5 Ways to Get More Out of Salesforce.com Using Gamification

RobBy Robert Mullany, Sales Engineer, Bunchball
robert.mullany@bunchball.com /@RobertMullany

Enterprise gamification has gained a lot of traction over the past year. As with other “firsts” in Gamification, Bunchball has led the way in the use of game mechanics to motivate employees within the enterprise. We’ve worked with companies to integrate game mechanics across a wide spectrum of enterprise applications and developed Nitro for Salesforce. Nitro for Salesforce is the first out-of-the-box solution for adding gamification to Salesforce.com and was awarded the Best New App Award at Dreamforce 2011.

When we talk to organizations about gamification, common questions that arise are “Where are game mechanics best suited to motivate employees?” or “Where can our organization start with Gamification?” While game mechanics can deliver value to a wide number of functions and the answer should be tailored based on the needs of each individual organization, here are some ideas to get you started:

Sales Teams

Sales Contests and “spiff” programs have been around as long as sales teams. Managers have long struggled with manual tracking methods while participants have found themselves with little visibility to the results until after the contest has ended. Clearly, if the goal of the contest is to drive behavior, this is a major downfall. Nitro for Salesforce can automate these contests while providing users with visibility into where they stand in the contest by tracking activities such as call volume, lead conversions and opportunity wins. Nitro for Salesforce

Customer Service Reps

Customer service reps are often measured on the number of cases resolved, speed of case resolution, and customer satisfaction scores. This provides a wealth of quantitative data accessible by Nitro for Salesforce around which a gamification program can be built.

Customer Service Case Deflection

Many companies are investing in the Salesforce customer portal and knowledge base to enable customers to self-service support inquiries. However, potentially as a result of convenience, potentially just out of habit, many customers still pick up the phone and call customer service reps. Game mechanics in Nitro for Salesforce can encourage customers to not only use the existing knowledge base content but also to contribute content and respond to questions in public Q&A forums using Salesforce.com’s Answers module. One customer supporting another not only reduces the burden on an organization’s support teams, but also displays an active community to potential customers.

Training and Education

Whether facilitated through a formal Learning Management System (LMS) or through Salesforce.com directly, new employee training and ongoing employee education are generally high priorities. They are also areas where organizations struggle with a lack of motivation and limited analytics. Game mechanics can motivate employees to complete the required training while also providing managers with detailed analytics around what is working and what may need fine tuning. Since Nitro can be leveraged across platforms, certifications or points earned in an LMS system can be displayed on a User’s profile in Salesforce.com.

Chatter Adoption

More and more organizations are buying into the vision of the Social Enterprise yet still struggle with how to make it a reality. As a reformed Chatter-skeptic, I fully understand the hesitance facing many users: “does this tool provide any real value for me?” Nitro for Salesforce served as the catalyst to convert me into a believer. When I began at Bunchball, I found that posting to Chatter was a quick way to boost my meager score in Nitro. Since others had discovered the same, our Chatter community was flush with active users looking for conversations where they could add value. As a result, users were able to experience the value of the system firsthand. As a Sales Engineer, I discovered that I could answer a technical question once publicly instead of 35 times via email. We still have an active community as everyone has now seen firsthand the value Chatter provides.

Bunchball Guest Post: Gamification – Rules Of Engagement?

Special guest post from Bunchball partner Bluewolf. By Kate Hagemann, Director of Change Management & Adoption, Bluewolf

This special guest post is a follow-up to Kate’s previous post, Gamification – Why Play?

Now, let’s discuss what to consider if the organization has said, “We want to play.” As with any major program that an organization wants to implement, there are serious considerations to implementing a gamification strategy. 

Suggestions/Challenges/Risks:

  • A well-done gamificationstrategy takes constant updates. Stale games or having no new challenges upon completing the first challenge can be demotivating. Employees/consumers will think, “Is that all? Do they think we aren’t any smarter than this and we couldn’t complete this challenge?” Have several ready to deploy immediately and be agile with updates if the game is not a success.
  • The games need to be relevant – a solid gamification strategy gets people to accomplish something they need to accomplish. Don’t insert a random fun-only game into work just to have fun. Make it count or colleagues will think they are not valued for the actual work they do. 
  • Have relevant rewards for various audiences – there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the prize/reward. One person may want points and badges to earn a gift card, another may just want verbal or written recognition, while yet another may want lunch with the boss or a free day off. Know the employees’ and consumers’ “5 Languages of Appreciation” and allow people to be rewarded as they want to be.
  • The game must be challenging, but not impossible. If it is too easy, the organization will not be able to keep up with providing new challenges and employees/consumers will feel disrespected. If it’s too difficult, it may demotivate people who think they can’t possibly win so they will not even try. 
  • Be sure to consider the basic fundamentals of driving change. In addition to the rewards, remember to address any risks to employees and consumers associated to the behavior the organization wants to drive. If applicable, be sure to take away replacements to the wanted behavior/action (such as other tools, other products, etc.) and have back up strategies to drive change such as accountability for employees who do not embrace the change. If the risks outweigh the rewards, the current state is comfortable, and there is no accountability, no game will drive the behavior. Think and execute holistically on your gamification strategy.
  • Communicate regularly – do not implement a game and forget to communicate. Just because it is there does not mean people will know the value proposition for them to engage in the game. Address the standard who, what, where, when, why and how fundamentals. Have a communications plan alongside the gamification strategy and implement it as a total package to ensure success.

As I was introduced to gaming at work, I realized how it brought out the closet gamer in me. There is definitely a value proposition for organizations to embark upon a gamificationstrategy. However, my experience dictates the suggestions I make above. Though it boosted my engagement on the behaviors Bluewolf is looking to drive, we will continue to do even better as we go back through my checklist. Like with any technology implementation, we will approach our gamification strategy as a continuously evolving program. 

Change management consulting is the #1 reason organizations succeed with technology adoption. Check out Bluewolf”s Change Management Consulting Practice and join the agile conversation with Bluewolf on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Taking a Look at Transmedia

By Chris Sullivan, Regional Vice President, Sales, Bunchball
Chris Sullivan, @Sully63 

Have you been hearing the term Transmedia a lot lately? I certainly have from the Media clients that I work with. So I went to Wikipedia to check the definition.

“Transmedia storytelling (also known as multiplatform storytelling) is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies, not to be confused with traditional cross-platform media franchises, sequels or adaptations.

From a production standpoint, it involves creating content that engages an audience using various techniques to permeate their daily lives. In order to achieve this engagement, a transmedia production will develop stories across multiple forms of media in order to deliver unique pieces of content over multiple channels. Importantly, these pieces of content are not only linked together (overtly or subtly), but are in narrative synchronization with each other”.

It is still the early days in this genre but in its purest form this type of entertainment experience is very compelling for the audience and takes advantage of the multi-screen craze that has infiltrated living rooms everywhere. How many screens are going when your family is watching TV? In my house two teenagers and one soon-to-be teenager ensures that there is never a lull in the digital action.

Jesse Redniss, Sr. VP for Digital at USA Network is a true pioneer in this space. The recent Hashtag Killer gamification campaign was created to support their Psych program. At The Mike Johnson blog, you can view a video of Jesse Redniss at Social Media Week running down the program itself and some of the amazing results it drove:

  • 128 million total page views
  • 15 minutes per visit on the site
  • 60% of users returned more than five times
  • 15% of users returned every day

These types of transmedia experiences will become more and more prevalent as creative marketers learn to utilize all the tools at their disposal to drive sustainable engagement. The audience will continue to participate more fully when they can be an integral part of the story itself.

This past weekend I was in Baltimore and went to the building where they filmed one of my favorite shows from back in the day, Homicide Life on the Street. If you happen to be a fan of The Wire, Homicide was its predecessor. Now, nearly 20 years after the program debuted, I can still remember how riveted I was with the story and the characters that drove it. If today’s technology existed back then I am sure I would have happily participated in an ongoing digital loyalty program as a fan of the show and in the transmedia experiences that flow from it.

At Bunchball, we are proud to be a small part of the group of partners working with USA Network to break new ground!

Guest Post: Gamification – Why Play?

Special guest post from Bunchball partner Bluewolf. By Kate Hagemann, Director of Change Management & Adoption, Bluewolf

I am not a ‘gamer.’ I have not downloaded Angry Birds to my iPhone. I do not regularly play any video games, excluding the occasional Rock Band performance. Don’t stop reading now though, thinking, “Why is she writing a blog about gamification?”

The answer is: gamification has actually brought out the gamer in me. This has proven to me that there is a value proposition for companies to embark upon the research, strategy and execution of gamification for their organizations. Statistically, over 70% of employees are disengaged at work and are costing billions of dollars in lost productivity, poor performance, and poor service to their customers.

My personal experience with gamification at Bluewolf, with past employers, and current clients has helped me see how it can be used to engage currently disengaged employees and drive the desired behaviors. 

Gamification is the use of game mechanics to encourage and reward certain behaviors. Some simple common examples include the use of earning points to drive consumer loyalty (think of airlines and hotels) or progress statuses like consumers see on Turbo Tax showing the road-map of where they are, when they will be done, current return or amount owed, etc.

With Wii Fit, consumers “unlock” new exercises upon completing others. Now, salesforce.com has plug-ins where organizations can leverage badges, points, rankings, and leaderboards to drive frequent, consistent, and quality user adoption of the organizations’ business processes within the application.

Advantages to Gamification:

  • Games can facilitate a sense of accomplishment. Showing people from where they came, where they are and where they are going gives purpose. It’s a proven fact that having goals, clear expectations and seeing value of a job done well drives engagement.
  • Games can facilitate healthy competition among sales people who are driven by being at the top of a leaderboard. I personally worked late one night just to get to the #1 seat on our Chatter Leaderboard. I was devastated when I awoke the next morning and had been bumped down to #3 by my UK team. I started posting more comments – relevant to my work – but mostly to get back to #1 (I’ll explain further in my next post).
  • Games drive more attempts to be successful. Statistically, the billions of people gaming lose 80% of the time, but still return to complete a challenge presented. The sense of accomplishment when presented with a challenge emits emotion where emotion may have previously been absent, also driving more engagement.
  • Implementing a gamification strategy can also simply be fun for employees and consumers. When done well, it shows colleagues and consumers that the organization cares about their engagement. A good tip is to leverage various employees in the organization and consumer focus groups to design the game to ensure what will be fun, relevant, and motivating to them. 

Though a new word in the industry, gamification is not a new concept. For eons, humans have been motivated by competition, fun, and personal challenges. We just now have so many new technologies and social networks permitting us to reach a much wider audience. When done well through a full plan/execution strategy and the inclusion of employees and consumers, it can drive change and increase engagement providing an organization with some exciting results.

For suggestions on what to consider as you use gamification within your organization, stay tuned for my next blog:”Gamification – Rules of Engagement?”

Join the agile conversation with Bluewolf on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

3 Sponsorship Ideas for Gamification

By Katherine Heisler, Account Executive, Bunchball
Katherine.Heisler@bunchball.com /@katheisler

By now you’ve heard about the powerful metrics gamification can drive on sites. According to the third party agency Hobson Associates, Bunchball customers on average boast a +40% increase in uniques, +100% increase in page views, +85% increase in time on site, and +100% increase on repeat visits. These are the type of statistics advertisers drool over, and they will definitely help you sell the basic ad units on your site. But gamification is all about differentiating your site while rewarding your users for loyalty, and we don’t see why this shouldn’t apply to your advertisers as well.

Go beyond the CPM with these 3 sponsorship ideas for your gamification deployment:

1. Sponsored Gamification Widgets. It’s harder to ignore messaging that is ingrained in my experience than it is to ignore messaging that is on the sideline of my experience. Bunchball’s Nitro platform offers widgets that house gamification elements like Leaderboards, Trophy Cases, Profiles, Trivia and Social Broadcasting. All of these widgets are completely skinnable and customizable, so you can offer your sponsors a chance to “own” them for a predetermined amount of time. These sponsorable widgets can be a great upsell to reinforce branding for advertisers who purchase ad units on your site. Internet users are increasingly wired to ignore standard ad units, but when they check out their standing on the leaderboard, sponsored by your sponsor, there’s a more direct branding opportunity that reach people who are already highly engaged with the gamification experience.

2. Leverage Registration for Leads. People are inundated with whitepaper and webinar offerings that are used for lead generation. Besides over-saturation, these invites fall on deaf ears because it’s not really about the prospect – it’s about the advertiser. Gamification can be used to reinvent lead generation efforts by satisfying human needs rather than work musts. For example, you could launch a trivia game that’s accessible after a registration page.  Trivia creates incentives for people to show off their smarts and it satisfies their need for status with points and leaderboard standings. Every month can feature a new sponsor that receives the leads generated from those who played the game. To make it even more appealing to your advertiser and your cash flow, you could work with your sponsor to include targeted questions and answers in the game that indicate a valuable quality of a lead, and you can sell those who qualified at a premium price.  Or maybe your advertiser is seeking highly educated leads about the trivia topic. You could sell the top ten performers pulled from our leaderboards at an A-grade price as well.

3. Feature a Sponsored Gamification Track. The previous two ideas give your sponsors a way to be uniquely highlighted on your site, but why not bring them all the way into the action? Work with sponsors to create specific challenges or tracks to motivate your users to engage with their brand. This can be done as simply as using featured challenges like, “Share this sponsor message on Twitter or Facebook for 25 points,” or you could go deeper (at a higher price point) to create a separate program focused entirely on your sponsor. With Bunchball’s platform Nitro, you can create a new point category and incorporate branded badges for your sponsor’s program. These special points and badges can only be earned when users complete challenges focused on the sponsor’s content. Naturally, the end game should be a coveted reward only your sponsor could offer or perhaps entry into a sweepstakes, also sponsored by your client. Users would need X amount of sponsored points or must have earned the sponsor’s badge in order to be eligible for the reward or entry. Thanks to the robust nature of the Nitro platform, these challenges and rewards can be extended to teams as well.

A gamification program will enable you to offer truly unique and valuable campaigns for sponsors that will award your company, your advertisers, and your users alike. If you’ve been thinking about how to pay for gamification technology, now you have three ideas to bring to your team. Have some additional sponsorship ideas? Let me know, and good selling! 

The Next Wave of Loyalty Technology

By Kyle Clark, Sales Engineer, Bunchball
kyle.clark@bunchball.com /@kylepclark 

How many loyalty programs are you a member of?  Better yet, how many loyalty programs are you an active member of?  Are you an active member because the program offers you the best discount, or because you truly love the brand?  These are the questions that keep Loyalty Marketing professionals up at night.

It is no secret that consumers flock to loyalty programs that offer instant discounts and savings.  However this is an expensive proposition for a company that wishes to increase retention and engagement.  The facts are that 63% of consumers join discount style programs, while another 55% join programs that allow you to earn and redeem points for products and services.  So in order to increase loyalty, do you have to buy it?

Loyalty Fatigue Syndrome

According to recent Forrester research, many companies introduce loyalty programs with the hope of increasing customer retention (58%), increasing profitability/revenue (48%), and increasing engagement (37%).  Colloquy numbers have consistently shown that enrollment in loyalty programs is up, but the average consumer remains active in less than half of these programs.  Additionally, out of the $48 billion earned annually in program rewards, $16 billion goes unredeemed.  Both of these are signs that the traditional loyalty model is showing fatigue.  The model may be effective, but is slowly losing its ability to engage consumers. 

Let’s face it – loyalty programs are a commodity, and everyone has one.  But what makes the loyalty program a commodity?  In a simple form, a loyalty program rewards you for the behaviors that add value to the company.  The more you participate, the more rewards you achieve.  The problem is, although the earning and redeeming structures are unique in each program, the basic idea is the same.  Participate, earn, redeem.  That’s it.

A product becomes a commodity when it is indistinguishable from like products.  Imagine coffee – a commodity – the average consumer doesn’t care where the bean was grown in Colombia, they only care that Starbucks roasted it.  In a loyalty program, this is what consumers see between programs - a variety of undifferentiated offerings.  What makes this so?  Are Loyalty Strategists behind on industry trends? 

The Loyalty Technology Gap 

Loyalty Technology is the offender.  The original loyalty technology was rudimentary – stamps on a card that could be redeemed for rewards or discounts (Subway Club anyone?).  Loyalty 1.0 introduced a technology offering that tracked purchases and allowed consumers to accrue points that could later be redeemed for rewards.  The more points, the bigger the reward.  Loyalty 2.0 attempted to personalize the experience using 1 to 1 marketing.  Since a Loyalty Program is learning all about your consumer habits with a brand, the technology should know all about you and be able to “speak to your interests”.  In current loyalty programs, email is the life-line in listening and responding to the customer.  With open rate declining over the past few years, this type of marketing is losing its effectiveness.

For Loyalty 2.0, campaign management tools were born that rely on an increasingly ineffective form of communication – email.  From here, Loyalty Technology needs to progress.  It should progress to a place that provides differentiation, drives retention, and increases revenue.  In order to realize these common Loyalty Marketer goals, Loyalty 3.0 needs only one focus – Engaging Experiences.

The Next Wave of Loyalty Technology 

Gamification can provide this engaging experience.  Basic gamification techniques were born in Loyalty 1.0 and Loyalty 2.0 – Points, Levels, and Rewards.  In Loyalty 2.0 the experience was meant to communicate with the consumer by tailoring to their interests, however this largely resulted in an increase in unread emails.  Loyalty 3.0 technology needs gamification at its core to create a differentiated engaging experience. 

Traditional Loyalty Technology that just adds gamification “on the side” will fall short, and be unable to create an ideal Loyalty 3.0 experience.  Gamification technology encompasses the core ideas found in Loyalty Technology today, but goes well beyond the traditional ideas that have worked for years in Loyalty Technology.  Gamification technology and techniques should be the core of Loyalty 3.0 technology.  This new wave of Loyalty Technology will provide a platform that drives sustainable engagement with the brand without continually increasing point payouts.  Loyalty Technology that uses gamification as its loyalty platform will find new ways to tap into human desires that make people want to return – not just because of a discount, but due to an enjoyable experience that connects them to the brand.  

How the Best New App at Dreamforce 2011 Leverages the Force.com Platform

By Robert Mullany, Sales Engineer, Bunchball
robert.mullany@bunchball.com /@RobertMullany 

As a leading evangelist for cloud applications, Salesforce.com has not only created an incredibly successful business, but also developed a robust partner community. Nearly a thousand add-on applications are featured on the AppExchange (http://appexchange.salesforce.com) which has been billed as an iTunes for the Enterprise. These partner applications range from free apps that Salesforce customers can easily add to their environments to full enterprise solutions meant to replace legacy systems from Fortune 500 software companies.

I’ve had the pleasure of working in the Salesforce.com partner community for the past six years. During that time, I’ve seen hundreds of partner applications and thousands of customer implementations. I’ve been impressed both by the dramatic enhancements Salesforce has made to their platform to facilitate app development and the creative ways partners have leveraged this functionality.

When I first saw a demo of Bunchball’s Nitro for Salesforce app, which was awarded the Best New App Award at Dreamforce 2011, I was instantly struck not only by the business value (who doesn’t struggle with adoption around enterprise applications), but also by the extent to which it creatively leveraged the power offered by the Force.com platform.

Had I known more about the company at the time, I suppose I wouldn’t have been so surprised. It makes a lot of sense that the first company to build a Gamification platform would also be the first company to build a Gamification application on Salesforce.com. Similarly, it makes sense that the company that has repeatedly proven to be the thought leader in Gamification would steer the industry into Enterprise Gamification.

So how has Bunchball leveraged the Force.com platform in innovative ways?

Visualforce Pages

Nitro for Salesforce leverages the flexibility of Visualforce pages to both display data to end users and enable the administration of the application through drag and drop functionality. End users can view dynamic individual and team leaderboards, point totals and progress towards missions as well as redeem points in a built-in rewards store.  

While that is impressive, there are a number of applications on the AppExchange that have built slick user interfaces using Visualforce pages. Where Nitro for Salesforce really differentiates itself is in the administrative functions. Teams are created using a 100% drag and drop interface and the screen layout can be controlled via an included WYSIWYG-style Visualforce editor. This was functionality that I had never seen in a partner application and it’s exciting to see this embodiment of the Salesforce.com mantra of “clicks not code” built natively on the Force.com platform.

Apex Triggers
Apex Triggers are the functionality that allow an administrator to “do something” after a user creates or edits data in the system. This “something” could be automatically updating other fields based on the new data or sending an email alert. In the case of Nitro for Salesforce, Apex Triggers are used to send an API call to Nitro to track and reward the user’s activity.

While Apex triggers facilitate powerful functionality in Salesforce.com, they have been one area where the “clicks not code” paradigm historically breaks down. In the past, a user has had to code these triggers from scratch to achieve the desired functionality. Here again, Nitro for Salesforce has broken barriers by introducing an Apex Trigger generator. This functionality allows a business user to easily generate an Apex Trigger by selecting options from drop down menus. Based on the user’s selections, the Apex Trigger code is automatically generated. Once again, I was thoroughly impressed by this functionality as I had not seen anything similar before.  

It’s exciting to see an application that was introduced less than one year ago pushing the boundaries of the Force.com platform so significantly. I’m looking forward to seeing just how far our Product team can take this offering in the months ahead. Check out all of the features in Nitro for Salesforce by downloading our free trial from the AppExchange. 

Engage! Gamification for the Enterprise

By Molly Kittle, Vice President of Digital Strategy, Bunchball
molly.kittle@bunchball.com /@MolKittle

The following post orignally appeared on Jive Software’s official blog. 

As we move from the old enterprise model [that relies on centralized control] to a more collaborative and social model [that encourages a social intranet as the driving force for information dissemination & communication] it’s more important than ever that we recognize and empower the people who drive conversations and engagement.

The smart enterprise is focused on increased efficacy:  Onboarding.  Adoption.  Enablement.  Retention.  How do we help our employees learn to use and get the most out of the tools we’ve invested in?  It’s a big problem.  It’s estimated that disengaged employees are costing businesses 300 billion dollars a year in lost productivity. (Gallup - http://gmj.gallup.com/content/12157/power-praise-recognition.aspx and http://www.gallup.com/consulting/52/employee-engagement.aspx).

My job is to help our clients map their business goals to the appropriate motivational tools.  Over the years we’ve seen that integrating tactics from game-play into a social intranet has a direct impact on motivating employees - and there are several specific characteristics of games that deserve a strategic place within the enterprise: Performance, Achievement, & Social Interaction.

Performance

  • Real-time-feedback - The immediate delivery of positive or corrective feedback solidifies learnings or provides an opportunity for adjustment.  Surface a notification that an employee is on track or has just been successful.
  • Transparency - Show your employees where they stand in relation to company goals and others in the organization.  You can do this with leaderboards, newsfeeds, progress bars, badges and other techniques.
  • Goal-setting - Break large goals down into achievable steps on a path toward long term success.

Achievement

  • Badges - Universally understood symbols that indicate mastery of skills and accomplishment.  Display them on a profile and they can act as a visual checklist or a point of pride and status.
  • Levels - A shorthand way of indicating long-term, sustained achievement and status.  An employee’s current Level Icon should be closely tied to their profile photo, name or other identity items and is most effective when used to unlock special privileges or abilities.
  • Mastery - The drive to master new skills and feel competent is an essential human motivator. (see self determination theory and this blog about the dopamine response) For example, onboarding employees shouldn’t be about reading instructions, it should revolve around “teaching by doing” - coached along by a system that provides step-by-step guidance, until they feel they have sufficient mastery to venture off on their own.

Social

  • Competition - Employees and organizations often involve competitive situations.  There is an opportunity to move beyond competing for a position or a raise and foster competition around enablement (top performers/first to complete training).
  • Collaboration – Introduce Groups and Teams Team provide an opportunity to connect and bond with others “like” you, (even if the only similarity is that you’re on the same team), and work together as a cohesive unit to accomplish goals and compete with other teams.
  • Connection - We are spending more of our work lives online and the line between personal and professional continues to blur.  Encouraging employees to share their work success with their social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) deepens their pride in accomplishment while it’s broadcast to a broader audience.

These game mechanics are tools that the socially aware enterprise can use to facilitate and direct employees during all phases of their lifecycle; from onboarding to adoption to enablement to ongoing performance and job satisfaction, which translate into retention…

How do you think some of these concepts could work in your organization?

Analytics: From One Side of the Equation, to the Other

By Keith Conley, Analytics Manager, Bunchball
keith.conley@bunchball.com, @kmcusa

I’d like to start with a brief introduction.  My name is Keith Conley and I’m the Analytics Manager for Bunchball. I joined the organization in November of 2011 and have delighted in applying metrics to quantify the various benefits gamification can have on an organization, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

I started in analytics in 2006 for the Wunderman Agency in San Francisco.  Before joining, I confidently told my future employer “My clients will know which half is wasted.”  In case you’re not familiar, that’s a reference to a quote attributed to about a half dozen people (Henry Ford, John Wanamaker, Lord Lever, Walt Patrick, etc.) stating “he knew half of his advertising was wasted, he just didn’t know which half.”  I’ve long felt the answers were available and have been excited to grow and learn in a fast-paced and demanding industry.

Thus far, I’ve been able to help a host of top-tier clients optimize campaigns in Online, Search, TV, Mobile (including tablets!), Radio and OOH using both quantitative and qualitative measurement tools. Along the way, I’ve learned how to optimize creative, messaging and media partners on a variety of outcomes and goals, such as lead generation, sales, purchase intent, awareness and others.

These opportunities allowed me to work with great people in exciting, dynamic environments and also lead me to continue seeking new challenges. When I discovered Bunchball, I saw a new, exciting opportunity. While advertising is primarily concerned with the driving of traffic, or creating a response with the audience in their environment, I often came across chasms where my efforts of driving traffic were then stymied by the effectiveness of the “landing page” and its ability to, in a general sense, convert the audience to the client’s intended response.  As we tightened the paid media and optimized creative executions, we saw returns in efficiency, but in general, conversion rates from each site remained static. This is due to the lack of coordination and incremental testing of web pages and landing environments.

It was easy to see how I could be on the other side of the equation with Bunchball’s approach to gamification.  Bunchball’s products allow site owners to motivate their audience toward desired outcomes by providing a richer, more rewarding experience for the audience. The products also produce a rich set of behavioral data which can be used to perform critical analyses on adoption, retention, continuous engagement and content optimization. Focusing on the customer, we’ve developed a structure for measurement and learning during deployment.  The key has been to work with our clients to identify their goals and define KPIs that ensure our analysis and optimization will map to their overall success. 

Analysis on this side of the house is so powerful, because it has the ability to improve ROI from all advertising channels.  As our clients increase their engagement metrics, it’s been very rewarding to watch them light up when realizing the impact the efforts are having on banner advertising and search efforts.

The first 6 months have been very exciting and we’re just getting started.  Impacting external marketing efforts only addresses one (Customer Engagement) of our 3 target segments.  Our products have separate, but just as meaningful impact on employee motivation and customer loyalty scenarios. Going forward, I’ll explain more of our analytics methodology and demonstrate how gamification is meeting the needs of our clients. Stay tuned!

Guest Post - Gamifying Social Collaboration: Big Wins for #GoingSocial

Special guest post from Bunchball partner Bluewolf. By Natasha Oxenburgh, Bluewolf Editorial and Community Coordinator

In January, we sent out a company-wide survey to gauge the state of collaboration internally and externally. We asked every Bluewolf employee:

  • How active they were on every major social network
  • How they felt about building their personal brand via the social web
  • What was holding them back

Our #GoingSocial strategy - to build collaboration and unlock the knowledge trapped inside our enterprise cyber walls - was based around that very feedback. We began proselytizing #GoingSocial in February.

In early March, we launched the sexiest part of the campaign = Gamification. 

We implemented Bunchball’s Nitro for Salesforce (N4SF) with the goal of incentivizing internal and external collaboration (points, badges, and tangible rewards for social actions such as Chatter posts and comments, publishing a blog post, adding and creating social profiles, sharing Bluewolf content to external networks, adding content to Salesforce, etc).

The results so far have been more than encouraging:

1. Our corporate Bluewolf Klout score, steady for several months at 42, shot up to 45 since the #GoingSocial launch. This signals an increase in our online influence as it measures engagement with our brand (e.g. mentions of @Bluewolf and retweets). This result is due to the increased Bluewolf content sharing by our employee base and their subsequent connections. 

2. The average use of Chatter within Bluewolf has significantly spiked since the launch. Check out the graph below that represents the average user’s Chatter Activity (posts, comments) over the past 2 years. Note the average activity in particular for the last two months.

3. Our website traffic from social media (including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, SlideShare, etc) has doubled since implementing Bunchball in early March. The “Spread the Word” feature in Bunchball’s N4SF has significantly helped our end users easily share Bluewolf content via their external networks from within Salesforce.

We’ve had great feedback on our revamped Pack Profiles, which are now more social and knowledge-based. This well-visited area of our site provides our employees with the perfect opportunity to leverage Bluewolf to build their personal brands. We’ve had several key analysts say they never seen such an integrated solution as this before. Here’s what people are saying:

With the positive results we’ve seen thus far, what have been the motivating factors for user adoption?

I asked some of our stand-out Bluewolf employees who have really embraced #GoingSocial. They say that there are several contributing drivers:

  • knowledge sharing and relationship building
  • enthusiasm about sharing Bluewolf content
  • availability of resources and the ease of knowledge sharing from within Salesforce
  • gamification rewards and badges
  • visibility within the organization - through N4SF

#GoingSocial is garnering support. The challenge over the coming months will be to maintain the enthusiasm and participation. User feedback will be central in this effort.

Follow our popular Pinterest board for the latest updates on our #GoingSocial program. Learn more about our #GoingSocial service offering.