When appropriately executed, gamification projects can prove to be powerful engagement tools. That said, most of these projects do not guarantee desired results. Gamification has become a buzzword in the tech market for the myriad of benefits it holds for companies looking to increase employee/customer engagement. However, as is the case with virtually everything, gamification has its pitfalls alongside the power it holds. Therefore, it may succeed in certain circumstances and fail in others, and you being a major stakeholder, have an inherent role in determining the fate of your Spot the Ball competition project.

Listed below are 5 steps that can result in the inevitable failure of your competition site:

1. Don't do any marketing research

Some people possess the tendency to dive straight into the project without even understanding its dynamics. Such overconfidence can prove detrimental to the success of your project. Not having done any prior marketing research is a major pitfall as gamification is one technique that requires extensive primary research and comprehension. Before embarking on a project, not only should one be familiar with the users but also know how they should go about the competition site, every step of the way.

With proper audience research and constant trial and error with small budgets you can get enough data to make informed decisions on what ad creative works and to which pages you should link your ads.

We do not provide PPC advertising or SEO services, but our designers can work with your marketing team to create and optimise the pages for your ad campaigns and tinker them for the correct audience. Start thinking about SEO early, come up with all the necessary keywords, page titles, descriptions, etc and we will help you smoothly implement it into your competition site.

2. Constantly change design

While gamification holds the potential of entirely transforming the process of your marketing campaign, the design of the game is vital for getting the desired results. Continuously changing the design of your site does not allow for it to develop into its best possible form. One must find and agree on one unique vision so it can be refined as much as possible rather than changing it every now and then and letting efforts go to waste.

3. Rely only on yourself and disregard teamwork

Again, overconfidence always sinks the ship. Instead of relying on yourself, one must work within a group as it can help solve complex problems. Brainstorming is an excellent opportunity for the team to discuss ideas and develop innovative ways of doing things. By working in a team, you can find the solutions that reap the best results. As such, you should find and consult a team of professionals for every aspect of the site. This will make the entire process a walk in the park for you.

4. Chase vanity

It's very easy to get 100k impressions within 24 hrs of setting up a FB campaign. Buying thousands of Brasilian visitors to your site is cheap, looks impressive in your analytics, and feels good for a time. Chances of them spending money - closer to 0. You will need proper audience research and tailor-made targeting for each platform and audience for your project to succeed. That takes time, patience, and planning.

As is the famous saying, all that glitters is not gold; one must not focus on the vanity of their project, for what matters most is achieving the objective, the real purpose of the design. i.e., customer engagement. Your focus should be directed towards optimizing the competition site and advertising to target and ultimately convert players into paying customers.

5. Never learn from your experience

Projects fail and they can fail even when you've done everything right. Failures exist to teach us valuable lessons. Not learning from these failures or your experience, in general is detrimental in every aspect of life. The same applies to failed gamification projects. They provide you with an opportunity to learn from your mistakes, where you went wrong and where you lacked, so you can avoid making the same mistake again. 

Your landing pages didn't convert? Use this data for future optimization.

Users did not return after one game? You can learn how to improve UX to retain customers. 

Your ads did not work? Learn how to precisely target your proper audience (or switch marketing teams and let them do it).

Everything is a learning experience.

On the other hand doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results sounds too close to the definition of insanity. Therefore, we always advise our clients to use failed projects to learn and improve for future projects.