow to help my business. You know, it's almost like it could be anything. So maybe there's I don't know, in your experience, if there was like four kinds of questions that a business would have to ask themselves about why they would want to do Gamification. That way, when they go to somebody, or when they go on your platform to look for a game or Gamification, they have an idea of what they're trying to do. So maybe you can kind of talk a little bit about what would be like the top four things they need to kind of think about and understand about their own business in order for them to figure out what Gamification program may fit them.

Damien Roux 20:51
I would say that there is only one question is, do I want to engage with my audience? And that's it? If the answer is yes, then Gamification is for all the business, all the businesses in the world. And you can look at it as Gamification could be implemented at every stage of the customer journey. So there is a popular framework called out where you've got like, acquisition, activation, referral, revenue, and I'm sorry, I missed it, what was the last one? Sorry, framework. Are we doing,sorry, yeah, sorry. Yeah. So it's yeah, so there is like a popular framework. That's the framework, like, acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue. So it means that at every single step of the customer journey, you could implement Gamification. So if you take active acquisition, that's what we said, you could run like a campaign on social media, and try to acquire more customers using a game. So that's step one, then step two activation. That's what Chris was talking about with the product recommendation quiz, where you've got the customer on your website. And now using Gamification and the product recommendation quiz, you're going to recommend them a specific product. So that's an activation, then for retention, it means that, let's say the customer is buying the product on the website, at the end of the checkout process, you can have on the thank you page, you could have another game where you tell them thanks for buying a product from us. And now spin the wheel or scratch your car to win a promo code for your next purchase. So you are doing retention, so you encourage them to come back. And then for the referral, it's the same because after the purchase, you could send them an email saying now play this game. And at the start of the game, you will be asking them to leave a review on Google My Business on Trustpilot, or whatever. So it means that you are going to use the excuse of sending them a game to first ask for review. So this will help your referral for new clients and new, new prospective clients and then the last one, revenue. It's fairly simple; if you do everything right, you're going to make money. And that's it. So there is no limits. Like we never, we never encountered a business or a client where we could not do anything. Like Gamification is part of our lives since we were born. So that's it, you know, like it will work really well for any kind of business. But people just need to understand it. And also understand that Gamification will create, create this particular emotional connection with the customers. So they have to use it, because that's really good. And that's helping the business a lot.

Dave Erickson 23:53
So when a company integrates Gamification into their website, or their mobile app, or their, their presence, their digital presence, I assume that there's a lot of analytics that can go into the game, where the business can get a lot of data or information about what's happening. Is that the case? And is that easy to do? Or does that require a lot of work as well?

Christopher Bradley 24:20
Yeah. So if you when you create a great a game, like in our in our platform, for example, in the germaphobe Gamification platform, you're you can log in when your games running, when your campaigns running, you can log in and see things like participation rate, engagement rate, you know, how many people are playing, you can see if it's like a multi level experience, at what point are people stopping, playing, for example, but then also, you know, if it's a deficit part of ane- commerce thing you can, if you're distributing like a promotional code through the game as like a reward for players, you know, you can see how many of those get like get run through your POS system, you know. So there's, I mean, there's a lot of analytics that you get on different games that you create. And it kind of varies from game to game. But then there's obviously a lot that you can use in partnership with the analytics you get through through Drimify

Dave Erickson 25:18
So it sounds like that there's almost when you start doing Gamification, just like you're doing a product roadmap for building a, you know, a website or something, you know, you're gonna do it one way, and then you're gonna have to revise it and try it a different way, almost like AB testing, until you get the game set up, where you're getting maximum results. Is that correct?

Damien Roux 25:42
Okay, yeah. And, but the most important is to make sure that you, you, you, can plan, you plan everything in advance, meaning that, for example, you're not gonna make one game, then wait to see, like, what's going to happen. And then try, you could do that, like, you could, you could iterate after each project. But what you could do is old. And that's what we recommend, is to plan in advance and make sure that Gamification and games are part of your strategy. So it means that for example, in adventure will define Okay, campaign number one will include an instant win game mechanic, campaign number two will include, like a quiz, and so on, and so on. So you plan maybe the next four or five, six campaigns with different game mechanics and from there, you will be able to iterate and test and learn if you know what I mean. So that's why it's like when you, when you run, like a newsletter campaign, you're not going to send just one newsletter. So you're going to send multiple newsletters, maybe every, every month, or every quarter. So with Gamification, it's exactly the same, it should be part of your strategy. And you should make sure that it's integrated and you don't expect amazing results on the very first one, you will have to make a few to get what you, what you want.

Botond Seres 26:58
Speaking of strategy, how can we make sure that our Gamification plan is actually aligned with our business goals and strategies? So what, what should we look out for, like? I know it sounds pretty obvious that if I want people to participate in my new discount program, I, I want to do a instant win mechanic. But in a broader sense, let's say that I'm a company that wants to do everything, like at a fixed price, never give discounts, never do any of the common strategies. Like how could I align that very peculiar strategy with a Gamification plan?

Damien Roux 27:49
I think it will be, it will be about creating content with added value. So you don't have to always give away promo codes, but for example, if you've got, like a specific product, and you don't want to do like, any, any discounts, and things like that, you could use Gamification just to engage with your community. So creating a quiz, creating games, creating content that's interactive, and playful, to make sure that your community and engage with the content and that's it. And you will develop your community and you will develop your customer base. And that's how Gamification will amplify your marketing efforts. But just to make sure that everything is aligned with your business strategy, is… for you, it would be just integrating Gamification to things that you are already doing. So you don't have to experiment or explore new ways of communication. It's more like if you've been planning a newsletter or an emailing campaign, just add Gamification to it. If you've been planning, like an advertising campaign on, like paid out paid ads on Facebook, let's say, just add Gamification to it again. So just sprinkle Gamification everywhere. And that's how you will get, like the first results. And that's how you will see that your engagement rates will, will go through the roof, because people love playing and games are ringing this difference, this added value that makes everything you do much better and much more engaging.

Dave Erickson 29:18
Is there a difference between how Gamification is applied or used between a b2c company and a b2b company? I mean, I would assume a,a b2b company is looking more for acquiring information, whereas a b2c company is looking more about promoting kinds of products and getting users to buy or to interact with products. Is that correct or is there not really much of a difference?

Damien Roux 29:51
I would say that because at the end of the day, you are talking to humans, you're talking to people, it's more or less the same. It doesn't really matter if you're trying to sell a product to a business or trying to sell a product to, to an end user. So we don't see much difference when it's about marketing and selling. It's more about when you go like to into the HR thing, where you can use like Gamification for onboarding for on prior branding and things like that, where you can see a difference between b2b and b2c. But like, let's say you go for a tradeshow, for example, and you want to use a game during the trade show in your booth. It doesn't really matter if the people you're talking to are b2b or b2c, you will still find, find a game and create a game that will engage with them. So yeah, so I would say like, the approach is roughly the same. But obviously, the content you put inside the game is personalized, customized and better targeted, depending on who you're talking to.

Dave Erickson 30:54
So if I was a, let's just say, a b2b business selling services, a Gamification strategy that I could use would be first, to get engagement, I would want to find out in that engagement, more information about what the person is looking for. So the style of Gamification that may work best for that would be some kind of quiz type Gamification, is that correct?

Christopher Bradley 31:24
So yeah, I mean, if you're looking to like, seek information or feedback, then we've got like a game engine, which is just like, I guess, a survey or a poll. And it's, it's exactly that you can customize it however you want to to get the information that you're looking for. See, I mean, like Question and Answer style games, if you're, if you're looking to seek information, like qualitative feedback on say, like developing a product, that's absolutely what you'd go for. But if you know, it depends on exactly what your sort of b2b goals are. Like, if you're at say, like, like, like a trade fair, or a corporate event, or like a meet and greet, you might maybe be using Gamification as a way to kind of like network and, you know, get people to, you know, give contact details, or even just as a bit of an icebreaker, just to get people to come over to your stand where maybe like, just having like a leaderboard up will be quite good. And you could into, you could, you could introduce as well, like we have, throughout all the games you make on a platform, you can put things like intermediate screens up. So say you complete a level, it could come up with like, a video or some audio or a picture and some text, you know, whatever, whatever you want. You know, and things like we've got like word games as well where like, like a little bit like Wordle, I guess. And when you get the word right,, it can come up with a piece of interactive content. Same with like. things like memory cards, like when you get a match, you can come up and then that can be part of your branded content, or something that you're trying to get across. But it's obviously interweaved in the process of this game, because like, like I was saying about earlier in the podcast, Gamification, but we're not. It's not we're not just doing things to entertain people. It's a vehicle. So it can be a vehicle to get across those like targeted messages. If, if that makes sense.

Damien Roux 33:09
And the best would also be, like to mix all the game mechanics together. So it means that for example, we've got a module that's called the dynamic path, where you can create like multiple steps, and each step can be a different game. So for example, it doesn't really matter if it's b2b or b2c. But if you want to engage people, you could have like, three steps. First step could be a game like to grab attention. So get points,be part of the leaderboard and the ranking. Game number two could be a quiz. So that's where you will be asking your questions, you know, like, do your market study. But the good point is, it's step number two. So you've been engaging the users at step number one, so they are into the experience, they are quite keen to answer your questions. And then on step two, you're asking those questions, so you get better results, better engagement. And then step three, could be an instant win game where you tell them thanks very much for participating into this experience. Now, scratch this card or spin this wheel, and try to get to win something like uh goodies or something. So the beauty of Gamification is that you are not restricted to just one game mechanic. The best is to create multiple experiences combined together. And that's where you get the best engagement.

Dave Erickson 34:25
Got it? So you can actually string together several types of game mechanics to take a person on a gaming journey through your products or your brand. Okay, all right.

Damien Roux 34:39
And it can be, it can be spread also across like a period of time. So you could say, Okay, we want to create, like a loyalty program for all of our customers. And we want this loyalty program to last 12 months. So you could decide that each month you're going to unlock a new game. So when they start game number one on the first month They will see that there are 12 games. So until December, let's say, an each month, it's a way for you to also communicate, it's an excuse, you know, like to get in touch with your customer base, and tell them when your game has been unlocked, come to our website, come to our portal, play the game, get points, and at the end of the year, if you're part of the top, in the in the leaderboard, you will get a prize, or you will be part of prize draw, for example. But so that's why it's it. That's what Chris was saying, you know about storytelling, you have to tell the story and the story doesn't have to be like five minutes, it could be five months, you know, or five years if you want.

Botond Seres 35:39
This got me wondering, do we actually have Gamification that is more leaning towards aptitudes, like reflexes or image recognition or whatever, like, more more difficult Gamification is what I'm trying to get at is, is that a thing?

Damien Roux 36:00
It's really down to the content you put in each game mechanic, because for example, a quiz could be really simple, if you put really simple content in it. But if you want to go for a personality test for recruitment, you could go into, like specific questions that are quite technical. Or even, let's say you want to hire a developer, and you want to test their knowledge on such or such skills, you could create a quiz with really technical questions in it. So what we are doing is we are providing a solution like a Gamification solution, but what you do with it and how complex it becomes, is down to the contents you will input in Drimify.

Dave Erickson 36:38
I think a lot of people, when they hear the word Gamification, they think in their mind, an actual game, like they're going to play a game, and you obviously have that, right. But when you play a game, it's limited on the data or the information that you can gain from the person who's playing the game. So I think with most games, like puzzles, or actual, you know, going through a first person shooter game, or a driving game or anything like that, the objective of the Gamification may not necessarily be gathering information, the objective of that game may be, provide a little bit of enjoyment and if they get a certain score, or if they achieve a certain goal in that quote, game, then they get something or they get access to something is that correct? Or can games where you're actually playing the game, yield data as well?

Damien Roux 37:39
You're getting data when people are playing the game itself, because for example, on Drimifyi, you can create as many intermediate screens as you want before and after the game experience. So again, like the game is an excuse to get people engaged. So before they can access the game, if you want, you could show them, like maybe one to three different intermediate screens where one could be, data collection. So you grab the data before they play. So you make sure you get data first, then you could have like one intermediate screen, showing them a video video about your business virtual products, then let's say they could access the game and play the game. Then after the game experience before they reach the recap and the leaderboard on the screen, you could again like show them maybe a page where you embed your social media in it. So you could have like small icons, taking them to tick tock, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever. So the game is part of the experience. But you've got a lot to do before and after the game experience. So that's why Gamification brings this disengagement and grabs people's attention.

Dave Erickson 38:51
So you could design or you could take a game, say like a, I don't know, a tank game where you're driving a tank, and you go through different levels. And so the first level, you shoot three tanks, and then there's kind of a break and it says, hey, please go to our social media here and there. Or it'll ask a question, Hey, before you go to the next level, how did you like the game? Or what do you think? I don’t know, you know, Coca Cola or whatever. Oh, great. Thank you. Now, here's the next level. And if you can get this level in x, then you will receive a bonus. And then they go through that section. That can be the next one. Hey, to get your bonus, you need to take, checkout this product. And if you buy the product, you get an extra 20% off or whatever. And then you can come back to the game for the next level. Is that a Gamification strategy?

Damien Roux 39:48
You got it. Yeah, that's it.

Botond Seres 39:52
Do you guys do ARGs? alternative reality games I think

Damien Roux 40:00
augmented reality, you know? Yeah, Not yet Not yet.

Botond Seres 40:04
Not augmented. It's, it's more like, let's say I'm Coca Cola, but I'm putting up a fake website, which, instead of Coca Cola, it says Cola, right. And I fit in clues which point to a specific location, and people who actually get out there, and they can find the next clue. And then the next and then the next and maybe at the final stage, they get entered into a huge sweep, sweepstakes.

Damien Roux 40:39
Okay, see? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we've done something like that, for example, it was for, like an energy provider, and they were moving their offices to a bigger place, a new place. And what they wanted to do is they wanted like the 700 staff that were in, the in that building, to learn about the new place. So what, what we've done it was this. So you connect to Drimify. You are accessing step one, step one was telling you, go down to the reception, find, find the secret code. So you go down to the reception, find the secret code, access the first game, it was a quiz, why do we have this statue in the hole, blah, blah? So you had to answer this question. And then it was telling you now, go on the rooftop, find the crew, and so on, and so on, and so on. So you are unlocking steps as you go as part of the treasure hunt. And at the same time, you were like discovering the different places in the new building. So that's a way to keep people engaged. And it's a mix of physical and digital. So it's called phygital. That's where you create, like an experience where digital takes you to a physical location.

Dave Erickson 41:46
I want to bring up, kind of, a subject that has been very popular lately. And I don't know how it would fit into Gamification. What about AI? How does AI fit into Gamification? How do you think AI is going to affect Gamification in the future?

Christopher Bradley 42:06
So yeah, I mean, AI kind of came out of nowhere, I guess for a lot of, for a lot of people. And I think in terms of Gamification, I mean, even beyond Gamification, where is AI not going to be integrated in a few years, like, just in terms of like, I mean, the game creation process, at the moment on the back end is, like really quite, quite easy. Like the user experience, it's a bit like, you know, if you think about building a website, imagine not, but not having, like, you know, Wix, or WordPress, or some kind of content management system to put it together. So we're already kind of at that stage, and then it's just, like, incrementally just things are gonna get easier, just like little details, I guess you could also have, I think you'll be able to get a AI to basically test test your games as well, to help with that side of it. Like, you know, it's, it's a bit of a crystal ball moment, but I think that's what we can kind of safely assume is the direction will probably, like, it's probably going to go.

Damien Roux 43:09
And also you know, it will, it will, it will help with the content creation, for sure. So for example, instead of, let's say you need to write a description for your game, instead of writing it from scratch, you might get some help from AI. So that's one thing. But also, like, in terms of interactions, what we will be able to do like with creating gamified, chatbots, and things like that. So yeah, so plenty of possibilities. I cannot unveil the, our roadmap. Just now. But yeah, yeah, we are on the, on that subject. And yeah, it's exciting.

Botond Seres 43:42
So I mean, we were talking about AI. And one of the things I'm thinking is ,in the future, we can just go to Drimify and just write in the prompt like, Hey, I'm so and so company, and then the campaign for so and so amount of people. I have this budget and just building a campaign. And at that point,

Damien Roux 44:07
It's being added to the roadmap.

Botond Seres 44:11
Everyone, I think

Damien Roux 44:16
That's a really good idea.

Dave Erickson 44:19
Well, this might be a good opportunity to talk a little bit about Drimify. How can a business example I'm I'm a b2b business. Let's call it a small to medium sized business. I want to incorporate Gamification somehow into my marketing and sales. I've heard about Drimify, I go to Drimify. How is Drimify, how can Drimify help a business? What are the tools that Drimify provides? And, and if I was such a business, what would you recommend them to do on Drimify or use Drimify?

Christopher Bradley 45:01
So yeah, I mean, if you're, if you're a business and you're looking to start using Gamification, first thing to do is to go and create an account, which is free to do. And then you can, you know, go into your Drimify dashboard, I think the first thing you'll see is probably a video just quickly running you through how to actually create games and use, like navigate the platform, just start creating things and just see, see what's possible, we've got case studies as well have a read of them. Yeah, just just start playing around with it and see, see if the case studies kind of resonate with your kind of challenges as well, we've got a lot of content on the back end, too. So yeah, and yeah, I would just, I would just create an account, just start playing around and just see, because when you know, it's like anything, once you start doing it, that's when the ideas start to come. So you might have an idea, like, oh, we could maybe use a game in this way, but then you start, you know, trying different game engines, like maybe you start playing around with a quiz, or maybe you start playing around with a dynamic path where you can put multiple levels together, and you'd be like, because, you know, your brain just kind of solves problems, kind of like, you know, subconsciously. So, you know, just start playing around with it and, you know, see, see where you end up. And you know, if you need to, you can always ask us for, you know, a little bit of help or a nudge in the right direction.

Damien Roux 46:20
Also, you can create an account, you can start customizing and creating games for free, have a preview of what you're doing. But I mean, if as a business, you know what to do, and you know what you want to do with Gamification and Drimify, you can just help yourself and do it directly on Drimify.com. But then if you're a small business, and you've got no idea about what to do, and you need, like, some help to get started, you can also talk to us because we like, as I've said, like Drimify is a product of the Dreamlike agency. So we are also like a creative digital agency. And I would say that we are supporting and helping maybe 20% of our customers. So a lot of them are doing everything on their own. But a lot of clients, like, small or big, they need help, or they need support, or maybe they don't have the resources, or they need inspiration and ideas. So that's where you can also benefit from, from our 15 years of expertise. So yeah, talk to us, there is a live chat, you can send us by a contact form, you can talk to us on LinkedIn. So yeah, just to get inspired by our experience by our expertise, and take it from there.

Dave Erickson 47:20
And do you have tools on Drimify that help businesses integrate the games into their websites and mobile apps and stuff like that?

Damien Roux 47:40
Yep,we do. Yeah, so first, integration is really simple. So it's a link or it's like some sort of iframe, you know, like a copy paste, just like the same way you are integrating a YouTube video to website, you can copy paste a piece of code and integrate Drimify or game to your website as well. And then we've got many different integrations with API's, we are using Zapier, we are using Make. So yeah, there are plenty of ways of connecting Drimify to your existing ecosystem CRM, you know, like Salesforce apps, but so the idea is to automate as much as you can. So everything is to automate as much as you can, and Gamification becomes part of your marketing strategy.

Dave Erickson 48:20
And if someone creates a game on Drimify, how long do they get to use that game? Or is that game permanent? And they can use that link forever once they've created it? Or do they have timeframes? Or Should a business even expect to use a game for very long? Are most games designed to be short term or long term?

Christopher Bradley 48:40
Yeah, so there's, I guess, there's like a few ways I can come at answering this question. And I'll, I'll do, I'll do all of them. So I guess like the first one, how long would you run a game for? If it's like a marketing game or like a contest or a competition probably between two and six weeks. If you make it too short? You know, your customers are gonna miss it. If you make it too long, you miss that sense of urgency or that sense of FOMO where it's like, Oh, I better get but uh, but uh, you know, Spin to Win or whatever, like, get involved. You know, if it's, if it's like, if it's running for a whole year, there's no kind of like, a need to do it. Now. It's like, you know, people get bored or they'll forget. So if it's like that marketing game, there's that kind of sweet spot between two and six weeks, although, you know, it varies and different things work for different audiences. On the other hand, you could use Gamification to, or like, certainly the Drimify Gamification platform to build out like a quiz to train staff, you know, and that's something you're going to want to have running year round, probably, especially if you're a bigger business, and you're, you know, you're working with like, you know, reasonably high turnover, like, you know, you, you might want to keep that game going year round. If it's, you know, in education, if it's in a school, again, you know, you might want to keep it open for a long time. But also, if you build a game on the Drimify Gamification platform, it's there in your dashboard, you've set the dates, like, I want this live from this date to this date. And you can, you know, stop it, or you could run a campaign, if it works really well. And you'd want to run it again next year, you've got the skeleton of it in your dashboard, just update it, you know, tweak it, however you see fit from, you know, when you calculate the ROI and looked at the metrics, and you saw what worked, tweak it around, send it out for next year. If you keep doing Gamification, again, and again, especially because you've got the game saved. If it's something that you're gonna be using every year, you've got yourself a self sharpening tool, essentially, because you try it one year, it may be you give it a B+, when you're calculating the ROI. But you see, in the metrics, like people were dropping out of the experience at this stage, let's improve that then next year, maybe it gets an A, what can you improve? Next year maybe you get it to an A plus, you know, it's, you know, it's a broad question. It depends what you're using it for, I hope, I hope that helps in some way.

Damien Roux 51:12
And even for marketing campaigns, you could consider going yearly, because you will need, like, if you remember what we said earlier, you have to repeat what works and you have to bring Gamification as part of your strategy. So if you're running a campaign, even if the campaign is between two and six weeks, you might, you might want to do it like every month or every couple of months or every quarter. So that's why I like using Drimify and again, like the same way you are using emails or newsletter, softwares or any software, you know, like you use for your digital marketing, or HR, you could be using Drimify the exact same way.

Dave Erickson
Got it. Got it.

Damien Roux
Because the more the more you the more you will use it, the more results you will get, the more engagement

Dave Erickson
perfect.

Botond Seres 51:57
What does the future of Gamification look like?

Christopher Bradley 52:10
I think the future will be Drimified.

Botond Seres 52:15
Yes, I think we can end right there

Damien Roux 52:20
No, no, that's perfect. That's perfect. We've got the new tagline. You're, the future should be Drimified. Perfect.

Dave Erickson 52:40
All righty. Well, Damien and Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to fill us in on Gamification and how it can grow a business. For our listeners. Please join us in the first week of next month for another ScreamingBox technology and business rundown podcast and until then stay healthy and happy.

Dave Erickson Outro
Thank you very much for taking this journey with us. Join us for our next exciting exploration of technology in business in the first week of every month. Please help us by subscribing, liking and following us on whichever platform you're listening to or watching us on. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and please let us know any subjects or topics you'd like us to discuss in our next podcast by leaving a message for us in the comment sections or sending us a Twitter DM. Till next month. Please stay happy and healthy.

Summary:

02:03 - How did you get started with Drimify?

04:27 - How can Gamification help businesses engage customers and improve brand loyalty?

07:03 - Specific Gamification experiences that work better than others.

12:04 - How to use games to improve the KPIs of your website.

17:17 - An example of a small business that is starting with Gamification?

20:56 - Can Gamification be implemented at every stage of the customer journey?

25:59 - Plan in advance and make sure that Gamification and games are part of your strategy.

31:24 - How to use Gamification to get the information you want to get.

34:25 - What are the types of game mechanics and how do you apply them?

41:33 - How does AI fit into the future of Gamification?

44:19 - Do you have tools on Drimify that help businesses integrate games into their websites and mobile apps?

48:20 - How long are games created on Drimify last?

51:57 - What does the future of Gamification look like?

52:40 - Outro

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Dave Erickson, Botond Seres, Damien Roux, drimify.com, Christopher Bradley, Gamification, game, people, business, website, create, work, product, b2b, part, gamified, talking, playing, campaign, quiz, question, customers, KPI, b2c, platform