The Potential of Gamification In Enrollment Marketing In the 2020s
The word gamification has been around for several years now. It describes a marketing and recruitment trend that at times has felt like a fad. But I’d like to explore the power of gamification as a concept that we should all be thinking more about in the coming decade.
Let’s start by establishing what it is. I like this definition, even though it doesn’t come from the world of academia or marketing. It’s from talent management software vendor Capterra:
Gamification is the process of making an educational or work activity more like a game by finding ways to make it more entertaining and rewarding.
What’s interesting about this definition is that it points out that the application of games in life is pretty universal. It’s hard to think of examples of life tasks we find difficult or tedious that don’t fall under the broad categories of education or work.
Gamification is about transforming these difficult “tasks” — jobs, research, applying for work or school, etc. — into “games,” something we see as challenging in a fun way.
One of these difficult tasks is applying to college. The question is, what can you do as an enrollment marketer to transform this task into an exciting challenge? In what ways can you turn enrollment into a game?
Let’s start by taking a look at how gamification has been utilized in recent years.
Gamification in the 21st Century
We all instinctively know that “games” are fun tasks we’re naturally motivated to take on. In addition, research supports the idea that game elements (accomplishment badges, leaderboard scores, etc.) satisfy psychological needs for meaning, self-determination and social connection.
This is why gamification has been eagerly employed in many areas that connect in some way to your efforts in enrollment marketing.
