Game-Based Marketing: Inspire Customer Loyalty Through Rewards, Challenges, and Contests (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780470562239)

Gamification is revolutionizing the web and mobile apps.

Innovative startups like Foursquare and Swoopo, growth companies like Gilt and Groupon and established brands like United Airlines and Nike all agree: the most powerful way to create and engage a vibrant community is with game mechanics. By leveraging points, levels, badges, challenges, rewards and leaderboards - these innovators are dramatically lowering their customer acquisition costs, increasing engagement and building sustainable, viral communities.

Game-Based Marketing unlocks the design secrets of mega-successful games like Zynga's Farmville, World of Warcraft, Bejeweled and Project Runway to give you the power to create winning game-like experiences on your site/apps. Avoid obvious pitfalls and learn from the masters with key insights, such as:

• Why good leaderboards shouldn't feature the Top 10 players.
• Most games are played as an excuse to socialize, not to achieve.
• Status is worth 10x more than cash to most consumers.
• Badges are not enough: but they are important.
• You don't need to offer real-world prizing to run a blockbuster sweepstakes.

And learn even more:

• How to architect a point system that works
• Designing the funware loop: the basics of points, badges, levels, leaderboards and challenges
• Maximizing the value and impact of badges
• Future-proofing your design
• Challenging users without distraction

Based on the groundbreaking work of game expert and successful entrepreneur Gabe Zichermann, Game-Based Marketing brings together the game mechanics expertise of a decade's worth of research. Driven equally by big companies, startups, 40-year-old men and tween girls, the world is becoming increasingly more fun.

Are you ready to play?