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Gamification B2B Engagement

How to make B2B marketing interesting and engaging for buyers in 2023

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December 15, 2022 | 5 min read

Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is challenging

It can be a puzzle to pick content, purpose, channel and funnel stage. And now, more than ever, marketers need to make efficient choices and efficient marketing.

Additionally, half of the content created for B2B is designed to create brand awareness and interest, and marketers need tools to help them create experiences for the entire customer journey.

Every B2B buyer is also a consumer. Someone like you, who appreciates meaningful experiences, and when offered the chance, will always jump to play a game. This is what B2B marketers need to remember.

Take Würth in Denmark, the largest B2B sales organization in the Scandinavian country. Wuerth is well-known for its German quality products and is a supplier of tools, safety equipment, fastening and more.

They use the Playable platform to create targeted and always-on gamification campaigns to engage their audience and create an advantage against their competitors. They’ve gathered hundreds of email marketing permissions in exchange for product samples (so many, in fact, that the product was unavailable for a period of time because of demand) and 25% of website visitors who interacted with a pop-up built on the Playable platform made an online purchase.

When we look further into Playable’s platform data, we can see a real opportunity for B2B companies to spend quality time with their audience.

We found that our B2B customers:

  • Have a similar unique registration rate compared to B2C industries. B2B sees a 40% unique registration rate for playable experiences, compared to 41% for B2C.
  • See a similar average time spent compared to B2C industries. In our platform, B2B customers see an average of 62 seconds of time spent per gameplay.

    When it comes to games that test skills, our B2B customers spend a whopping 92 seconds, on average, with their consumers.
  • Use games to educate or quiz their audience more compared to B2C industries. B2B customers in the Playable platform use games that test knowledge 24% more when compared to B2C.

By using playable experiences in marketing, both seasonal and always-on, B2B marketers can create unique experiences for their audiences. We’ve seen our customers gather first-party data to personalize better, drive footfall to online and offline stores, and positively impact revenue. Playable marketing is efficient, it’s fun and it’s approachable.

How to create a B2B playable experience that is relevant to your target audience

B2B marketing requires a nuanced approach. Compared to B2C brands, B2B often has longer sales cycles, procurement processes, higher average order value (AOV), brand loyalty, just to name a few. It’s a lot different from buying a new pair of sneakers for the season. Think of it as more researching and choosing your next car or even house.

Think through the steps your prospects will go through. Do they need to understand what makes your offering unique? Do they need to be educated on new regulations? Do they need calculators or interactive content to help them understand and absorb why they should pick your brand’s product(s)?

One significant way our B2B customers use playable experiences is for educating and inspiring their audience on what’s possible. We’ve seen a machinery company use gamification to educate their niche audience on their ecological line of products. Or think of a company like Wuerth that knows their audiences’ demographics well. The snake game Wuerth created was a huge hit with their customer and prospect base.

Looking to get started? Pull out your ideal customer profiles (ICP), make a list of your customers’ pain points as well as any additional ones that prospects have, and be willing to create small experiments. Brainstorm how game concepts like a quiz can educate them, a personality test can become a calculator like Natusan created.

While a B2C brand, Natusan is a great example of how to use your imagination and gamification to create a novel education experience. Natusan, a more ecologically-friendly cat litter brand, knew that their target audience was likely to be loyal to their cat litter brand. So they created a calculator for consumers to use to understand how much their current cat litter consumption was impacting the environment. It resulted in a lot of time spent with their target audience and a 1-in-4 conversion rate after the free trial. While this is a B2C brand, they faced some of the same challenges that B2B often does: the need to educate and strong brand loyalty.

If education isn’t a primary goal for your B2B brand, there’s always the opportunity to create fun games like snake or a puzzle. The only limit to what can be created is your imagination!

Want to experience playable marketing? Check out our Advent Games, which are live until December 22, 2022, and get the chance to play snake or a quiz. There are even prizes up for grabs; we hope you’ll join us as we celebrate Christmas.

Gamification B2B Engagement

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