How to improve feature discovery for SaaS apps (and why it’s necessary)

In reality, 12% of a product’s features attract the majority of user engagement. That leaves plenty of room for improvement. Feature discovery is a great way to spread awareness & educate users on your product. As the perceived value of your product rises, so do retention rates!

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How to improve feature discovery for SaaS apps (and why it’s necessary)

This header image sets the stage for our discussion on the importance of feature discovery in SaaS applications for boosting user engagement and product value.

Feature discovery is an important contribution to how users perceive your product value. In other words, when you don’t show the value users will eventually churn. So how can you drive user engagement towards new and underused features? Discover how tactics like app gamification and segmentation improve adoption!

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about feature discovery, including 12 examples from leading SaaS apps in 2022.

What is feature discovery?

In short, feature discovery is the process of building awareness around new or underused features. Your users might discover new features either organically or accidentally. However, a great product adoption strategy includes ways to educate users on new features & as a result improve user engagement.

Why feature discovery is vital for SaaS product adoption

Ask yourself - how can you make the most out of product-led growth, if users are not engaging with parts of your product? In fact, just 12% of a product’s features attract the majority of user engagement. That leaves plenty of room for improvement, and also shows how feature discovery can gift you a competitive advantage, among other benefits:

Emphasis on individual features allows you to improve specific touchpoints
Rise in user engagement across different features, as well as higher retention
Using more features adds value to the product (so adoption is more attractive)

Feature discovery is a surefire way to unlock SaaS growth! Get started with our ultimate product adoption guide.

How to improve user engagement through feature discovery

The way in which users encounter a feature will transform their perception of it. Behavioral scientists call this ‘priming’. In short, when a specific stimulus compels you to think or act a certain way. You can use this effect to trigger a recurring loop of user engagement!

In other words, by triggering feature discovery, you own the context in which a user perceives new features. As a result, the perceived value of your product will increase!

12 top examples of how to promote feature adoption and discovery in 2022

#1 Gamified checklists incentivize feature discovery

Sometimes the value of your product can get lost during onboarding. However, gamified checklists are a great way to put those key actions in the spotlight. Postfity for instance gives a 50% discount after scheduling your first post! Additionally, using the ‘Zeignarik effect’ by already completing the first steps nearly doubled completion rates.

Above all, rewards don’t have to be financial. It can also be of intrinsic value such as achievements, badges, or leveling systems.

feature discovery gamification checklist

This example of a gamified checklist from Postfity shows how incentives and progress bars can effectively guide new users toward valuable features.

How to maximize feature discovery with app gamification? Get your expert-led workshop & learn to craft your own gamified product!

#2 Interactive walkthroughs let users experience the value

Interactive walkthroughs are not just fun, they also make the experience far more valuable. Take webinar hosting service Demio for example. They let new users present their own webinar with slides Demio provided. Furthermore, there are even fake attendees in the chatbox! Obviously, it’s a clever and fun way to show off the platform’s value.

Demio's interactive onboarding uses a simulated webinar environment to demonstrate its core value proposition in an engaging, hands-on manner.

#3 Segment feature updates

You can create a personalized adoption journey without overcomplicating things. In fact, you can significantly improve experiences through simple segmentation. Beamer for instance lets you personalize discounts, feature updates, and push notifications towards admins, new or paid users. Additionally, you can customize based on demographics, location, language, and past behavior.

#4 Tooltips can nudge customers to underused features

Livestreaming platform Kumu suffered from low feature adoption on their search bar. So what did they do? With a simple spotlight nudge, Kumu achieved a 54% click-through rate, and feature adoption shot up by 38%!

Kumu's use of a simple spotlight nudge effectively drew user attention to the search bar, significantly boosting its adoption rate.

#5 Celebrate customer success (and include tips on how to get more value)

While celebrating customer success, Evernote also plants the seed of further wins! In fact, Evernote congratulates new users right after sending their first email. This email includes some tips around related features to further increase user engagement!

This Evernote email demonstrates how to celebrate a user's first action while also providing tips to encourage the discovery of related features.

#6 Promote new features with announcements

In-app announcements are a great way to target the right users. For example, look at how Slack introduced message formatting. Slack showed highly engaged users a slide-out modal with a simple gif that makes feature discovery easy and the benefits obvious! Without a doubt, a great example of ‘show don’t tell’.

Slack effectively uses an animated GIF within an in-app modal to quickly and clearly demonstrate its new message formatting feature.

#7 Welcome emails can highlight the app’s key features

While many marketing emails are sent straight to spam, recipients are over 75% more likely to open welcome emails! Take the opportunity to introduce your software’s features like Descript.

Descript's welcome email is a great example of leveraging a high-engagement channel to introduce new users to the app's key functionalities.

#8 Let users provide feedback if feature discovery is skipped

While some users fight feature discovery helpful, others don’t see the value in it. When users exit an onboarding tour in Hubspot, they quickly ask why it wasn’t helpful. This feedback helps them understand the preferences of different segments. Because of that, they get to boost user engagement through a more personalized and relevant experience.

This Hubspot prompt shows a smart way to gather feedback when a user skips a feature tour, allowing for better personalization and understanding of user intent.

#9 Highlight new features through design

It is surprisingly easy for a new feature to go completely unnoticed. Make sure your tweaks stand out with an eye-catching design like Asana. By adding ‘New!’ in the highly visible menu, users instantly notice the addition to the product. This, of course, triggers their curiosity and leads them to check out the new feature.

Asana uses a simple but effective visual cue—a colorful "New!" tag—to draw attention to new features directly within the user interface.

#10 Create a dedicated in-app location for updates

In-app communities have many benefits - and increased feature discovery is one of them. Revolut for example targets its most active users with monthly feature updates. They even do it Instagram story style, which makes the changes feel newer!

Revolut presents its monthly feature updates in a modern, story-like format, creating a dedicated and engaging space for discovery within the app.

#11 Discover when users are churning - and intervene

Developing your own software adoption strategy will highlight where users are having trouble. Users might get frustrated and leave when a specific feature doesn’t work or is simply too complicated to handle. But how should you intervene?

Productivity SaaS Groove chose a simple email. In just 32 words, Lesley comes off as personable, expresses concern, and offers help. As a result, Groove achieved a 30% retention rate among those targeted after just 30 days!

groove onboarding email for user retention

Groove's simple, personal email to potentially churning users is a powerful example of timely intervention to offer help and improve retention.

#12 Create a blog with valuable product tips

Innovative users are always looking to optimize their process, and a great blog can satisfy that need! To elevate engaged users to brand champions, share product and industry insights and advice on your own blog. Generally, educated users are happy users, because they get the full value of your product! Who knows, you may even create some shareable content that gets people talking!

How to use feature discovery in your own product

Your feature discovery needs to be strong - or else. Behavioral scientists have noted an effect called ‘momentum behavior’, where we tend to dismiss options - even those that could help us - because we have already picked a course and are sticking to it!

UX experts NN/g - "Momentum behavior happens when parts of the interface are not strong enough to call to users when they need them."

NN/g is a world leader in the user experience domain, and they recommend a few great tips to maximize feature discovery and overcome momentum behavior:

Analyze the most common routes customers take to complete tasks. If the best path is not the most common, then make it more discoverable and usable
Avoid developing crucial UI elements that look like advertisements (basically, content that people have learned to ignore)
Let users conveniently sync information across different platforms, facilitating user engagement and reducing redundant actions
Make important tasks, if not all tasks, easy on all devices

And of course, to track your success you’ll need to know the key feature adoption metric:

feature adoption rate (%) = (new users of feature/total product users) x 100

Develop a gamified feature adoption strategy - Book your app gamification workshop & learn how to use psychology to drive user engagement!

3 quick wins to improve SaaS feature adoption

App gamification creates the motivation to act

App gamification is key to unlocking long-lasting user engagement. Essentially, the success of a gamified UX comes down to human psychology. Namely, the need for competence, autonomy, and social relatedness. These needs are highly motivating and can prompt actions like feature discovery.

Contextual notifications help users when THEY need it

The difference between being helpful and pushy is small. However, being in the right place at the right time can be extremely rewarding. That’s why promoting new features, or adding tooltips should strongly depend on user behavior. Basically, you shouldn’t have the same experience for both new and power users.

Promote your features through product marketing

Product marketing is about more than user acquisition. The goal is to drive overall adoption through awareness and education. Product marketers can use conventional channels such as e-mails and blogs, but they can also leverage in-app communication. For instance by promoting new features on empty states like sign-up pages. Other options like notifications, changelogs, highlights and chatbots are also possible.

Bonus: Hypothesize, test, and tweak!

Use your analytics to identify room for improvement. Then, hypothesize about potential solutions based on your user personas and segments. What does this user need at this point in time to encourage feature discovery? Tweak accordingly, and repeat! Besides, having an engaged userbase will help you get more feedback to further hone your product.

How you can easily implement feature discovery with app gamification from StriveCloud

Studies show clearly that app gamification can improve the user experience. In turn, a better UX is found to significantly affect customer perception of benefits, value, and brand equity. And that also positively impacts feature discovery!

In fact, our app gamification solution allows you to easily add game-like features and contextual messaging throughout the user journey. Simply connect your data sources and create a custom adoption journey, from onboarding to power user. Start building your habit-forming product today!

Discover the possibilities of driving user engagement & adoption with our App Gamification Software!

FAQ

What is feature discovery?

In short, feature discovery is the process of building awareness around new or underused features. Your users might discover new features either organically or accidentally. However, a great product adoption strategy includes ways to educate users on new features & as a result improve user engagement.

Why is feature discovery important for SaaS?

To take full advantage of product-led growth, make users engage with more of your product! In reality, just 12% of a product’s features attract the majority of user engagement. Maximize that number with feature discovery, however, and you’ll earn a competitive advantage.

How to use feature discovery to improve user engagement?

How to build a successful gaming and esports community in 2022: The definitive guide

Gaming and esports communities are rapidly growing among the seemingly “unreachable” target audience of digital natives. In this guide, we’ll show you everything you need to know to build, grow and monetize your own esports and gaming community.

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How to build a successful gaming and esports community in 2022: The definitive guide

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE: How to build a successful gaming and esports community in 2022

This guide's cover visual sets the stage for exploring how to build a thriving gaming and esports community.

Gaming and esports communities are rapidly growing in popularity among the seemingly “unreachable” digital natives. Needless to say, this creates an opportunity for brands to genuinely connect and engage with this audience. In this guide, we’ll show you how to build, grow and monetize an esports & gaming community and how the right gaming tournament software can make your life way easier.

Why should you care about esports and gaming? What are the demographics? And above all, how do you engage with an audience that is advertising-repellant? Here’s what we’ll cover:

Why build a community of gamers? (and the advantages of doing so)

Online gaming & esports communities provide a uniquely beneficial experience for users. According to studies, gaming & esports communities provide social and health benefits like improved self-esteem and a greater sense of well-being! As a result, these positive feelings turn gamers into highly engaged users. That’s where you as an endemic business come in!

If you can harness the power of gaming communities, you will gain a super engaged and loyal userbase.

Gamers are more likely to purchase a product online;
40% of gamers based their purchasing decision on influencer advice.

And there’s no time to waste - it’s 2022 and gaming isn’t just something you do anymore. It’s something you watch, and esports is booming!

In 2020, esports raised a record $2 billion - a 116% increase from 2019;
The European esports market has had a strong annual growth rate of 24% since 2016;
Nearly 1 in 5 Europeans have made esports-related purchases!

This graph visualizes the significant audience growth in the esports market, highlighting the opportunity for community builders.

Understanding the gaming and esports community

Building your own gaming community takes a lot of work. At the end of the day, you are building a relationship. And, as in any relationship, it takes two to tango! So how do you get the partnership started?

The challenge with engaging gamers today

Many gamers are traditionally considered “unreachable”. In fact, experts reckon that 47% of all Millennials and Gen X appear elusive to standard advertising methods. And it’s even worse for Gen Z.

Besides ad blockers and skipping content, attention is decentralized across various digital platforms and online media. This, combined with the lack of owned data makes it difficult to engage gamers, and even more so to keep them engaged.

What are the typical demographics of gamers?

Right now, the esports and gaming audience is dominated by Millennials and Gen X who form 63% of the market. However, Gen Z is not far behind. Gamers aged 16-25 are also forecasted to grow in size and purchasing power. Besides, Gen Z spends twice as much time interacting online and tends to spend more money in the gaming space. This makes them a particularly valuable market.

In more detail, gamers tend to identify as 45% women and 55% men. Following the trend in Asia and the US, Europe’s esports & gaming audience is also growing, with the highest penetration rates in Poland, Italy, and Spain. In these countries, nearly half of all consumers have watched esports at least once!

Age distribution across customer groups Deloitte

The age distribution chart from Deloitte provides a clear breakdown of customer groups within the gaming community.

The different types of gamers that make up gaming & esports communities

Esports & gaming communities consist of more than your stereotypical gamer profile. In fact, the esports & gaming audience is very diverse. Besides hardcore and casual gamers, esports data company Newzoo identifies 9 personas:

Ultimate Gamers. The most hardcore of consumers.
All-Round Enthusiasts. Like Ultimate Gamers, but less obsessively engaged.
Time Fillers. Casual gamers who engage in their spare time or at social events.
Bargain Buyers. They enjoy games but go for free-to-play & discounted buys.
Community Gamers. These gamers live for the community-created content.
Hardware Enthusiasts. All about tech trends and the best gaming experience!
Popcorn Gamers. Gaming rarely, this group prefers to watch other gamers.
Backseat Viewers. Previous gamers who still find the time to engage.
Lapsed Gamers. These past gamers have since moved on to other interests.

Each type has different preferences and reasons to join the community. Ranging from the type of game they play, all the way up to how they engage with communities, hardware, and content. What does your audience mix look like?

How to set up your own gaming community

As mentioned before, reaching the gaming audience comes with a challenge. The divided attention and general lack of insights make it difficult to attract new gamers & keep them engaged. Today’s gamers expect two things: to be challenged through competition and to have social interaction. So, what can you do?

Put simply, a gaming tournament platform brings everything into one place. Besides organizing tournaments, you get to build a community on your own platform. That means access to first-party data, and the opportunity to create branded experiences along with sponsors and advertisers.

Never underestimate the power of an engaged audience! Here are 6 tools to help you get started:

6 tools to keep gaming communities engaged

#1 Discord is the essential hang-out spot for gamers

Discord is the heart of most gaming communities. With their platform, you can create channels for announcements, voice chats, and more. Players can also create channels according to rank or specialties. In 2021, Discord boasted an impressive 140 million monthly active users!

While Discord is great for building a community, it has its limitations. Besides fracturing the experience even further, it’s also hard to stand out enough to profitably monetize your audience.

#2 StriveCloud’s Gaming Tournament Software fuels community engagement

Online tournaments are where esports & gaming communities thrive! Whether you’re an esports agency, a sports brand, or just happened to build your own esports & gaming community, hosting tournaments will attract, engage and keep gamers on your platform.

Besides the fun of competition and entertainment, it’s also a great way for gamers to connect and socialize. In fact, the majority of gamers in 2022 also enjoy watching game-related content, interacting in communities, and attending in-game events!

StriveCloud’s gaming tournament software allows you to connect gamers, organize tournaments & promote brands all from one platform.

Build your community by organizing fully automated tournaments at scale. No need for a moderator. Our platform allows for all popular games ranging from FIFA to CS:GO. Gamers can sign-up with 1 simple link & you’ll get direct access to all behavioral insights!

Keep up engagement with fun gamification features like leaderboards, weekly challenges, and hotzones! Then, reward participation through various rewards like badges, virtual currencies, and online shop items!

Once you’ve built a thriving gaming & esports community, we know that sponsorship is crucial for monetizing it. That’s why we’ve made it easy to generate sponsor visibility through brand pages, shop items, and even branded tournaments.

Sounds good? Discover how our gaming tournament software can help you connect, engage & monetize gamers!

This example of a tournament bracket illustrates how gaming software can organize competitive events for esports communities.

#3 Cooldown is the home of esports viewing parties

Cooldown connects esports fans with events and gaming communities. By using Cooldown, you can drive eyes to your tournaments and win new fans. Cooldown viewership parties are both free and easy to organize. Just connect with a local esports bar and get started!

#4 YouTube is great for live & user-generated content

YouTube is the top-rated streaming channel in the world, ahead of Twitch and Facebook. Although Twitch has the highest usage intensity, YouTube’s audience reach is unparalleled. The platform is ideal for hosting live content, mid-form videos, as well as reacting to user-generated content to build the cohesion of your gaming community!

Top tip: To help gamers navigate your YouTube channel, (and to hold their attention for longer), create playlists for each game or topic you cover.

#5 Subreddits are a social space for the whole community

Discord is great for the here and now - but creating your own subreddit ensures that what your gaming & esports community creates will stick around! Another advantage of Reddit is that your subreddit can be discovered easily by others. From there, new users can quickly start talking with engaged members of your esports & gaming community!

#6 Built-in chat features enhance the community experience

Chat features are also a great way to build community over time. Users get to instantly connect over chat to share stories and experiences, and make new friends! And best of all? It boosts community engagement! Furthermore, adding a chat feature to your platform keeps gamers from moving to other platforms like Discord or Messenger.

Top tactics to bring gamers to your esports & gaming platform

Partnerships & sponsorships leverage the power of existing brands

In many ways, traditional advertising methods have become unwanted clutter in our lives. But that isn’t the case for brand partnerships. Among gaming & esports communities, reports show that gamers see brand partnerships positively. In short, partnering with influencers, professional esports players and content creators can:

Bolster your finances. Partnerships are by far the biggest source of income in esports.
Shape your own brand identity within the esports community.
Expose your brand to a wider audience.

With StriveCloud’s white-label gaming tournament software, you can easily organize streamer tournaments and branded leagues to attract new community members.

This chart highlights consumer behavior patterns within esports, showing the positive impact of brand partnerships on revenue streams.

Host influencer tournaments to win eyeballs

How can you engage your esports and gaming community? Easy! Simply follow the eyeballs and work with influencers whose fanbase fit your target audience. Samsung Benelux for instance created a game-off competition between Belgium and the Netherlands. Both sides had 2 popular gaming influencers competing for their country!

Additionally, Belgian telecom company Proximus organized a League with Youtuber Average Rob where fans could compete against him in a Fortnite battle. As a result, users played almost 1500 matches in just 4 hours!

Video content is the best way to build an initial relationship with your audience

Gaming communities are all about building relationships - so let your users peek behind the curtain with a series of content. You can use live streaming content for clips on social media, but what gamers love is seeing behind the scenes. This content is seen as authentic storytelling and creates a relationship between the viewer and talent.

Tactics to keep gamers engaged on your platform

Run competitions to incentivize engagement

Competitions help gamify the UX and make it more engaging - and what audience is better suited for this than gaming communities? Let users compete to win prizes such as merchandise, experiences, or even just bragging rights on the leaderboard! Essentially, competitions incentivize users to engage, and show that being a member of your esports community can be both rewarding and fun!

We can attest to the success of great competitions. After implementing our gaming tournament software, the esports platform Kazyr benefited from a 60% rise in daily active users!

The Kazyr platform screen demonstrates how a well-designed interface can increase daily active users through engaging competitions.

Promote & reward your top creators

There is no doubt that gamers expect to be both creators and consumers. In fact, esports & gaming communities love to create! So show your audience that their contribution is appreciated by rewarding them. You can, for instance, create a sense of social status through community badges, leaderboards, and leveling systems. In turn, you will inspire others to create as well!

Exclusive events bring back lapsed gamers

Games may come and go - but holidays can help keep your gaming community fresh. Needless to say, holidays are predictable so it is easy to develop a great event that boosts fan engagement. For example, look at Valorant, one of the world’s top esports games.

At Christmas, they release a Snowball Fight feature for a very limited time and this scarcity gets even lapsed users excited to come back again!

Riot Games' holiday-themed event shows how scarcity and exclusive content can re-engage lapsed players and generate excitement.

Live events are a huge factor in long-term engagement

It’s undeniable that live esports events are exciting. But did you know this excitement can set off a positive feedback loop? To illustrate, research from consultancy firm Deloitte shows that participating in live events makes users want to attend more live events!

This graph illustrates the positive feedback loop where attending live events increases the desire to attend more, boosting long-term engagement.

How to monetize your esports & gaming community

Of course, what you really want to know when planning your esports & gaming community is how to monetize it! And that subject brings us to the benefits of StriveCloud’s gaming tournament software, which empowers you to build a valuable audience on an owned platform.

Buy-in tournaments are scalable & profitable

A buy-in tournament crowdfunds its prize pool from participants. Essentially users pay an entry fee which also serves as the prize pool. A part of that fee goes to “the house”, or in your case to you. Online buy-in tournaments can get prize pools up to $ 1,000 and more! You’d be surprised how successful this can be.

Create immersive advertising & sponsor experiences

Gaming and esports communities don’t like in-your-face advertising or anything that disrupts their experience. And fairly so! However, the esports & gaming community does not dislike brands. They know brands support the ecosystem and allow their favorite games, influencers, and sometimes even products to expand.

Furthermore, the gaming community is one of the most brand-loyal and engaged audiences out there. Mastercard has been a global partner of the League of Legends community for years now. Since then they’ve built a connection with the 11 million gamers through in-game experiences like loot boxes and influencer partnerships.

Brian Lancey, VP and global head of sponsorships @ Mastercard - "We didn't want to overcommercialize it because it was about [building] trust with these fans."

With StriveCloud’s gaming tournament software you get everything you need to connect brands with your audience. From company pages to branded tournaments, you can even run segmented campaigns.

The page management interface is an example of how tournament software can seamlessly integrate brand sponsors into the community experience.

In-game currencies reward success and show off status

In-game currencies give users something to strive for, as well as provide meaning to their wins. For instance, Twitch lets users bet on the outcome of esports matches. Winners are rewarded with points, which can be redeemed for rewards from streamers.

In-game currencies not only trigger engagement but also rewards it! They can also serve as a progression metric. In other words, the more “coins” you collect, the higher your level or number of achievements will be. With StriveCloud’s gaming tournament software, gamers can exchange coins for in-shop items or even enter a raffle!

How do you engage & monetize a gaming community? Book a demo & find out how our tournament platform can help you!

This visual representation of in-game currency and rewards demonstrates how gamification mechanics can drive user engagement in esports communities.

Offer premium packages

It’s true - premium packages are motivating for both the upgraded user and the unpaid user! This psychological phenomenon is called a constraint. Basically, it’s a technique commonly used in games where you can’t access certain areas of the game. Think of grayed-out achievements and levels for example. You can’t help but feel that you are missing out.

For gaming communities, premium packages could include season passes to live events as well as priority booking. Not to mention streams without advertisements or even enhanced viewing experiences with VR in-game viewing mode!

6 KPIs for your esports & gaming community

After you set up your esports community and have a monetization model in place, the next step is to gauge your success. This means tracking the right KPIs! These 6 KPIs can be used to ensure your continued success:

#1 Total sign-ups

Crudely, how many sign-ups has your gaming & esports platform generated? Is the number growing week over week? What attributes to these sign-ups? Tracking this helps you indicate the rate of acquisition and top-of-line growth.

#2 Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

CAC = Total marketing costs / total gamers acquired

How much does it cost you to acquire each user? The lower it is, the more effective your user acquisition strategy.

#3 Tournament participation

Number of tournament players / Total userbase

What percentage of your community actively engages in tournaments? These gamers are the backbone of any engagement, as they drive community content and interaction.

#4 Community interaction

Number of engaged community members / Total userbase

How active are your users? You can measure this by the number of tournaments played and average it out. Additionally, you can track which users contribute content or other means of value to the community.

#5 Average session length

Total time spent across sessions / total number of sessions

How often is your audience engaging? And for how long? In general, the longer gamers spend on your platform, the better value you provide!

#5 Churn rate

Churned users / total users at start of time period x 100

When do people churn? How long does it take them? What can you do to stop it? Try to collect as much insight on these gamers as possible, so you can step in or even prevent the next user from churning!

3 common pitfalls to avoid in gaming & esports communities

A free-for-all in tournament rules can feel unfair

This one is often overlooked. Essentially, your gaming tournament software should set the parameters for each match. The “virtual coin flip”. When gamers feel that the tournament is organized unfairly, they will churn! According to Bayes Esports, the maps, sides, and heroes chosen can give one team an advantage as high as 7%.

Bayes Esports - "Your tournament rules should define how the team’s sides are picked. A good idea, for instance, is to have the team that picks heroes (or maps) then pick the side it plays on in the first map."

Missing out on scalability

When Kazyr first approached StriveCloud, they had a dedicated competition moderator. But after using our gaming tournament software, they found the task was no longer necessary. On top of that, we introduced a gamified loyalty program that scales on intrinsic motivation instead of monetary reward. So not only did they free up a team member, Kazyr’s competitions suddenly became future-proof and scalable!

Neglecting to invite teams early to your platform

The ultimate pitfall in any esports & gaming community is having nobody to play with! This is an example of the Network Effect, where a product becomes more useful the more users are on it. Make sure to avoid this by having teams of gamers ready to play on Day 1.

FAQ

Why build a community of gamers?

Studies show that gaming communities provide a beneficial experience for users, resulting in improved self-esteem and a greater sense of wellbeing! For an endemic brand, that signals an opportunity to foster an engaged and loyal userbase.

How to get the gaming audience?

Developing your own gaming community is challenging. At the end of the day, it’s all about building a genuine relationship. But that first means you must understand who they are - and respond to the needs of this traditionally “unreachable” segment.

What are the typical demographics of gamers?

The esports audience is dominated by Millennials and Gen X who form 63% of the market. But Gen Z is not far behind. Gamers aged 16-25 are forecasted to grow in size and purchasing power, and are over-represented among hardcore consumers!

31 product onboarding tools to help you create the ultimate SaaS experience

Leading SaaS examples all have one thing in common: a great onboarding experience. So what is their secret? The right toolstack of course! What to look for in these tools? Which ones should you pick? From open-source libraries to in-app tours or email tools - here are 31 product onboarding tools.

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31 product onboarding tools to help you create the ultimate SaaS experience

A whopping 97% of companies find onboarding crucial for growth. So why are nearly 40% still unhappy with their current approach? Well, one reason is the lack of investment in the right product onboarding tool! So, what should you do? To help you get started we’ve gathered 31 top onboarding tools and examples to improve your SaaS experience!

This graphic sets the stage for our deep dive into the 31 best product onboarding tools that can help you create an exceptional SaaS experience and drive growth.

Don’t miss out on the #1 driver for retention and growth: onboarding. Here is what you’ll learn:

What is user onboarding?

In our last article, we noted that onboarding begins with customer awareness. Ideally, it then ends in product adoption! The greatest SaaS examples accelerate time-to-value throughout the onboarding experience. Above all, a product-led SaaS experience drives users towards value to increase engagement and diminish churn!

Why you should use user onboarding tools

A product onboarding tool can be detrimental to a great SaaS experience. In other words, empowering product or growth teams with specialist tools helps to boost product adoption and retention!

After all, a great UX is what everybody wants. Moreover, surveys show that it’s your customers that expect a great onboarding experience!

86% of people are more likely to stay loyal to a business that invests in post-purchase onboarding content.
80% of users have uninstalled an app because they didn’t know how to use it.
Over 90% of customers feel that companies could do better at onboarding!

How to evaluate a great product onboarding tool

A product onboarding tool should boost product adoption and user retention

Which product onboarding tool you pick depends on what you aim to achieve - but they should all boost your product adoption and user retention. For starters, the right tool can craft a frictionless onboarding flow that results in a streamlined SaaS experience.

In short, that means fewer unnecessary steps that create churn. Not to mention an improved feature discovery process that raises the value of your product, and in turn, retention. Now that’s what we call product-led growth!

The ultimate guide to SaaS Product Adoption: Get everything you need to drive product-led growth in 2022!

Better adoption means less support (and support costs)

Driving in-app product adoption reduces the need to provide customer support. Certainly, the SaaS experience in itself will clarify your key features and demonstrate their value. For example, through welcome emails, product tours, and contextual support content. That sure beats 1-2-1 meetings that demand your time and money!

Top product onboarding tools for the best in-app SaaS experience

StriveCloud is app gamification excellence (Paid)

Let’s face it, most SaaS examples are boring and easy to forget. But it doesn’t have to be that way! StriveCloud’s gamification platform helps you enrich your SaaS experience with features such as point rewards, leaderboards, challenges, and in-app communities.

StriveCloud enriches the SaaS experience with gamified elements like challenges, leaderboards, and rewards, as illustrated in this composition of features.

Features

Modular user interface builder - Page builder, RSS feeds & gamification blocks
User segmentation - personalized in-app experiences based on user behavior
Reward store - with payment, shop integrations & currency exchange
Achievements system - with milestones, rewards, points, progress-tracking, and more
Leveling system - based on user engagement & desired actions
Messaging system - for notifications and mailings
Analytics - custom dashboard on product usage & user behavior

Pricing

Our pricing is completely based on your results! So, how does it work? We know every SaaS is different, so we base our value on your growth metrics. For example monthly active users, or the number of activations.

Want to learn more? Check out our pricing page, or talk to an expert!

Implementation

If you’re a bit overwhelmed by learning how to build your own gamified SaaS experience, don’t be! Our team of experts is here to help you get from strategy to implementation. After a series of workshops, we create a plan based on your goals, story, and target audience. Then, we simply set up and connect our software so you can start testing! Every feature is tested & rolled out gradually to guarantee the best results!

Drive growth with a gamified SaaS experience – simply connect our gamification software & start optimizing!

Chameleon is a one-stop shop for onboarding improvements (Paid)

Chameleon is a product onboarding tool designed to help customer improve their SaaS experience. They tackle the whole onboarding process in a contextual and relevant way. For instance by transforming your product tours, tooltips, launchers, and micro-surveys. Above all, there’s no coding required!

#1 DIY product onboarding tools with JavaScript and JsQuery

Intro.js is the ultimate open-source JS library (Paid for commercial users)

Intro.js allows you to create a wide range of onboarding elements without having to code them yourself. Their open-source library has many items similar to top SaaS examples, such as product tours, progress bars, and more! Additionally, their website allows you to customize code so you can make it your own. Above all, Intro.Js is easy-to-use and only packs 10kB without extra dependencies!

Hopscotch is both open and flexible (Free)

Every app developer can use Hopscotch. It is a super customizable framework that lets you build simple welcome tours for new users in either JSON or HTML5. Freely accessible and with instant results, Hopscotch is easy to use and flexible in implementation.

Shepherd is a simple and reliable JS library (Free)

Looking for a simple interface to create guided user journeys? Shepherd is the app for you. One of Shepherd’s best selling points is that it is constantly maintained by developers, allowing you to make the most of their product’s consistency, modularity, and high performance!

#2 Single sign-on (SSO) tools

Auth0 enables a frictionless SSO (Freemium)

Auth0 makes logging in as smooth and secure as possible. In short, Auth0 allows customers to activate users faster and drives growth with social logins. Because of its flexibility and freemium model, Auth0 is the right fit to improve any SaaS experience.

Zluri is a package manager designed to boost the onboarding SaaS experience (Paid)

Zluri - "Save one third of your SaaS spend".

Few apps are better placed to support SaaS sign-on than Zluri. The app gives IT teams more control over their stack. Additionally, it helps users manage their entire business from just one handy dashboard.

#3 Video onboarding tools for the SaaS experience

Bonjoro is a unique video messaging platform (Freemium)

Video content is more than just webinars and tutorials. With Bonjoro, you can send personalized video messages that aim to convert, retain, and grow your customer base. Ultimately, this helps improve the SaaS experience during onboarding by putting a human face on your product and building trust!

Demio are interactive webinar experts (Paid)

Many SaaS examples use webinars to drive onboarding. That’s where Demio comes in. It is a simple, no-download webinar app that comes with all the marketing tools you require to generate better results every time.

Demio's interface shows how a no-download, interactive webinar platform can be a powerful and streamlined tool for onboarding new users.

Wistia creates video tutorials designed to maximize user engagement (Freemium)

Today 65% of people say video is their preferred way of getting to know a new product or service. So, that makes video tutorials an indispensable tool! Wistia makes creating video tutorials easier. With customizable brand identity, CTAs, and a great analytics system Wistia allows you to identify dips in user engagement and optimize your videos accordingly.

#4 Personalized demo & screen recording tools

Hotjar uses recordings to power your analytics (Freemium)

What if you could see what your users see? Well, that’s what Hotjar offers. In short, Hotjar records user sessions to analyze user behavior. By tracking how users interact with your product, Hotjar empowers you to tweak and optimize every step of your onboarding.

Loom is a quick and easy screen recorder (Freemium)

Loom’s simplicity and functionality quickly made it the favorite of over 200,000 businesses. When using Loom, you can switch between recording the screen only or adding your webcam. That’s one way to create a more dynamic and human onboarding SaaS experience.

Loom's simple screen recording interface, which allows for webcam overlays, makes creating personalized tutorial videos quick and effective for a human-centric onboarding flow.

Zumvie lets you set up fully-clickable demos (Freemium)

Zumvie is a true clickable demo builder. Basically, you connect Zumvie to your product and you can start building clickable demos. You get to determine the starting point and can even restrict certain areas within your product. And the best part? Users don’t even need to sign up to try out your demo! Their website includes a few SaaS examples such as Webflow, Dropified, and more.

#5 Email communication works better with these tools

Close lets you deliver a scalable human experience (Paid)

Automated emails are efficient - but they don’t create the most effective onboarding. Pitching itself as the perfect middle ground, Close combines the speed of automation and the power of the human touch to improve the SaaS experience. Furthermore, Close boasts that its approach can increase conversion rates by 67%!

saas experience examples user engagement

This example of email automation with a human touch demonstrates how personalized communication can significantly boost user engagement during onboarding.

Mailchimp is still king at email communication (Freemium)

There’s a reason Mailchimp was rated #1 of email SaaS examples in 2022. Well, there are many reasons - from its range of awesome templates, handy automation, and powerful analytics. Not to mention Mailchimp’s multi-step journey tools and smart targeting of onboarded users to register for newsletters when their interest is highest!

Vero builds rich segments to target multi-channels (Paid)

Done effectively, personalization and segmentation are incredibly powerful. Vero is proof of that! Arguably, they boast some of the most accurate and dynamic user segmentation of all email SaaS examples. With Vero, you can leverage in-depth insights gleaned from user activity to achieve better results with their all-in-one email builder.

#6 Trigger-based campaign tools

Customer.io responds to users in real-time (Paid)

Each user is on their own personal journey - and Customer.io agrees! To illustrate, they sent a staggering 8.2 billion messages last year. With its intuitive UI, Customer.io lets you act with confidence as you tailor your email campaigns to different segments based on real-time events.

Drip helps to build, grow & scale email marketing (Paid)

Drip is used by 30,000+ marketers to create dynamic trigger-based emails. Their product not only arms you with comprehensive analytics and insights, but it also gives insight into every trial customer. By triggering the right message at the right time you maximize conversion and retention!

Userlist accelerates the AHA moment (Paid)

When it comes to trigger-based campaigns, Userlist is the definitive product onboarding tool. Designed for SaaS, their easy-to-use platform empowers marketers with accurate lead management tools and behavior tracking. The outcome? Userlist helps you create email campaigns with an impressive level of effective personalization.

The Userlist platform visualizes how behavior-based campaigns can accelerate a user's "Aha!" moment by delivering timely and relevant messages.

#7 Transactional email tools

In other words, transactional emails are emails sent after a specific action by a person. This differs from trigger-based campaigns as they are more defined in scope. Essentially, transactional emails come in a few main types:

Welcome emails. Your first impression!
Confirmations. To notify users a key action is completed, such as a purchase, an upgrade, or simply an upload/export of user data.
Notifications. New features? Hosting a webinar or event, maybe?
Reminders. Whether it be a trial deadline or an upselling opportunity, these emails remind users that the clock is ticking.

Mailjet is a sleek and professional email creator (Freemium)

Sophisticated, yet intuitive. Mailjet has a great UI that allows you to create and send beautiful emails without any code! Above all, their product is great for A/B testing, email personalization, and team collaboration.

SendGrid is said to be the best in the biz (Freemium)

According to Zapier, SendGrid is the best transactional email service in 2022. Indeed, some of the world’s top SaaS examples trust them, from Spotify to AirBnB. Their platform offers expert insight reports, templates, and testing comparisons for the best SaaS experience.

SendinBlue has a reliable and intuitive product (Freemium)

You can count on SendinBlue for transactional emails. Besides conversion and personalization features, they have one of the most reliable and speedy SMTP infrastructures in the industry! In other words, they work hard to make sure your email reaches its intended recipient! Not to mention, SendinBlue offers its expertise at the best value for money compared to the other SaaS examples mentioned. That always helps!

#8 A/B testing is easy with these tools

HubSpot: A/B testing for email marketing (Freemium)

The secret behind leading email SaaS examples is about discovering exactly what works best for your target audience. To perfect your emails in granular detail, Hubspot’s email marketing software runs A/B tests to reveal which CTA or subject line clicks best.

Furthermore, its analytics can divulge which user segments and hyperlinks have the highest user engagement - allowing you to double down on success!

Google Optimize will supercharge your startup (Free)

Free and intuitive, Google Optimize is great for beginners. As it is a Google product, there is also in-depth integration with Google Analytics which allows you to do even more advanced tracking and reporting. Create simple multivariate tests and learn!

Optimizely excels at SaaS experience optimization (Paid)

Onboarding needs to be to the point because attention spans are short - yet the list of things you need to do is long! So what can you do?

With Optimizely, you can A/B test your SaaS experience to make it as lean and effective as possible. Have no doubt, Optimizely offers enterprise-grade software with a full-stack solution to unlock your SaaS potential.

#9 NPS tools

A ‘Net Promoter Score’ can confidently reveal if your SaaS experience is resonating with users. To quickly describe an NPS, it is a feedback method where users rate how likely they are to refer people to your SaaS from 1 to 10. Depending on their rating, users can be placed in 3 segments:

Promoters - 9 to 10. Future loyal advocates!
Passives – 7 to 8. Users are satisfied, but you’re missing the “it factor”.
Detractors – 0 to 6. These are likely churners who need customer support.

InMoment takes NPS to the next level (Freemium)

Formerly Wootric, InMoment specializes in monitoring customer satisfaction and happiness. They claim to be the “The Tool for Winning Lifelong Customers” and their customizable NPS surveys and analytics tool back that up. Indeed, you can track user happiness in real-time and even create automatic measures of user feelings!

UserGuiding builds insightful NPS surveys (Paid)

Improving your SaaS experience with UserGuiding requires no technical knowledge, making product adoption easy and speedy. Moreover, their NPS surveys are fully customizable and adaptable to user segments. Not to mention, NPS features are just one part of their all-in product onboarding tool.

#10 Knowledge base tools

Freshdesk is your omnichannel support solution (Freemium)

To build up your knowledge base, Freshdesk allows you to manage in-app chat support, as well as all other channels like email and social media. Imagine that you can track every customer conversation, prioritize certain leads, tag topics, and automatically send users to the right place, all from 1 product onboarding tool.

Helpshelf combines all support into one widget (Paid)

With Helpshelf, there’s no need to check all support channels individually. Instead, their handy and well-designed widget is at hand. What’s more, Helpshelf is affordably priced for enterprising startups at $25 per month.

Jivochat elevates the SaaS experience through chat (Freemium)

JivoChat takes live chat and chatbots to the next level. Its platform not only allows for live chat on your website, but also connects to channels like Instagram, Whatsapp, and many more. So basically, users can reach you from their preferred platform. On the other hand, you’ll get all messages in 1 centralized app!

Jivochat centralizes customer communication from various platforms into a single, manageable app, enhancing the SaaS experience through integrated live support.

Zendesk is your all-in-one support suite (Paid)

Zendesk is a full-fledged customer support stack. Besides 360° messaging and communication, you can also build knowledge bases and communities. Still not convinced? With customers expecting responses in 10 minutes, you could benefit from the SaaS experience that Zendesk offers: integrated support channels, a ticketing system, as well as personalization tools that make users feel attended to.

Choosing the right product onboarding tool

No product onboarding tool offers a one-size-fits-all approach. In practice, you need to experiment with different tools in order to find the most efficient solution for each problem. Indeed, when onboarding is so crucial to creating retention, this is important!

So when you pick a tool, it must first complement what you already have. That is to say:

A clean and succinct onboarding flow that demonstrates value effectively
Tracking the right KPIs
Your own bespoke growth strategy
And much more!

In short, if you want to create the best SaaS experience, ask yourself if your chosen tool enhances the choices your team has already made. Only that way can you put your customers on the road to product adoption and generate sustainable growth!

Start your growth journey today. Craft your own gamified SaaS Product Adoption Strategy in a custom workshop!

FAQs

What is user onboarding?

In our last article, we noted that onboarding begins with customer awareness. Ideally, it then ends in product adoption! The top SaaS examples accelerate time-to-value throughout the onboarding experience. Above all, a product-led SaaS experience drives users towards value to increase engagement and diminish churn!

Why do you need user onboarding tools?

A product onboarding tool can be detrimental to a great SaaS experience. In other words, empowering product or growth teams with specialist tools helps to boost product adoption and retention!

How to choose the right product onboarding tool?

No product onboarding tool offers a one-size-fits-all approach. Actually, you need to experiment with different tools to find the most efficient solution for each problem. Additionally, the product should complement your existing growth strategy, onboarding flows, and KPIs.

What should every great product onboarding tool achieve?

Top 7 tools to engage gamers in 2022 (and supercharge your gaming marketing)

Soon gamers will make up for the majority of the working population. This means that the success of your gaming marketing has never been more important! From picking the right gaming tournament platform to knowing when to use which social media tools. These are the strategies & tools you need!

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Top 7 tools to engage gamers in 2022 (and supercharge your gaming marketing)

Effective gaming marketing requires a mix of community building and strategic engagement, which can be streamlined with the right tools.

Building and managing an esports & gaming community can be a challenge. But it doesn’t have to be! With the right gaming tournament platform & tools, you can connect, engage & monetize users from one centralized place. Owning your own platform makes gaming marketing easier with behavioral insights & endless engagement opportunities.

In this article, we’ll discuss the strategies and tools you need to succeed in gaming marketing.

The challenge of engaging gamers today

By now we already know the gaming audience is a valuable target group for brands. However, with more brands adopting gaming marketing as a strategy, it’s hard to stand out and get people to become part of your community.

And even if you do manage to create an active gaming community, retaining your users is still a challenge. In fact, after just 1 day only 25% of gamers remain.

This graph clearly illustrates the sharp decline in gamer retention, highlighting the critical need for effective engagement strategies from day one.

You need a way to reach this audience with an experience that stands out and connects them on a single, owned platform. That’s where a gaming tournament platform can help you!

How do you engage gamers? The secret of gaming marketing.

The gaming audience is surrounded by many myths and stereotypes. In fact, the audience is strongly growing in diversity. With the average age being 35 years old, and 45% of the audience being made up of women, you need a tailored approach to reach your audience.

Furthermore, Acer states that gamers are looking for an immersive experience, not in-your-face advertising. That means that besides playing games, they also love to do game-related activities like watching content or engaging in communities. In other words, social interaction and entertainment are now a part of gaming.

When it comes to sponsorship or advertising, gamers expect brands to contribute to their experience, not disrupt it. Gaming marketing is all about building a relationship with your audience by being a part of the community. In fact, fans welcome sponsorship as a way for their favorite influencers and esports teams to grow.

Both endemic and non-endemic sponsors can come up with creative ideas that everyone benefits from. Dc Comics for instance partnered with FaZeClan to create it's very own limited-edition comic, and, obviously, related merch.

This partnership between DC Comics and FaZeClan is a prime example of a non-endemic brand successfully contributing to the gaming experience.

Level up your gaming marketing with a central gaming tournament platform

Capturing the attention of gamers, and above all, keeping them engaged is hard. Especially when their attention is divided across a range of different platforms. Instead, connect gamers, organize fully automated tournaments & promote brand content all in 1 place!

With StriveCloud’s gaming tournament platform you can easily set up brand pages and branded tournaments. In other words, you can fully make it your own. You also get to interact with gamers through the social feed, polls and targeted messages. Moreover, gamers get to connect with each other, compete in tournaments & contribute to the community.

Additionally, our platform has a built-in gamified loyalty system. Reward users based on behavior to ensure long-term engagement and retention! To top it all off, you get insights into all the data, since you own the platform. Altogether, it’s the ultimate flywheel to engage your gaming community!

Build and monetize your gaming community – top tools & trends inside.

With that said, let’s explore some of the top strategies and tools that you can use to improve your gaming marketing in 2022.

12 strategies to thrive with gaming marketing

1. Build your own community with StriveCloud’s gaming tournament platform

StriveCloud’s gaming tournament platform centralizes community, competition, and content into 1 platform. Here, gamers can be part of a community where they can connect with each other and relevant brands. Organize tournaments without the need for moderators, and drive participation with gamified features such as challenges, raffles, and hotzones.

Additionally, you can reward engagement with virtual currencies, shop items, leveling systems, and more. Simply target the community with content from your brand page and set up branded tournaments and landing pages without any code.

Best of all? You can use it for any game, and it only takes two weeks to get onboarded and fully set up! Are you ready?

Connect, engage & monetize your audience in just 2 weeks with our 360° gaming tournament platform. Take a peak inside!

2. Share behind-the-scenes content & real stories

A blog/vlog is perfect for storytelling. Gamers love to see behind the scenes, from game creation to interviews with developers and insights into the lives of top players. A familiar face builds trust and sharing your journey creates community involvement.

3. Launch or sponsor an esports team to get in front of gamers

A great way to get in front of the growing gaming audience is by creating or sponsoring your own esports team. Besides visibility and creating awareness, you get to leverage sponsored players for behind-the-scenes content, brand activations, and campaigns.

4. Live streaming draws in extra eyeballs

In esports, Twitch boasts the highest usage intensity of any streaming platform and its creators are powerful members of the gaming community. Other platforms like YouTube gaming are also gaining popularity. In fact, Youtube attributes the gaming segment as the forefront of Youtube’s growth!

5. Broadcast gaming tournaments

What matters is that next to gaming in itself, watching other people play has become normal. So, broadcast your tournaments for the world to see! Besides being great entertainment and a way to attract the gaming audience, it can also increase sponsor visibility.

6. Partner with influencers to reach a bigger audience

The gaming market is filled with fun and creative influencers that already reach your target audience. Partnerships allow these influencers to keep creating content to satisfy their fans. There are many ways to engage gamers through partnerships.

You could use a familiar face to promote the product through unboxing videos, affiliate promotions or sponsored content. However, you can also go beyond content. For instance, by having influencers host your online event. In fact, with the right gaming tournament platform, you can even let influencers compete against each other or fans.

7. Mobile game ads are more successful

If your focus is on mobile gaming marketing, then there is no better place to advertise on mobile games themselves. According to Tapjoy, mobile gamers are far more likely to notice in-game ads (41%) than web ads (17%).

8. Prioritize your gaming marketing with the “33-33-33 rule”

Firaxis, the studio behind the Civilization games, follow the clever “33-33-33 rule.” Essentially, 33% of each new iteration should be things that are proven to work, 33% should be improvements, and 33% should be totally new. To be sure, this strategy can help inspire new ideas from your team, as well as double down on what already works great!

9. Host live events to strengthen the gamer experience

While the gaming industry is mostly seen as digital-first, gamers have been seeking more opportunities to come together and connect in person. This could be through LAN parties, local meetups, esports events, and more. When asked about the main reasons to attend these events gamers responded as followed:

81% To be part of the gaming community
80% To watch their favorite players & teams
61% To connect with the friends they’ve met online

Besides being a great way to build community and create unique sponsorship experiences, live events drive engagement and loyalty. In fact, gamers that do attend live events tend to spend and play more than other gamers.

10. Create or sponsor a podcast

Podcasting is the fastest-growing media segment. The personal and authentic style of conversations appeals to gamers. There are many gaming podcasts like IGN Gamescoop, Let’s Talk PlayStation, Digital Foundry Weekly,… that cover different topics. These might vary from gaming news to tactical aspects like how to become a better gamer, what hardware to get, and more.

Besides, gamers also love listening to interviews with their favorite streamers, influencers, and esports players.

11. Social media as a connection space

Research says that 55% of gamers check gaming social media platforms regularly. So reach your gamers there! Use platforms like Youtube gaming, Twitch, Discord, and Reddit to respond to user feedback, share trailers and collect user-generated content!

12. User-generated content is more trustworthy

Gamers trust user-generated content more than traditional ads. Not only is it more authentic, but it is also effective at building a sense of community! Incentivize users to share by featuring the best content on your official pages. Gamification can also help. Reddit for instance works with Karma points. These are based on your contributions which determine your status in the community.

7 tools designed to engage the gamer audience

1. Use a tournament maker like BracketHQ to host online tournaments

Online tournaments are a great, if not the best way to engage gamers. Especially, when there is something to gain! Besides the sense of competition, gamers are also motivated by a prospective prize. This doesn’t have to be monetarily and can also be a shop item, a sponsor experience, or simply community recognition.

2. Create gamified reward programs with Social & Loyal

After you get gamers on your platform, it’s important to keep them there! So, how can you do that? Start off by incentivizing engagement through rewards. You can use experience points to reward desired actions such as interacting with the community. These points also serve as the metric for growth. They indicate progress, leaderboard ranking, levels, and more.

3. Data tools like Segment help to personalize the experience

You can segment gamers based on their location, preferred games, and many more things. At least, if you have the right tools to do so! Data tools such as Heap or Segment can help you gain insight into the behavior of different user types, and adapt accordingly.

4. Build a forum with Discourse to drive interaction

The gaming community has a voice, so listen to it! In fact, a community platform like Discord or Reddit can boost engagement and retention tremendously! With Discourse you get to own and customize your own community. What’s great about communities is how they promote user-generated content and feedback.

5. User feedback tools like GetFeedback to maximize engagement

As mentioned before, gamers have valuable feedback to give! Allow them to express it through surveys! You can also regularly ask for their input through polls. For instance: what collaboration do you want to see next? What would you improve about our community?

6. Find memorable collaborations through influencer platforms like Grin

Collaborating with popular influencers is a great way to keep your community engaged with fresh content. Platforms like Grin, Adshot, or Connus help you match up with the right influencers, set campaign goals, and track the results.

What works even better are interactive campaigns. For example, hosting a live Q&A, or letting gamers compete against their favorite streamers or esports players in an online tournament!

7. Combine everything into one centralized gaming tournament platform with StriveCloud

As you can see gaming marketing is complex, but it doesn’t have to be! StriveCloud’s gaming tournament platform is a complete solution for engaging the gaming audience. Besides setting up fully automated tournaments, you can build your own community & connect with users on a deeper level.

Here’s what it entails:

Automated tournament & league systems compatible with all popular games.
Bespoke page builder to communicate & promote all events from 1 place.
Social feed & live messaging so users can connect easier than ever.
Gamification features that foster engagement & loyalty on a behavioral level.
Actionable 1st party data to empower your monetization strategy.
Fully white-labeled to help you connect brands with the gaming audience.
Available on web & mobile for maximum engagement.

What’s more, our customer support team will be on hand to make implementation as easy as possible. In fact, our lightning-fast setup can get you up and running in just 2 weeks!

Find out why leading sports brands & esports agencies love us! Book a demo with our experts & discover the benefits of your own tournament platform!

Gamification: The ultimate tactic to engage gamers

Without a doubt, nobody is better suited to respond positively to gamification than the gaming community. Gamification is essentially the use of game-like dynamics and psychology to drive motivation and inspire action. This gaming marketing tactic not only increases conversion but also drives engagement and revenue.

In practice, gamification inspires action. Features like challenges, raffles, and leaderboards trigger people to partake in your marketing campaign, community, or gaming tournament platform. Gamers like the sense of competition and challenge.

Additionally, gamification incentivizes engagement and loyalty. For instance, by rewarding gamers with badges or leveling systems when they contribute content to the community. The possibilities are endless. You could let gamers compete for sponsored prizes and shop items or even create a charity raffle like football club KAA Gent!

FAQ

What is the biggest challenge to engaging gamers today?

We live in an attention economy. Essentially, engagement is shattered around various social media and online platforms. And while you can build a great following on ‘rented platforms’, you have limited control over the experience or data. You need a way to engage and connect this audience on a single, owned platform. That’s where a gaming tournament platform can help!

How do you engage gamers?

The secret behind successful gaming marketing is simple - yet impossible to fake. You need to display genuine enthusiasm! Because gamers are so engaged, they can sense a phony easily. Fundamentally, gaming marketing is all about building a trusting relationship with your customers.

How to host the best gaming tournaments?

A poor gaming tournament platform can leave users feeling unfulfilled or even cheated. Perhaps the rewards don’t feel earned, the rules favor one team, or the UI is simply clunky. Put these issues out of your mind with the StriveCloud tournament maker.

7 Tournament organizers tools | Pros & Cons

To be a great tournament organizer, you need a tournament maker that suits your needs. So how do you find the right one? Whether you’re a brand or an (e)sports organization, picking the right tool will be detrimental to your marketing, engagement & monetization strategy. To help you get started, we ran down the pros & cons of the 7 tools.

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7 Tournament organizers tools | Pros & Cons

To be a great tournament organizer, you need a tournament maker that suits your needs. So how do you go about finding the right one? Organizing gaming tournaments is a proven way to build an engaged audience. Whether you’re a brand or an (e)sports organization, there are many types of tournament generators out there. Picking the right one will be detrimental to your marketing, engagement, and monetization strategy.

To help you get started, we’ll run down the pros & cons of the 7 top gaming tournament makers.

Where to begin? Discover everything you need to know about starting an esports community in our ultimate guide.

The all-in-one tournament maker: StriveCloud

StriveCloud brings together competition, community & content all in one central platform. Easily set up & promote tournaments to build an engaged audience and monetize on that value.

Pros

Brings together competition, community & content in 1 central platform
A wide array of monetization opportunities from sponsor visibility to buy-in tournaments, premium packages, and shop items
You own all the 1st party data!
Comes with gamification features like leveling systems, badges & rewards to keep gamers engaged
Entirely white-labeled so you can establish your own brand (or even re-sell to clients)

Cons

No free trial is available
Works better with an internal admin to manage the platform
It might take a while to learn how to maximize the full feature set
You need to have a sound user acquisition strategy

Want to learn more? Discover what our tournament platform has to offer!

StriveCloud’s tournament organizer in action

Our tournament generator is used by leading esports agencies, sports organizations, and brands. Let’s look at how some of our clients put it to good use:

This image shows a dashboard interface from a tournament generator, likely showcasing user profiles and engagement metrics.

Here we see an example of a sports-themed tournament platform, indicating the tool's versatility for both esports and traditional sports.

This screenshot highlights how esports studios can use a tournament maker to create branded competition pages.

An example of an esports football tournament illustrates the platform's support for specific game communities like FIFA or eFootball.

This final gallery image provides another view of the tournament organizer's interface, emphasizing a clean and user-friendly design.

Tobias Egartner, CEO @Dayzero - "We are really good at organising FIFA competitions. StriveCloud is really good at making the platform work for the community."

Toornament is a robust suite of tools for tournament organizers

French tournament maker Tournament is a suite of tools designed for tournament organizers, agencies & game studios. It’s a great fit to organize tournaments for fun or professionally. But what is their platform like?

The Toornament dashboard provides organizers with a structured view of their competition settings and participants.

Pros

2-week free trial to explore
All-in-one participant registration
Free plan for small, friendly tournaments
Max 100 participants per match (equals that of popular titles like Fortnite)
Mixed participant seeding (randomization, customization, or both)
“What You See Is What You Get” website builder

Cons

By far the biggest drawback of Toornament however, is the lack of community features. Without social features like a feed and chat, it is harder to monetize engagement and get the growth benefits that come with a tight-knit community.

There are a few more snags:

Toornament is an API, not an owned tournament organizer platform
No white-label website or widgets for free & starter plans
You don’t own data on user activity - Toornament “handles it on your behalf”
No gamification features to keep players engaged
No built-in monetization features
Free users are limited in features, including a 128-participant cap
Worse still, no direct customer support at all until you pay €199 per month

Battlefy connects gamers with tournament organizers

Battlefy is an easy-to-use tournament organizer that connects gamers with brands, (e)sports organizations, and game publishers.

Pros

Battlefy’s biggest USP is that they are 100% free to use. Therefore, this makes it ideal for startups, influencers, and friendly communities.

Supports over 40,000 games
Many tournament formats
Automatic score reporting & match statistics
Customizable to your needs

Cons

However, the free software comes with a hitch. Some gamers also report that finding people to play with can be hard, as the community for many games has become inactive.

Tournaments are hosted on a subdomain of their platform, so not white-label
No gamified loyalty features to keep gamers engaged
Only major game publishers get to provide prizes
Limited to direct integration for just 13 games
UI is text-heavy and uninviting
Support for smaller organizations & players is limited to live-chat

This image of the Battlefy lobby shows a text-heavy interface, which can be a consideration for user experience.

Award Pool is a progressive tournament maker with WEB3 features

Award Pool leans heavily on the tech enthusiast audience. From an NFT reward system to integration with the Discord bot, their platform is pushing boundaries.

Pros

Can develop achievements based on over 1000 pre-defined game triggers
Discord bot integration helps you communicate with your gamers
Demo test feature for tournaments
Feedback and survey tools
Built-in donation and payment system

Cons

Award Pool takes a 4% commission from transactions
Focus on NFTs may turn away gamers who see no value in the reward
NFTs are locked to the platform (unless users pay)
UI comes with a hefty learning curve to appreciate its complexity

Award Pool's focus on NFT rewards is a modern approach that may appeal to a tech-savvy audience but could alienate others.

Challonge simplifies tournaments for gaming communities

Challonge is a tournament maker owned by tech giant Logitech - and according to their website their platform has hosted 31,036,231 brackets! So what can Challonge do?

Pros

Easy-to-use bracket maker which is free to use
Create & manage event pages to promote your tournament
It’s quick to sign up for and easy to use for new users

Cons

No white-label portal - personalized subdomain only
Monetization opportunities are limited to paid tournaments only
Data access is limited to event registrations & tournament outcomes
Lack of gamified features to boost player engagement
Match documentation limited to 250KB for free users, 25MB for premium (still not enough for a recorded video of matches, for instance)

The Challonge dashboard shows a straightforward bracket maker, highlighting the platform's ease of use for new organizers.

Tournify is a simple but effective tournament generator

Dutch tournament maker Tournify targets both traditional sports and esports - offering simplicity to both. And while their platform has a free tier and is easy to use, it’s actually a little too simple for anything but the most basic tournament.

Pros

Accessible demo to test platform
Customized branding on the tournament page
Tournaments are accessible in Tournify mobile app
Easy to get started as a new tournament organizer or football club
Also works for live events

Cons

Monetization is limited to sponsor visibility (only at the highest tier)
No gamification features to incentivize engagement
Limited insights from player activity
Participants must input the scores themselves
Not ideal if you organize over 10 tournaments per year
No community tools or built-in chat functions (must integrate with Discord)

Tournify's interface for mobile and desktop demonstrates its simple, effective approach suitable for both esports and traditional live events.

Start.gg a no-nonsense tournament maker

Formerly known as Smash, the Microsoft-owned Start.gg is one of the most established tournament generators on the market. Their marketing boasts “no premium plans, no tournament organizer charges, no NFT shenanigans”. But what do they actually offer?

Pros

Active community makes finding game(r)s easy
Advanced tournament discovery
Completely free - no commission/fees
Weekly Q&A session for customer support

Cons

No white-label platform
Monetization tools limited to reward shops & donations
Lack of community features outside of Discord
No gamification elements to keep players engaged
Support for paid tournament entry only for the top game titles

The Start.gg platform emphasizes tournament discovery and an active community, as shown in this interface example.

blue banner, man smiling, text nudging to book a session

This call to action invites users to learn more about how StriveCloud's comprehensive tools can meet their specific needs.

FAQ

What should the best custom tournament maker offer?

A great tournament maker is one that suits your needs. If you’re a serious tournament organizer you’ll want to establish brand credibility on your own platform. Ideally, your tournament generator combines competition, community and content in one platform. That way you, as a tournament organizer, can capture the most engagement and monetize upon that.

What is the best gaming tournament organizer tool?

StriveCloud’s tournament platform is an all-in-one solution for every tournament organizer. Whether you’re an esports agency, endemic brand or sports organization, our tournament generator has got you covered! Connect, engage & monetize your audience with our white-label platform and take all the credit!

10 tried & proven ways to monetize your gaming community in 2022

How do you build and more importantly monetize your gaming community? Originally, Discord is a great platform to connect with gamers. However, it's not easy to monetize. From sponsor and advertising opportunities to in-game currencies and rewards, what approach should you take? Find out in this article!

Read Story

10 tried & proven ways to monetize your gaming community in 2022

How do you build a thriving gaming or Discord community? What tools do you need to grow? Previously, we covered how to set up a gaming community in our ultimate guide. But how do you monetize something like Discord communities? To answer this question we’ve gathered 10 tried and proven monetization strategies!

This article explores ten effective strategies for monetizing gaming communities on platforms like Discord and beyond.

How do you build a successful gaming community?

Successful gaming communities thrive on more than just gaming. They offer a way for gamers to connect, compete and find entertainment. Researchers have revealed 3 key insights into what affects reuse intention in gaming communities:

Social aspect - Connecting people with the same interests is a recipe for success. Spark conversation and encourage gamers to share their journey and insights to boost community growth!
Competitive aspect - A lot of gamers have a winning mentality. The urge to rank higher on the leaderboard or win actual prizes is what drives many of them. That’s why tournaments are a great way to engage gamers!
Entertainment aspect - Essentially, gamers like a lot more than just playing games. They are also interested in esports, game news updates, and tactical insights.

These 3 factors were identified as important predictors of replay intention for gamers. So how do you inspire these game-changing psychological factors? With the right tools!

What tools do you need to set up a successful gaming community?

Discord communities are the heart of the gaming audience

Discord communities are the best place to connect with gamers. Because users need to be ‘invited’ to your channel, a Discord community is more secure than other platforms. As a result, Discord fosters high levels of relatedness since all members have similar interests!

To quickly describe the platform, features include a channel for announcements, voice chats, as well as the ability for users to create channels according to rank or specialty. The power of Discord is evident - in 2021, Discord boasted 140 million MAUs!

Live streaming with Twitch or YouTube

Live streams are both authentic and interactive. Moreover, live streams help you preview gameplay and casually connect with your audience. Gamers love it! Currently, the two biggest live streaming platforms are YouTube Gaming - the top-rated streaming channel in the world - and Twitch.

Centralize everything in 1 gaming platform with StriveCloud

What if you could connect users, host competitions, and promote brands all from within 1 platform? That’s what our gaming tournament platform offers! Besides running fully automated tournaments, our platform allows you to promote tournaments from a central place while motivating engagement through gamification.

Unlike Discord communities, StriveCloud is built with the community owner in mind. That’s why everything is entirely white-labeled so you can add your own branding and instantly improve credibility. Esports agency eStudios has done this with great success on their GameTurnier platform.

To top it all off, you get complete access to all user data which you can use to set up targeted campaigns and tournaments.

Learn more! Book a free demo and explore the benefits of a bespoke gaming tournament platform.

10 ways to monetize your gaming community

A gaming community can be a valuable asset if you know how to monetize it. Everything from sponsor and advertising opportunities to paid products or memberships can become a valuable revenue stream. What can you do to monetize your gaming community on Discord and beyond?

#1 Connect with brands that want to reach your audience

The first way to monetize your gaming community is to find sponsors that want to reach your audience. However, unlike other social platforms like Facebook or TikTok, you can’t find any native advertising tools on Discord. That said, you can still engage authentically through real-time discussions.

A great way to solve this challenge is by getting gamers on your own platform by organizing tournaments. When you get your audience on your own platform like StriveCloud, there are many opportunities to feature brands and give them exposure to the right people.

Kayzr for instance lets its sponsors create their own pages to engage fans in branded tournaments. Furthermore, they can also get featured on the news page, social feed, and shop!

This example from Kayzr shows how sponsors like Proximus can create branded tournament leagues to engage with fans directly on the platform.

#2 Offer premium packages and paid subscriptions

This revenue model in particular is highly effective. Hardcore gamers don’t mind spending money to improve their experience. If you want to make the most out of these people, think of creating a premium strategy! This could mean adding perks like bigger prizes, exclusive content, and in-game advantages. Not to mention live streams that are premium-only or without ads.

The D11 gaming community's premium packages demonstrate a successful model for offering exclusive perks and enhanced prizes to dedicated players.

Our client D11 for instance is the go-to platform to connect, play and win gaming tournaments in the MENAT region. They have partnered with some leading Telecoms and notable brands to support its branding and marketing initiatives while providing an awesome gaming experience to its clients.

They also offer different premium packages which allow you to earn twice as much the prizes along with a bunch of premium perks. You can also make your Discord community or specific channels within your server paid. However, it’s not easy to compete with lots of free servers when you don’t have amazing prizes to back it up.

#3 Leverage in-game currencies to encourage purchasing behavior

An in-game currency can massively boost engagement due to the possibilities it offers. For instance, our client Jantje, the dutch esports platform managed by KPN, rewards gamers for participating in tournaments or inside the community. Players can then take their well-earned coins and exchange them for items in the shop or enter a lottery to win even bigger prizes!

Replicating this on Discord communities is nearly impossible. Besides the lack of data to actually reward community members, you would also have to set up a currency bot and an online shop outside of your community to make this work.

#4 Buy-in tournaments are engagement & money magnets

What if you could get paid to do what you love? That’s what buy-in tournaments offer for gaming enthusiasts! You can attract users from your own or other Discord communities to participate in these tournaments.

What’s great about buy-in tournaments is that it allows you to hand out bigger prizes or even straight-up cash while also getting paid yourself. The more players, the higher the prize pool. Besides, a sense of competition can be a great instigator of engagement. And when you use a tournament platform like StriveCloud, you can completely automate the process.

Attract, engage & monetize your gaming community - all from one platform! Discover what StriveCloud could do for you!

tournament platform vs discord communities

Choosing the right platform is key, as a dedicated tournament platform offers features that are difficult to replicate in standard community apps like Discord.

#5 Create your own unique merchandise!

Merchandise is a great way to boost revenue and brand awareness. It’s already been done by game developers, esports teams, and influencers to grow their fandom with great success. If you play your cards right some merch might actually be seen as collectibles for true fans.

There are many possibilities to create unique merch that suits your audience. From clothing such as caps, t-shirts, and hoodies to phone cases, stickers, mousepads, and even gaming chairs!

#6 Increase sponsor visibility through live streaming

You could get a ton of extra visibility by live streaming your gaming tournaments on Twitch or YouTube gaming. Especially when you host tournaments in collaboration with influencers or professional gamers. Furthermore, you can use highlights from your streams as clips to share on other channels like YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok.

#7 Leverage data for specific brand campaigns

Often the best way to engage users is to send them a personalized message. Unfortunately, Discord communities don’t make it possible to specifically target audiences based on criteria or collect email addresses.

However, when you bring your gaming community on StriveCloud you have access to all the data you need. Simply segment and reach out to your audience according to location, demographics, behaviors, and more. For instance, when football club KV Mechelen hosted a branded competition on Kayzr, they send out a message to all FIFA players instead of the entire user base.

#8 Ask for donations (and give away variable rewards)

A common practice in Discord communities is to ask for donations. Users can donate an amount by choice and sometimes earn rewards on this like badges or server roles. However, Discord takes 30% of each donation. Some Discord community owners prefer to use a platform like Patreon because it offers more reward possibilities.

StriveCloud’s tournament platform also has built-in gamification features to reward users in a variety of ways like milestones, levels, achievements & redeemable points collection. These can be used to motivate certain actions such as participating in the community.

#9 Create game-based content like Podcasts

The gaming experience consists of more than just gaming. In fact, gaming and Discord communities love content about esports & gaming news, tactical game insights, and many more topics. You could run a podcast or start a reaction-based YouTube channel surrounding your community interests.

Once you become a valuable source for the latest game updates or insights, brands will also be interested in getting featured in front of your audience.

#10 Create a game-based training product or service

Besides selling merchandise you can also sell products in line with your gaming community. Just like traditional sports competitive gaming requires lots of tactical insight and skills. You could capitalize on this by working with experts to launch a course or coaching program. For example, Game Turnier does this for FIFA players.

Again, if you’re on Discord, you’ll have to create a separate landing page and site for this content and find a way to link it back to your community.

Booking a personalized session is a great next step to see how these monetization strategies can apply to your specific community.

FAQ

How do you make a successful gaming community?

Successful gaming communities have these 3 components in place: social aspect, competition, and entertainment. These components are fueled by building an audience with common interests and working out related content and competitions to keep them engaged.

What tools do I need to set up a successful gaming community?

Discord communities are great to connect with gamers but not as easy to monetize. You could use platforms like Twitch and YouTube Gaming to gather extra eyeballs or host your own podcast. However, hosting your own gaming tournament platform has lots of benefits. That’s why a tool like StriveCloud can save you lots of time by combining everything you need into 1 platform.

How to monetize a Discord community?

Even though Discord is a great platform to build your community, it’s not always easy to monetize. While there are several initiatives you can take, it often requires finding or building a bot that suits your needs. Some challenges of monetizing Discord communities include limited advertising options, restricted access to data, and a lack of e-commerce possibilities.

How mobility operators can create growth with gamified loyalty programs

Yes, shared mobility is set to expand at a fast rate of nearly 17% in 2023. But big names still dominate the market! So how do mid-sized shared mobility operators break through with such tough competition? We'll let you in on a proven trade secret: gamified loyalty programs. Here's how it could benefit your mobility app!

Read Story

How mobility operators can create growth with gamified loyalty programs

In 2023, shared mobility will expand at an incredible rate! But this growth masks the challenges facing mid-size shared mobility operators. While big names dominate, it can be hard to stand out and compete with companies offering rock-bottom prices. So how do you thrive in this market? One answer is gamification. A gamified loyalty program engages new, younger customers, and makes you less vulnerable to price competition.

A gamified loyalty program can transform a mobility app, making it more engaging for users. In this article, let’s introduce gamification and showcase some gamification loyalty program examples that have transformed shared mobility apps for the better:

The trends in shared mobility for 2023 (and where the industry is headed)

One word sums up the state of mobility today: growth! And it’s shared mobility that will experience one of the largest rises. Between 2022 and 2030, the industry will expand at a yearly rate of 16.9%, ballooning from $209 billion to a whopping $731 billion!

This rapid market growth can be attributed to various different factors. Next to the surge in investments, the transportation ecosystem has been growing due to the Government promoting shared mobility solutions to reduce traffic congestion. Additionally, lack of parking spaces, high fuel prices, and high cost of personal vehicle ownership are also key attributes to the market growth.

This graph illustrates the projected explosive growth in the shared mobility market through 2030. Despite this optimistic outlook, operators face significant hurdles.

5 main challenges shared mobility operators face today

#1 Competition is tough - especially from big names offering the same for less

Shared mobility is home to a few big names that dominate their own markets. And they do this by offering services that mid-size operators also offer, but at much lower prices. Yet many of these big companies struggled for years, chasing growth and market share at the expense of profitability. Take the e-hailing service Lyft for example. In 2021, they reported their first-ever year of profit after a whole 9 years in business!

Of course, not every shared mobility operator can afford to stay in business for nearly a decade without ever making a penny in profit. As a result, ambitious mid-size operators seeking sustainable growth must compete with big names that have deep pockets, and in turn, a huge competitive advantage.

#2 Lower prices & gamified loyalty programs are huge pull factors

So, competition is tough and big operators can offer lower prices. Unfortunately for mid-size firms, consumers named “competitive price” as the No. 2 most important feature of a shared mobility operator - second only to safety.

As this chart from McKinsey shows, competitive pricing is a top consideration for consumers, second only to safety. A well-designed loyalty program can effectively enhance price attractiveness without simply cutting costs.

A gamified loyalty program can cheaply enhance your price attractiveness. For a great example, look at how Swedish e-scooter company Voi rewards loyal customers. Under the “ride more, pay less” program, Voi hands out bigger discounts for higher levels. Meaning, the more you use their service, the cheaper it gets!

Voi's 'Voialty' program is a prime example of gamification, rewarding users with discounts as they reach higher levels. This kind of program helps operators differentiate their service and stay top-of-mind for customers.

#3 It isn't easy staying top of mind

It can be hard to differentiate your product in shared mobility, and as a consequence, it can also be difficult to stay on the top of consumers’ minds. To the average consumer, the only thing that seems to separate brands is the color of the scooter!

At the end of the day, why should consumers bother learning about your service, when there are so many others competing for that same attention?

#4 Many operators don't know how to keep customers engaged over time

Many mobility operators are overly reliant on traditional marketing tactics such as advertising and promotions rather than focusing on building relationships with their customers. As a result, many apps are clunky, and the user experience is either boring or simply too similar to the alternatives.

#5 Young people ignore marketing acquisition efforts

While younger people are a big potential market for mobility operators, they’re not easy to reach. In fact, experts reckon that 47% of all Millennials and Gen X appear elusive to standard advertising methods. And the story is even worse for Gen Z.

To really reach that audience you need to create an authentic brand personality through fun organic content and storytelling. However, to facilitate that you need to truly understand your audience. By using techniques like social listening you facilitate customer feedback and interaction, which is exactly what Gen Z prefers!

How gamification can help shared mobility operators

Gamification is a great way to encourage your customers to book more rides. How come? Well, it’s easy - a gamified mobility app provides a better experience around renting a scooter or riding a bike! And that’s important when a record 44% of companies today compete mainly over the user experience. That means how your platform engages consumers really makes a difference! And this is where gamification is useful for shared mobility.

What is gamification?

Gamification is the use of game-like elements such as badges, points, and leaderboards in non-game contexts. It’s often used to motivate people to complete certain tasks or reach goals that would otherwise feel boring—for example, a gamified loyalty program or gamified education.

Providing rewards for completing tasks or reaching goals can create a sense of accomplishment and pride in the user's work. Additionally, elements like progress bars or milestones are used as a tool to help users understand their progress.

How does gamification work?

Gamification works by adding elements of game-play to activities that users would normally find mundane. For example, mobility operators might provide levels and badges that customers can unlock as they complete certain actions and reach milestones. Gamification is a great way to keep customers engaged with your platform, but it can also be used to encourage specific behaviors, like booking more trips or referring friends.

Ultimately, gamification is about making activities more fun and rewarding for customers. That happens by using two types of motivation:

Intrinsic motivation is the type of motivation that comes from within an individual and drives them to act without any external reward or pressure. It is based on an individual's internal desires and interests, such as a passion for learning or a desire to achieve something. It has been found to be more effective in achieving long-term goals because it is self-sustaining and does not depend on external rewards or reinforcements.

Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is driven by external factors such as rewards, punishments, incentives, and competition. It involves engaging in activities for tangible rewards such as discounts or recognition rather than for the enjoyment of the activity itself. While extrinsic motivation can be effective in achieving short-term goals, it has been found that it often decreases over time due to its reliance on external factors.

Gamification combines both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in order to create a powerful form of engagement that encourages users to stay active and loyal over the long haul.

How gamification benefits shared mobility operators (and helps overcome the industry’s challenges)

Gamification can help your mobility brand stay top of mind by creating a differentiated experience. By introducing game elements into your mobility app, you create a fun and engaging experience that encourages customers to interact with your brand more often.

Additionally, gamification can help drive acquisition by providing creative incentives for customers to join the platform. Creating a unique narrative with custom challenges, rewards, badges, and level names will make your brand message come to life! This in turn can also help you attract new and younger audiences.

Your integrated storytelling will help to attract new and younger audiences.

Finally, a gamified loyalty program ensures customers remain loyal to your brand and continue using it over time. It can also be used to reward customers for completing certain actions, such as taking a certain number of rides or referring friends to use the service. By tracking user behavior and preferences, you can tailor rewards and incentives to each individual user in order to keep them engaged.

Why a gamified loyalty program is perfect for shared mobility

Shared mobility apps are the perfect fit for a gamified loyalty program. Here’s why! By their very nature, shared mobility apps create and run on vast amounts of data (like duration, distance, and frequency). Well, gamification gets its power from leveraging this data!

For example, imagine a loyalty program where you’re rewarded with an in-app currency based on the distance you’ve covered. Later on, you can redeem that currency for free riding minutes! Additionally, you can earn badges and level up for reaching milestones like 1-5-10-... kilometers.

In this case, a gamified loyalty program incentivizes customers to stick with you. In other words, why would they pick other operators when they still have coins or free-riding minutes left with them?

How to apply gamification in shared mobility

Gamification comes in many forms. Let’s look at some features you can apply to your very own mobility app:

Leveling system (the base of any great gamified loyalty program)

Another way to differentiate your gamified loyalty program is by creating a unique leveling system. Similar to badges, leveling systems provide a sense of achievement within the platform. However, they also serve as an indicator of progress and feedback to the customer.

Points/in-app currencies

Points or in-app currencies are at the heart of every gamified loyalty program. For starters, points incentivize customers to complete certain actions. They also determine the weight and importance of each action.

Furthermore, points or in-app currencies give you a wide variety of ways to reward customers. For instance, you could let exchange coins for free riding minutes, offer discounts, or organize a weekly raffle with shop prizes.

Achievements & badge reward systems

Achievements are a great way to build loyalty since you’re rewarding the customer every time they reach a certain milestone. For example, you can reward customers with a unique badge after their first or tenth trip. These badges serve both as a personal achievement as well as a symbol of social status or recognition within your community!

Top examples of gamification loyalty programs in shared mobility

How EVO Sharing leveraged gamification to get customers to book more trips

Challenge

Achieving growth in such a competitive market can be tough. When the German e-scooter company EVO Sharing came to us, they wanted to achieve 3 main outcomes:

Boost the number of rides booked per customer. The true sign of a successful platform is when your customers keep coming back for more!
Attract more students. At the time, EVO Sharing had found great success amongst commuters but was lacking a younger audience.
Differentiate from competitors. By creating a fun and playful experience.

Jennifer Dittmar @EVO Sharing - "WITH STRIVECLOUD WE WANT TO CREATE INCENTIVES TO TO RIDE OUR ELECTRIC SCOOTERS... WITH THIS THE CUSTOMER SHALL BE MOTIVATED TO USE OUR SERVICE MORE OFTEN."

This dashboard concept shows how gamification elements can be integrated into a mobility app's user interface. Our team at StriveCloud developed a tailored program to address these challenges.

Solution

Our team of gamification experts at StriveCloud created a gamified loyalty program to incentivize desired customer behaviors. For example, now customers can earn EvoCoins for completing a certain amount of miles. Then, they can exchange these coins for free riding minutes.

Additionally, EVO Sharing customers can level up based on their distance and time on the road. This way, they are incentivized to keep coming back for more rides!

Jennifer Dittmar @EVO Sharing - "OUR BUSINESS MODEL IS VERY SUITABLE FOR GAMIFICATION. RECEIVING REWARDS BASED ON DISTANCE, KILOMETERS OR MINUTES DRIVEN MAKES A LOT OF SENSE TO US AND GOES WELL TOGETHER."

Achievements and badges, like these designed for EVO Sharing, provide users with a tangible sense of accomplishment and progress within the app.

Stuck on how to boost rides per customer? Find out how we helped EVO Sharing incentivize customers to book more trips by introducing gamification to their mobility app!

How we helped HumanForest make London’s mobility greener

Challenge

HumanForest wanted to help London save as much CO2 as possible, by promoting its shared e-bike service in a fun and playful way!

Solution

We created a gamified loyalty program that embodies HumanForest’s brand narrative. Every mile you complete represents one tree worth of CO2 saved. For every five trees or miles, you get one TreeCoin. Based on those metrics you can level up, get featured on the CO2 leaderboard, and more!

Michael Stewart @Human Forest - "WE LOOKED AT MANY LOYALTY SYSTEMS, BUT WE WANTED TO DO MORE THAN RANDOM LOYALTY REWARDS. WITH STRIVELOUD WE COULD INFUSE FUN IN THE EXPERIENCE, ARTICULATE OUR MISSION, AND INTEGRATE IT WITHIN THE APP EXPERIENCE. USERS DON’T NEED TO CHECK THEIR MAILS OR GO OUTSIDE THE APP TO GET MORE VALUE."

The HumanForest app demonstrates a gamified experience where users collect TreeCoins and track their positive environmental impact, making each ride more meaningful.

Read the HumanForest success story! Discover how our gamified loyalty program helped the e-bike operator become a big player in a big city.

How you can use StriveCloud to create a gamified loyalty program inside your mobility app

Are you facing similar loyalty challenges in growing your mobility business? Here’s how to launch your own gamified loyalty program inside your mobility app!

If you’re building your mobility service on Wunder Mobility we have great news for you! Thanks to our direct integration with Wunder Mobility, we can easily set up our software to integrate the new gamification features straight into your mobility app. Don’t worry if you’re not, everything is still possible!

This is our bulletproof 3-step implementation plan:

Consultation & workshop. In a 3-hour workshop, we will identify the best solution for your challenges, as well as how to engage your specific target audience.
Gamification design plan. Time to gamify! Once we know your needs, our experienced team can start designing a gamification plan. Importantly, this step clearly defines what data and features your gamified loyalty program will leverage to reward your customers.
Set-up and implementation! After setting up our software, we will onboard & train your team on how to use it. That way, you can easily iterate on the experience and change your gamification features & loyalty schemes from a simple control panel linked to your app!

Michael Stewart @Human Forest - "PERSONALLY, I REALLY LIKE THE CONTROL PANEL OF STRIVECLOUD, AND I THINK IT IS EASY TO USE. I CAN INSTANTLY IMPLEMENT CHANGES WITHOUT HAVING TO WAIT 24 HOURS OR MORE TO DEPLOY"

How can you benefit from a gamified loyalty program? Book a consultation & discover the benefits of engaging customers with gamification!

FAQs

What trends will shape shared mobility in 2023?

In 2023, shared mobility will continue to grow. The global market is predicted to expand at a rate of nearly 17%, providing many new growth opportunities. However, the industry’s biggest names will continue to dominate, creating a challenging environment for mid-size firms.

What is gamification?

Gamification is the use of game-like elements such as badges, points, and leaderboards in non-game contexts. It’s often used to motivate people to complete certain tasks or reach goals that would otherwise feel boring or unimportant—for example, a gamified loyalty program.

Why the shared mobility model is perfect for gamification?

Shared mobility apps are the perfect fit for a gamified loyalty program. Here’s why! By their very nature, shared mobility apps create and run on vast amounts of data, such as duration, distance, and frequency. Gamification gets its power from leveraging this data!

How to unlock growth in shared mobility with your own loyalty strategy

A loyalty strategy can make all the difference when it comes to growth and profitability as a shared mobility operator. If your loyalty & rewards program converts just 10% of your total customers into loyal ones, your revenues could increase by 37.5%! Discover exactly how to unlock this growth in your shared mobility app.

Read Story

How to unlock growth in shared mobility with your own loyalty strategy

For shared mobility operators, the customer journey doesn’t end in a purchase, it’s just the beginning! As more competitors are entering the market, a great loyalty strategy is necessary to fuel long-term growth. Why? A good loyalty & rewards program will ensure users spend more time and money, while also being 73% more likely to recommend your brand!

This article explores how a well-crafted loyalty program can be a significant growth driver for shared mobility services.

Find out everything you need to know about customer loyalty for shared mobility:

Why is customer loyalty important in shared mobility?

Essentially, a loyalty strategy defines how you plan to convert your average customer into a frequent one. In other words, how can you get your customers to spend more time and money with your brand?

Often, this takes the form of a loyalty & rewards program complete with exclusive perks and incentives. In fact, market research shows these programs are a major growth driver in shared mobility. How come? Well, increased loyalty leads to a range of benefits:

#1 Loyal customers are more likely to recommend your service to others

The simplest explanation for this is that loyal customers use your app more and will have more opportunities to recommend your service. But loyal users are also likely to feel stronger about your service - and it’s this personal recommendation that builds trust around your brand. Actually, studies show how word-of-mouth was crucial for boosting shared mobility adoption across dozens of European cities.

#2 More loyalty means more profit

A loyal customer comes back to you, and repeat users have been shown to generate 67% more revenue than new users! With numbers like that, the right loyalty strategy can create huge returns. If your loyalty & rewards program converts just 10% of customers into frequent users, your revenues could increase by 37.5%! For a mid-sized shared mobility operator, this sort of increase is a game-changer.

This graph illustrates the significant revenue increase generated by repeat users, highlighting the financial benefits of a strong loyalty strategy.

#3 Reduce the pressure of price competition

In a market like shared mobility, where many big names offer unsustainably low prices, loyalty can help reduce the pressure of price competition. Loyal customers are also less likely to leave you for a lower price.

A loyalty & rewards program can also ensure long-term customer loyalty by building a hook. Something such as built-up benefits, points collection, or even status makes customers less likely to leave your brand for competitors.

The 5 stages of customer loyalty

Loyal customers don’t come out of thin air! You need a loyalty strategy that outlines what you should be doing at each of the 5 stages in the customer journey.

#1 Activation

Your loyalty strategy starts right when users sign up. During the onboarding process, you’ll want to ensure a smooth explanation, as well as collect some initial data to fuel your loyalty & rewards program later on. You can use gamification to promote feature discovery and more!

#2 Retention

Once people are acquainted with how your app works, you need to get them into the habit of using this. In other words, you’ll want to increase metrics such as frequency, duration, distance covered, and so on. A loyalty and rewards program can help to both trigger customer behavior and reward it, creating a positive reinforcement loop that keeps them coming back!

#3 Re-engagement

Another important step in your loyalty strategy is re-engaging lapsed customers. In fact, it’s easier to re-engage existing customers than to acquire new ones. Make sure to understand what drives or lowers customer activity. For instance, seasonality, vacations, weather circumstances, and public transportation alternatives,...

With the data available you can create personalized notifications, comeback offers, retargeting ads, and more to get customers back on track.

#4 Growing revenue

Shared mobility operators can increase their revenue tremendously by implementing a loyalty & rewards program. Rewarding customers not just on the purchase level but also based on behaviors will encourage them to take more rides, go longer distances, and so on. This may include discounts on rides or other special perks for frequent users such as points and leveling systems, free upgrades, or even access to exclusive vehicles.

Furthermore, these rewards can also create a sense of community and build relationships between the operator and its customers.

#5 Advocacy

Advocates are customers who spread the good word about your service, either through word-of-mouth, social media, or your app’s referral program. But to turn a customer into a loyal advocate, you need to provide them with unique experiences! Those worth sharing with your friends!

A gamified loyalty strategy can supercharge this mechanism. For example, e-scooter operator felyx hands out free riding minutes for inviting friends!

The Felyx app's referral program is a prime example of turning users into advocates by offering tangible rewards for sharing the service.

How can shared mobility operators create a loyalty strategy?

The first step to creating your own loyalty strategy is figuring out exactly what it is that you want to communicate and reward. At the end of the day, loyalty & rewards programs are a method of persuasion. So you’ll have to answer three main questions:

Who is your target audience? - What motivates them to use your shared mobility service? How can you trigger that motivation?
What do you need from them? - Which behaviors do you want to see in order to achieve your business goals within the customer journey?
How can they benefit? - In other words, what can they earn from completing the desired action? Rewards should be variable and can range from discounts to badges or leaderboard rankings.

Your loyalty & rewards program should reward users for using the app. As a result, users will feel the benefits of continued use. At the most basic level, rewards like free riding minutes or special vehicle unlocks can do the job. However, rewards are even more powerful when personalized to your customers.

For example, look at how the mobility app Changers used rewards to encourage company employees to bike to work!

They gave their rewards more meaning by letting users redeem in-app coins for discounts on products from cycling brands. In this way, Changers created a win for customers by providing relevant offers, a win for sponsors looking for reach, and a win for their app, as customers are incentivized to spend more time on their platform!

This gamified reward system from Changers effectively encourages specific user behaviors by offering relevant and meaningful incentives.

Do rewards really create loyalty?

Rewards aren’t inherently rewarding. In fact, one of the reasons why you have to develop your own loyalty strategy is to give your rewards meaning! As a result of this strategy, rewards should be well-timed and feel earned.

Only then will you create loyalty and the powerful driving force that we call intrinsic motivation. This is where users feel motivated to use your platform because it’s inherently fun and personally satisfying to use. This is in contrast to extrinsic motivation, which is driven more by hard results, prizes, and the need to win.

While both forms of motivation are powerful, behavioral science shows that you need to foster both to fuel long-term engagement.

The best loyalty & rewards program examples in shared mobility

The shared mobility model is well-suited for a gamified loyalty strategy. Since mobility apps run on massive amounts of data, there are many opportunities to create fun challenges & incentives. For example:

Reward customers with points based on distance
Create a challenge on speed or frequency on a specific route
Hand out badges for reaching certain goals such as 1-5-10 kilometers
Unlock milestones based on customer location
...

Want to see how it’s done? Let’s look at some examples where a loyalty & rewards program drives growth for shared mobility operators:

Challenges give EVO Sharing riders a chance to win

Operating across Germany, EVO Sharing lets users share electric scooters to get to their destinations. And the company has big growth ambitions! When EVO Sharing came to us at StriveCloud, they had a clear goal: to boost the number of rides per customer.

In other words, EVO Sharing needed to turn occasional users into loyal ones. That sounds like the perfect job for a loyalty & rewards program!

Jennifer Dittmar @EVO Sharing - "With Strivecloud, we want to create incentives to drive more often with the electric scooters from EVO Sharing. Through the challenges and the achievement of milestones, the customer shall be motivated to use our scooters more often."

Keeping the loyalty strategy of EVO Sharing in mind, we introduced exciting challenges that users could compete in and be rewarded for their participation. When it comes to creating customer loyalty, challenges can be a game-changer:

Challenges increase engagement and provide both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation
Prizes provide a purpose/end goal
Creates a social ‘event’, something customers have in common and can discuss
Competitive elements are more than just fun, they bring customers closer together
Customers can track their progress and achievements

Discover how a loyalty & rewards program helped EVO Sharing incentivize customers to book more trips!

gamification rewards program micromobility

EVO Sharing's gamified dashboard visualizes user progress and rewards, effectively boosting engagement and ride frequency in micromobility.

Voi. incentivizes loyalty with micromobility’s first credit card

In partnering with Mastercard, electric scooter operator Voi. has done something truly unique. Unlike any other e-scooter operator, Voi.’s loyalty & rewards program offers a powerful credit card! The card lets users collect free miles on a Voi. e-scooter with each payment they make. So you can see how it pays off to be a loyal Voi. customer!

The card also comes with special travel health insurance, which is smart considering safety is the top concern of shared mobility consumers.

Voi's partnership with Mastercard created a unique loyalty program, offering a co-branded credit card that directly rewards spending with free miles.

HumanForest’s rewards program shows users their impact on the environment

Make it fun, make it simple. Well, that’s what we helped HumanForest do! In London, HumanForest stands out by championing sustainable e-bike travel. And this message of green mobility became central to the loyalty strategy we developed together.

To encourage Londoners to travel green, we designed a loyalty & rewards program that rewards customers for their positive impact on the environment. This led to the creation of ‘TreeCoins’. It’s simple - the more users ride, the more TreeCoins they earn. And users can redeem the coins for free riding minutes or discounts at green retailers.

"Drive 5 miles = Save 5 trees = Earn 1 TreeCoin = Exchange for 1 free riding minute"

But here’s the best part - TreeCoins actually show users how many trees worth of CO2 they save! For every 5 miles that users ride, they earn a TreeCoin, and this TreeCoin represents 1 tree in saved CO2.

Michael Stewart @HumanForest - "StriveCloud really helped us fulfil our brand message. The TreeCoins explain our mission perfectly...the progress visualization mechanic prompts users to keep using HumanForest and rewards sustainable behavior with free minutes!"

Visualizing the real-life consequences of TreeCoins makes the currency feel tangible – and in turn more valuable. Users can literally see their positive impact on our planet! This incentive gives users a reason to return to HumanForest, and it clearly works. In June 2022, 70% of the 150,000 trips on HumanForest were made by repeat users!

The loyalty strategy behind HumanForest growth strategy: How gamification motivates sustainable mobility.

HumanForest's app visualizes the positive environmental impact of riding, making the rewards feel tangible and reinforcing the brand's green mission.

3 steps to create a bulletproof loyalty strategy for shared mobility

Creating your own loyalty strategy requires a holistic approach. To get it right, you need to look at your whole customer journey and make many decisions; what to leverage, how to leverage it, and when to do it. But these are decisions that our team can help with.

From experience, we have devised a 3 step plan for creating the ultimate loyalty strategy for shared mobility operators:

Book a consultation & workshop. Join us for a workshop and let’s achieve growth! Together, we will identify the best solution for your challenges, as well as how to engage your specific audience.
Set up! We’ll integrate the new features straight into your mobility app. Easily edit & change them from a control panel, live into your app!
Onboarding & training. We’ll train your team on how to use our software so they can easily manage the experience themselves! How can you customize features to fit your loyalty strategy?

Get started with your own gamified loyalty strategy today. Book an expert-led workshop & learn the exact next steps you need to take!

How to implement your own loyalty & rewards program

Once you’ve created a loyalty strategy, you can either go about it on your own or join forces with our expert team. You can easily set up and integrate the new features straight into your shared mobility application. And if you use Wunder Mobility, our direct integration will make this even faster!

Our gamification software helps yo fuel your loyalty strategy with over 20 interactive features such as in-app rewards, challenges, quizzes, and polls! Furthermore, our software is all about flexibility and autonomy. That’s why the experience can be changed swiftly from a simple control panel, live into your app!

Michael Stewarts @Human Forest - "Personally, I really like the control panel of StriveCloud, and I think it is easy to use. I can instantly implement changes without having to wait 24 hours or more to deploy."

This interface showcases how gamification software can integrate achievements and progress tracking directly into a user's profile, boosting engagement.

Want to create your own loyalty & rewards program? Find out how we can help you!

FAQs

Why is customer loyalty important in shared mobility?

Customer loyalty means getting more out of your existing customers - and in a competitive market like shared mobility, this can make a huge difference to growth. In fact, research shows that loyalty & rewards programs are major growth drivers in shared mobility.

Why do shared mobility operators need a loyalty & rewards program?

Loyal customers are up to 67% more profitable. Besides spending more and more often, they are also more likely to recommend. In fact, word of mouth has been a crucial growth driver in the European shared mobility market. Finally, a loyalty & rewards program reduces price competition. It gives customers a reason to come back.

Do rewards really create loyalty?

Rewards aren’t inherently rewarding. In fact, one of the reasons why you have to develop a loyalty strategy is to give your rewards meaning! As a result, rewards should be well-timed and feel earned. Only when you combine elements of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation can you fuel long-term loyalty.

Esports marketing 101: How to grow your reach and engage the gaming community

The fast-growing esports audience is full of early adopters, and still growing in diversity across the globe. Therefore, it's a desirable audience for both endemic and non-endemic brands. But how should you set up your esports marketing strategy? And how does it differ from traditional digital marketing? Discover 17 strategies, examples & a free checklist inside the article!

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Esports marketing 101: How to grow your reach and engage the gaming community

By 2025 the esports & gaming audience is expected to reach over 1.8 billion people! From avid esports viewers to live-event goers and mobile gamers, the esports audience is diverse, fast-growing, and therefore valuable for brands. So how can you leverage esports marketing to grow your reach?

This visual sets the stage for our deep dive into esports marketing, highlighting the dynamic and engaging world that brands can tap into.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to enter the esports world and discover 17 powerful B2C esports marketing to get started.

Where we are: esports in 2022

Between 2020 and 2025, global esports market revenue is set to double from around $900 million to $1.8 billion! And according to esports intelligence agency Newzoo, 2022 will be another great year:

The global esports audience will grow +8.7% year on year to reach a total of 532 million people.
261 million people will watch esports content more than once a month.
271 million people will watch esports content occasionally.

Where is all this growth coming from, though? In essence, market research names three core elements that explain the rise:

Popular esports franchises like Valorant, Fortnite, and others contribute to a growing fanbase of both players and viewers.
Mobile esports is maturing with professional leagues like Mobile Legends ‘Bang Bang’ and League of Legends ‘Wild Rift’.
The rising popularity of esports in growth markets such as Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

The latter also allows brands to create localized content, one of the fastest-growing revenue drivers in esports marketing right now. Some of the opportunities here include:

Hosting local gaming tournaments & esports competitions.
Working with local influencers like streamers or professional esports players.
Hosting live events in local venues or esports bars.

What is esports marketing?

Simply put, esports marketing is when brands engage with the esports community to drive awareness and revenue. This can take many forms, from product placement in games to sponsoring esports streamers, teams, and competitions. Similar to traditional sports marketing both endemic and non-endemic brands can benefit from building a relationship with the audience.

Why esports marketing?

Across the world, 1 billion people are already engaging with esports in one way or another. Whether they enjoy watching gaming tournaments or participating in live events, esports is no longer just a niche. Owing to the sheer scale of esports’ popularity, brands are taking notice. In fact, in 2020 consultancy firm McKinsey noted that 60% of esports partnerships feature non-endemic brands (those not from gaming).

But why should brands target esports? The answer is access to a valuable audience.

The esports audience is growing fast globally. They consist out of a younger, digital native audience which is mostly male, but female gamers are growing too. Lastly, they’re highly engaged and accessible.

It’s easier to build loyalty, collect first-party data and build powerful relationships with younger audiences. About six out of 10 internet users watching esports are between ages 16 and 35.

How esports marketing differs from traditional digital marketing strategies

Esports marketing requires a different mindset. The most successful campaigns take a dedicated approach that adds value to the community. In other words, just slapping your logo on a stream won’t do the trick. But why is esports so unique?

The esports audience is full of early adopters

Agoria, a Belgian tech federation, noted that fans of esports are “often early adopters” when it comes to new technology. Besides that, they’re generally open-minded enough to try new things. They’re usually open to trying new products, hopping on the latest trends, and telling their friends about them!

The product adoption curve illustrates how gamers are often early adopters, making them a key audience for innovative products and brands.

Communication must be engaging and authentic

Of course, authenticity should always be your motto. But it matters that much more in esports. Research from influencer marketing agency Adshot indicates that around 75% of digital natives use Ad Blockers. In short, for your communication to be noticed, it must be personalized, genuine, and dialogue-based. Esports fans want to be more than just consumers - they also want to contribute and have a say in how things are done.

Top Tip: When sponsoring a game, make sure that not only does it fit your brand, but that you have a real affinity for that game and its community!

What you need to get started (+ a free checklist!)

So you need an esports marketing plan. You’re in luck! We devised an easy four-step checklist to get you started on your route to success!

1) Find the right esports audience for you

McKinsey, 2019 - "Brands tend to underestimate the fragmentation of esports fans. As a result, they risk spending their money unwisely".

Not every game commands the same audience. Audiences generally differ based on devices, game types, and more. To overcome (and take advantage of) the fragmented esports market, you must find titles that complement your brand identity.

For example, if your target audience leans female, consider focusing on mobile gaming marketing. In general women’s top 3 game types are puzzle games, adventure & strategy. Compared to men, of which the majority play on PC. Their top 3 games are shooter-based, strategy, and sports.

2) Identify the right channels

Where does your target audience hang out? With dozens of different platforms available to the gaming community, identifying the right channel is crucial for effective targeting.

For instance, take the battle royale game PUBG. The game’s subreddit hosts 2 million visitors, whereas Discord hosts a tenth of that at 260,000. But while Reddit offers a wider reach (and is therefore prone to be overwhelmed with content), Discord is a tighter community that attracts higher levels of engagement.

3) Partner with powerful esports influencers

Only 11% of esports viewing time actually comes from professional competitions. Instead, independent streamers dominate the market - and this represents a great opportunity for brand partnerships. Esports influencers command large audiences and, as independents, rely on established brands for sponsorships.

4) Launch/sponsor an esports team

Sponsorships are where the money is in esports. In fact, sponsorships bring in twice as much as media rights, tickets, merch, and streaming sales combined. So how do you get involved? Well, you could launch your own esports team and watch them rise in the rankings. Or alternatively, you can also sponsor existing teams which companies ranging from Coca-Cola to Mercedes-Benz have taken a huge interest in.

What’s great about sponsorship in esports marketing is the broad opportunities that come with it. Besides live events, esports is mostly a digital-first medium. Therefore, engaging fans online and collecting first-party data is easier than traditional sports marketing.

Connect, engage & monetize a gaming community in just 2 weeks. Take a peek inside our 360° tournament platform!

17 top B2C esports marketing strategies (with examples)

#1 Be aware of “update season” - and align your schedule

In esports, a game update is a highly anticipated event. Usually, updates come with balance changes and new in-game items. For example, the makers of Fortnite even organize their updates as a “season of virtual events”. To cash in on the hype, you could run tie-ins and promotions during this period.

Fortnite's seasonal updates show how game developers create highly anticipated events that marketers can leverage for timely campaigns.

#2 Credibility comes before the prominence

Esports marketing is more than plastering your logo everywhere. While research shows that prominent sponsors of gaming tournaments are 4x more memorable than those without prominent placement, that prominence will backfire if the sponsorship feels fake, or like a cynical cash grab.

Aldi for instance tried to enter the esports market with a campaign aimed to stop kids from playing games, so they’re ready when dinner is. Needless to say, the campaign was not a great success, with many gamers scolding Aldi for being out of touch.

#3 Community building and socialization are crucial

Socialization is one of the biggest reasons why gamers return to their communities. To make the most of a gaming community, encourage gamers to discuss and share their own stories or content.

For instance, Nike partnered with Korean streamer JisooGirl to create a powerful video about gender bias in gaming. To be sure, this was a genuine and positive way to contribute to the group discussion, while also showing off Nike’s brand values.

#4 Deepen your connection with your audience

Esports fans are passionate about their niche. As a result, communities tend to develop their own unique culture. To successfully connect with a market of gamers, you need in-depth knowledge of what the audience likes, and dislikes, and who its brand champions are.

Many tech companies for instance understand that lots of developers spend their free time gaming. After 1 week of targeted sponsorship deals, they got over 50 applications!

#5 Esports crosses boundaries (both cultural and geographical)

Pop culture has gone multipolar - and esports is no different. European sponsors are often surprised to find that around 1/3 of esports viewers are from outside the team’s home country. Essentially, companies expecting to hone in a local market may be disappointed. But if your company has a wide digital reach, you will find greater success.

For an example of how to capitalize on this multipolar media environment, League of Legends publisher Riot Games launched K/DA, a multilingual virtual girl group. Their first track, released in Korean and English, achieved over 56 million views!

#6 Encourage gamer interaction with influencers

By far, one of the best ways to motivate gamers is to involve them. Namely, with their favorite influencers! US chocolate giant Hershey is especially clever at this esports marketing technique. In 2019, Hershey sponsored Twitch megastars TimTheTatman and DrLupo and organized meet-and-greets with fans.

Hershey's collaboration with Twitch streamers demonstrates a powerful strategy for connecting with fans through influencer engagement and real-world events.

#7 Give users opportunities to learn from each other (and the pros)

It is a fact that gamers trust user-generated content more than traditional ads. But to go even further, research shows that when amateur players learn from other players, their team loyalty increases! In short, boost opportunities for socialization, including across players with different levels of experience.

The luxury brand Gucci for instance launched its own gaming academy with professional players, commentators and trainers. With it, they want to give people the opportunity to go pro.

#8 Improve your audience measurement

It’s easy to see the big numbers attached to esports events and walk away impressed. But many figures, like virtual attendance and hours of streaming watched, can be misleading at a first glance. Brands, marketing agencies, and esports organizations need to look behind those numbers. Ask yourself, where does my audience really fit in? And is the return on investment worth it?

#9 In-game gifting is a strong incentive to purchase

How else can you incentivize purchases? Research shows the answer is in-game gifting! In essence, gifting can strengthen the social ties between players, and that represents a strong incentive to spend money in-game. To name a few good gift ideas, custom skins or in-game usable objects like cars can entice users.

League of Legends for instance does this with ‘loot drops’. In 2022 they partnered with Tiffany & Co to offer exclusive in-game skins!

#10 Keep a close eye on the trends (things move fast in esports!)

Put simply, the lifespan of a a game, team, or streamer can be cut short very quickly. Gamers tend to be loyal, but they are also enthusiastic about new and exciting trends. Whether it's the latest trending meme or handling COVID-19 restrictions, being on top of trends can literally induce overnight success. The game Detroit: Become Human for instance got rapidly picked up after its graphics were turned into memes.

#11 Let gamers celebrate the achievements of their favorite streamers

Fans love it when the player or team they support wins. As a matter of fact, research shows that “vicarious achievement”, the feeling of winning through others, is a major motivational factor behind gamer engagement. To capture that excitement, encourage gamers to celebrate in Discord communities or offer celebratory giveaways.

After qualifying for the PUBG invitational series, the 7Sea esports team got lots of praise for their performance on social media during the afterparty.

#12 Maximize community engagement through social media

Esports marketing is all about community engagement. To build on the success of live events, for example, post polls on Twitter that ask gamers things like “what was your favorite moment?” This sparks discussion and helps link your brand to the event.

#13 Offer exclusive content to streamers & gamers

Exclusive content makes users feel special - and can reinforce that community feeling. Valorant, a popular esports title, employed this marketing strategy for its 2020 launch. Essentially, instead of paying streamers like Pengu to just talk about the game, they let him offer exclusive beta access to a select few of his followers. With this strategy, Valorant earned a whopping 470 million viewing hours on Twitch before the game even launched!

#14 Organize your own live tournaments and events

While esports is seen as a mostly digital industry (the clue being in the name), live experiences actually form a huge part of the esports world. To be sure, gamers are not shy about attending local tournaments and events:

81% say live events make them feel a part of the gaming community;
80% attend to watch their favorite players & teams;
61% go to events to connect with their online friends.

What’s more, gamers that attend live events spend more and play more! The League of Legends championship for instance garnered over 15,000 live spectators in 2019.

#15 Provide gamers with real value (or face being ignored)

It may sound obvious, but you have to make your offer valuable to gamers. Remember, most gamers are a part of the digital native generation and are accustomed to ignoring clutter. But you can avoid this like Louis Vuitton by actually giving them something of value.

Whilst the luxury fashion brand sounds like an unlikely partner for League of Legends, their offer of exclusive and fashionable character skins garnered 100 million impressions!

This partnership between Louis Vuitton and League of Legends exemplifies how non-endemic luxury brands can successfully enter the esports market by offering genuine value through exclusive content.

#16 Social values matter greatly to gamers

Social responsibility is an important aspect of esports marketing. Why? In brief, it matters to those consumers aged 18-35 (in other words, a plurality of gamers). Studies show that the digital native generation is more passionate about social issues than any other age group, and esports helps lead the way.

For example, America’s top esports team, the ‘Evil Geniuses’ - worth an incredible $255 million by the way - support the LGBTQ+ gaming community with a themed podcast. They run programs to help women get into gaming, and partner with Cxmmunity, an organization focused on improving minority representation in the gaming industry.

#17 Video advertisements offer a broad reach to build awareness

Clearly, the millions of streaming hours on Twitch and YouTube provide a great platform for video advertisements. They also allow marketers to target an audience with precision. Epic Games for instance created an interactive ad experience for Fortnite with Travis Scott where they released his latest song in a virtual concert. Over 12,3 million gamers participated.

Picking the right platforms for your esports business

Simplify your strategy with the all-in-one tournament & community platform from StriveCloud

Our tournament platform combines the power of competition, content & community all in 1 platform. Simply set up (automated) tournaments, share & distribute content, and fuel loyalty with our gamification features.

Besides, our platform is easy to monetize. That’s because it is built specifically to empower you: the community owner. It’s a perfect solution to build a highly engaged community of gamers and esports fans, and connect them with relevant brands. Unlike social platforms like Discord, everything is white-labeled so you can add your own branding and instantly boost your credibility. What’s more, you own and keep all the user data, enabling you to set up powerful targeted campaigns and tournaments.

When the Swiss gaming community GameTurnier came to us to create a digital space for them, their goal was to grow their platform. And together we achieved success! Since our partnership, they now host 600 competitions weekly!

Find out why leading sports brands & esports agencies love us! Book a demo with our experts & discover the benefits of having your own tournament platform!

The GameTurnier platform is an excellent example of how a dedicated digital space can foster community growth and host hundreds of weekly competitions.

Discord is the heart of the gaming community

On Discord, gamers can live in the moment. The platform enables live chat and audio calls between gamers and allows moderators to organize users into separate channels according to rank or specialty. In short, the platform creates a secure place for users to connect and build their gaming community. In 2021, Discord hosted 140 million MAUs!

Livestreaming with Twitch or YouTube will boost your reach

By 2024, the global gaming live-streaming audience is predicted to hit a staggering 830 million people. Without a doubt, what attracts gamers to live streams is their authentic and interactive nature. And your esports marketing strategy can take advantage of this through partnerships with streamers or video advertisements on the platform.

Drive your esports marketing strategy with a complete solution! Walk through the opportunities of our tournament & community platform!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the state of esports in 2022?

In 2022 the global esports audience will grow by +8.7% year on year to reach a total of 532 million people. This growth is driven by the increase of popular esports franchises, mobile esports, and global market expansion. These trends also allow brands to localize their esports marketing efforts and break through to a global audience.

What is esports marketing?

Simply put, esports marketing is when brands engage with the esports community to drive awareness and revenue. This can take many forms, from product placement in games to sponsoring esports streamers, teams, and competitions. Similar to traditional sports marketing both endemic and non-endemic brands can benefit from building a relationship with the audience.

Why esports marketing?

Across the world, 1 billion people are already engaging with esports in one way or another. Whether they enjoy watching gaming tournaments or participating in live events, esports is no longer just a niche. Besides the sheer scale, the esports audience also offers an interesting and diverse target audience.

How does esports marketing differ from traditional digital marketing?

Unlike other markets, esports fans are primarily an enthusiastic, tech-savvy group willing to take risks on new products. Similar to traditional sports, audiences differ tremendously from game types to gaming devices. In other words, your targeting and messaging need to be on point.

Best tournament platforms to keep gamers engaged

What is the best tournament platform to keep gamers engaged? Today's gamers want more than just to play the game. They're looking to fulfill the 3C's of gaming marketing: competition, community & content. How can you fill in that need? And which platform is right for you?

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Best tournament platforms to keep gamers engaged

What is the best tournament platform to keep gamers engaged? To answer that question you need to know what drives gamers in the first place. Sure, the sense of competition will lead some to your platform, but how do you keep them there? Is it your bracket maker? The competition type? Gamified rewards?

This guide explores the key factors for keeping gamers engaged and reviews the top tournament platforms available.

The secret of keeping gamers engaged

First and foremost, gamers like the competitive aspect of tournaments and being able to rank on a leaderboard or win prizes. However, some gamers like to play just for fun. They can be driven by the social aspect of gaming, or enjoy game-like features such as achievements, leveling systems, and various rewards such as badges, in-game currencies, and lottery systems.

Besides tournaments or the game aspect, elements like your team line-up, new players, professional esports, tactics,… also matter. Gamers nowadays want more than just to play the game. A game like FIFA for instance has a ton of different elements to it. Being a part of that entire ecosystem is what will help your community keep gamers engaged over the long term.

Find out everything you need to know to build a successful gaming & esports community in our ultimate guide!

6 Tournament platforms & how to pick the right one

1. StriveCloud

StriveCloud is more than just a tournament organizer but rather a centralized place to connect, engage & monetize your gaming audience. Run fully automated tournaments for all types of games from FIFA to CS:GO and LOL. With a wide range of loyalty and gamification features, as well as monetization opportunities, you’ll get the most out of your audience!

This example from StriveCloud shows a clean, automated tournament bracket interface, a key feature for any successful tournament platform.

Upgrade your tournaments & add new revenue streams – Discover StriveCloud for your business!

2. Challengermode

Challengermode promotes value-driven marketing by connecting brands & organizers with esports enthusiasts. Its platform has everything from automated tournaments and community spaces to monetization options like affiliate programs & memberships.

3. Battlefy

Battlefy helps you set up & promote online gaming tournaments. Their bracket maker also helps you organize matches automatically with different scoring systems. However, they do recommend using admins for more advanced formats.

4. Challonge

Challonge is a bracket maker owned by Logitech with over 30 million brackets in its portfolio. The platform also lets you host multiple tournaments & event pages where you can invite friends or game enthusiasts to join.

Challonge's interface highlights its primary function as a dedicated bracket maker for organizing competitions.

5. Award Pool

Award Pool is a Web3-based tournament platform that lets gamers and creators collect unique prizes in the Metaverse. Simply create game-based challenges like trivia questions or surveys & let users redeem rewards like tokens for NFTs or cryptocurrency.

6. Toornament

Toornament allows you to set up gaming and esports tournaments in different formats. Get everything from a bracket maker and automated group pairing and invite up to 100 participants per match.

6 ways gaming tournaments elevate engagement

1) Create a social & fun-to-play environment

It’s simple, gamers love gaming because it's fun. So how can you make the experience even better? Tournaments add a sense of community around the game. It’s also a great way to connect gamers with similar interests. Besides meeting new people, lots of gamers will also invite their own friends to partake.

2) Create the desire to win or achieve

Lots of gamers are driven by a sense of competition. They have a desire to win so they can either get prizes or earn social status within the community. Some gamers will literally put in the extra hours so they can rank higher on the leaderboard. Make sure to not bore or discourage gamers by striking the right balance between challenge and ability.

3) Attract eyeballs through celebrity or influencer tournaments

Besides playing in tournaments themselves, gamers also enjoy watching their favorite streamers or celebrities compete. Whether it’s the sheer skill of them playing, or the funny commentary that comes along with it, it’s great entertainment for your community. You could also let fans compete against their favorite gamers or esports players for extra fun!

4) Host professional esports tournaments

Invite professional gamers to compete against one another, or give the top gamers in your community a chance to go pro. Esports is not just a geeky trend anymore. Professional gamers and esports leagues are in-demand so why not fill those requirements?

5) Drive engagement through rewards & prizes

Imagine getting paid to do what you love. Well, some gaming communities actually allow gamers to win valuable rewards & prizes. Sometimes even straight-up cash! Set up a premium gaming community or organize buy-in tournaments to up your prize pool. In short, it’s a surefire way to keep gamers actively engaged in your community.

6) Leverage tournaments for content marketing

Organizing tournaments is also a great way to stay relevant both in and outside of your community. You can promote everything from announcing the event to your bracket maker match-ups and prize pools. Use clips & highlights from your competition to reach more people on social media. Some tournament platforms like StriveCloud even allow you to stream directly on Twitch!

How to set up your own tournaments with StriveCloud (in 4 easy steps)

1. Set up game(s) of choice

Link with all popular games from FIFA to Fortnite, CS:GO, Rocket League, Mario Kart, and the list goes on!

2. Create a leaderboard & set up gamification

Boost gamer engagement with gamification items like leaderboards. You can create both community-general or tournament-specific leaderboards. Then, determine the achievements & behaviors you want to reward. We got everything from in-game currencies and shop items to leveling systems and badges.

3. Select game mode

Create your tournament, competition types, and set up your bracket maker. Whether you want to create a unique one-off tournament, a recurring event, or an ongoing league, StriveCloud got you covered!

4. Automate as desired

StriveCloud can 100% be automated, or moderated as you wish. Simply select when you want tournaments to occur and for how long.

All this in just 2 weeks! Get a demo & see how you can get started!

StriveCloud in action - client examples

What’s great about working with StriveCloud is you get to set up your gaming community in any way you like. Our platform is entirely white-labeled with lots of built-in monetization opportunities & gamification features to keep your gamers engaged.

Here’s how some of our clients have used it to their advantage:

How Kayzr helped KV Mechelen engage its fanbase

Kayzr is the leading gaming tournament platform in the Benelux. They let brands connect & engage with their audience by setting up a custom community on their platform.

Kayzr recently joined forces with the Belgian football club KV Mechelen and its sponsor Golden Palace Casino to create a unique FIFA tournament for its fans. KV Mechelen got its fans to sign up. Besides proving the club with screentime & visibility, Kayzr also sent out a targeted campaign to all its FIFA players. In 1 day over 130 players signed up!

This image showcases how brands like Red Bull can integrate their products as desirable rewards within a tournament platform's ecosystem.

Other companies like Red Bull have also worked with Kayzr to let gamers exchange their points for sponsored items in the shop.

How Jantje.gg connects Dutch FIFA fans

Jantje.gg is an esports platform initiated by the KNVB in cooperation with KPN to connect FIFA players in the Netherlands. Its reward program is based on participation rather than winning. Gamers can earn coins and exchange them for prizes by logging in, entering in tournaments, completing missions, and so on.

They recently hosted a league with the Dutch FIFA esports coach and personality Koen Weijland. The bracket maker put players against each other for the title of ‘Dutch Champion’ as well as win 5,000 euros! During the tournament, Koen would also give away prizes. Of course, everything was streamed on his Twitch.

This screenshot of the Jantje.gg platform highlights its community-focused design, which is central to connecting FIFA players in the Netherlands.

D11 runs premium packages to maximize gamer rewards

D11 works with leading Telecoms and connects notable brands with the gaming audience in the MENAT region. Its gamers can earn prizes from a 250K prize pool, simply by winning tournaments. In short, players earn D11 gold which they can exchange for high-quality prizes like Logitech products, VISA Mastercards, or even straight-up cash.

The D11 platform's premium subscription model is a clear example of how to create tiered access and additional revenue streams.

Gamers that subscribe to premium can win up to twice the prizes and get access to a wide range of perks such as bonus points, shop discounts, private tournament invites, and more.

An all-encompassing platform, tailored to your needs! Discover how StriveCloud can power your tournaments & community growth!

FAQ

What are the secrets of keeping gamers engaged?

Today's gaming audience has 3 main reasons to be engaged in a community. We call this the 3C’s of gaming communities: connect, compete & content. Basically, gamers will come to you for a sense of social relatedness, the desire to win or to be entertained. Building your community around these elements will keep gamers engaged.

How do tournaments keep gamers engaged?

Tournaments can play into the 3C’s of gaming: Connect, compete & content. Bringing people together with similar interests makes for interesting interactions. Some players will even invite their friends. Hosting competitions will also trigger the desire to play, especially when prizes are involved. Furthermore, tournaments can be used as content through streaming, announcements, or highlight clips.

How EVO Sharing introduced gamification to inspire customers to ride their electric scooters more often

With micromobility trips and e-hailing rides doubling in just one year, mobility providers are trying to capitalize on this trend. One of those providers is EVO sharing, a German electric scooter-sharing service. Find out how we helped them incentivize customers to book more trips with gamification!

Read Story

How EVO Sharing introduced gamification to inspire customers to ride their electric scooters more often

Undoubtedly, the way people travel is changing. With micromobility trips and e-hailing rides doubling in just one year, mobility operators are trying to capitalize on this trend. One of those operators is EVO Sharing, a German electric scooter-sharing service. They came to StriveCloud in search of a customer engagement tool that would help them differentiate from competitors while hooking customers into a unique experience.

In this case study, we'll explore how EVO Sharing successfully leveled up its customer engagement by integrating gamification into their service.

The challenges facing shared mobility (and EVO’s plan to overcome them)

EVO Sharing is a spin-off of EVO, a local energy supplier in Germany. In 2018 they launched an electric scooter-sharing service as a sustainable mobility initiative. After finding initial traction with commuters EVO Sharing wanted to expand into new audiences such as students.

Jenniffer Dittmar @ EVO Sharing - "WE WANT TO BRING PEOPLE CLOSE TO ELECTROMOBILITY AND SHOW THEM HOW EASY IT WORKS. HERE WE HAVE THE GOAL TO ADD MORE AREAS AND TO PUSH THE NETWORKING AMONG CITIES."

However, with more alternatives available every day, mobility operators need a way to stand out and keep customers engaged over the long haul. EVO Sharing went looking for a customer engagement tool that would incentivize customers to book more trips while also building loyalty.

Today, 44% of companies compete primarily over the customer experience. The right customer engagement tool will help you build a loyal customer base.

Why EVO Sharing introduced gamification to support its growth goals

EVO Sharing wanted to encourage customers to use its shared mobility service more often. To do that, they needed a customer engagement tool that could help them expand their market share and reach new audiences while gaining a competitive edge.

Jenniffer Dittmar @ EVO Sharing - "WHITH STRIVECLOUD WE WANT TO CREATE INCENTIVES TO DRIVE MORE OFTEN WITH ELECTRIC SCOOTERS FROM EVO SHARING. THROUGH THE CHALLENFES AND THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF MILESTONES, CUSTOMERS SHOULD BE MOTIVATED TO USE THE SCOOTERS MORE OFTEN."

This gamified dashboard illustrates how StriveCloud creates an engaging visual interface for users to track their progress and rewards.

What is StriveCloud?

StriveCloud is a gamification platform designed to help you introduce loyalty and gamification features inside your app. As a partner of the vehicle-sharing software Wunder Mobility, we’ve also had the opportunity to work on various mobility projects where we’ve seen the number of trips booked increase dramatically.

Why gamification for mobility works

Put simply, shared mobility apps create and run on a huge amount of data. Think about all those stats collected from a user’s journey such as duration, distance, and frequency. Well, gamification gets its power from leveraging this data. For instance, rewarding users to complete a certain distance, which in turn motivates them to keep going.

Given this, you can see how shared mobility apps are the perfect partner for our gamification software!

Jennifer Dittmar @EVO Sharing - "OUR BUSINESS MODEL IS ALSO VERY SUITABLE FOR GAMIFICATION. RECEIVING REWARDS BASED ON DISTANCE, KILOMETERS OR MINUTES DRIVEN MAKES A LOT OF SENSE TO USE AND GOES WELL TOGETHER."

In other words, gamification helps you create a fun and memorable experience that rewards customers for the behaviors you want to see. For mobility operators, this could help to:

Incentivize people to use your shared mobility service more often - Get people to book more trips by using gamification. Reward them based on distance, time, or frequency of rides, and keep them coming back for more!
Improve fleet balancing - Gamification allows you to reward and motivate the behaviors you want to see. For example, you can improve fleet balancing by incentivizing customers to use better drop-off points and so on!
Engage customers inside the app - Instead of using external platforms like email, you can create a narrative inside your mobility app! It’s a surefire way to differentiate from other mobility operators, to build a loyal customer base!
Attract younger audiences - Gamification has also proven to be attractive to younger audiences such as Gen Z. The feedback loop incentivizes them to keep coming back through features such as progress meters, leveling systems, and leaderboards.

customer engagement tool shared mobility

By making the experience of riding an e-scooter more engaging, mobility operators like EVO Sharing can appeal to younger demographics and improve user retention.

How have we helped EVO Sharing reach its goals? Download the full case study to find out!

How gamification can help you fuel your growth

Research finds that upselling to existing customers is about 50% more likely to succeed than upselling to newly acquired customers. With that in mind, gamification might be the right customer engagement tool to keep users riding for the long haul.

Motivate customers to book more trips with in-app currencies

In-app currencies are a great way to reward customers and incentivize certain desired behaviors. EVO Sharing for instance lets its riders collect EvoCoins for completing a certain mileage or buying minute packages. Later, they can exchange their coins for free riding minutes!

While it might seem like a random reward, this in-app currency serves multiple goals:

EvoCoins rewards customers for the number of miles they’ve completed
Customers get EvoCoins for buying extra riding minute packages
It reinforces loyalty and increases buying frequency

Jenniffer Dittmar @ EVO Sharing - "WE USE STRIVECLOUD TO INCENTIVIZE OUR CUSTOMERS. THEY GET REWARDS WHEN THEY HAVE COVERED ENOUGH KILOMETERS, FOR EXAMPLE. "

Introduce a leveling system to grow a loyal customer base

People have an innate drive for achievement. A great way to make use of that is to set clear customer goals. EVO Sharing, for instance, based its rewards and leveling system around easy-to-track statistics such as the number of miles driven, and the number of minute packages bought. That way people are incentivized to keep coming back!

Besides earning EvoCoins riders also get to level up. Starting from ‘Rookie’ at level 1 with up to 20 levels ahead! This all comes together in a built-in achievements page that displays the user’s progress. And seeing all those ’blank state’ achievements can motivate users even more!

customer engagement tools shared mobility

The gamified achievements page clearly displays user progress and milestones, motivating users to unlock the next level and continue using the service.

How to introduce loyalty & gamification into your mobility application with StriveCloud (and the benefits of our engagement tools)

Getting started with StriveCloud is easy! We go through three simple steps to set you on your way to success:

First, we help our customers identify the best loyalty & gamification solution according to their business challenges and target audience during a gamification workshop.
Second, we create a gamification design plan based on the needs discovered. This includes expert recommendations for additional in-app loyalty and gamification features.
Finally, we set up our software to integrate the new features straight into your mobile application. Our customers can easily iterate the experience live into their app from a simple control panel.

Incentivize your customers to book more trips! Discover how you can create your own unique experience with our gamification platform!

FAQs

Why does gamification work for shared mobility apps?

Shared mobility apps create huge amounts of data. Think about all those statistics collected from user journeys, like duration, distance, and frequency. That’s data that can be leveraged for achievements and rewards! This makes the experience more enjoyable and encourages deeper engagement.

How can mobility operators use gamification to their advantage?

Gamification can be a great customer engagement tool to incentivize customers to keep coming back. With a growing share of mobility operators, a gamified experience will help you stand out and reward desired customer behaviors.

How to build a loyalty program strategy on your mobility app

How do you create a loyalty program strategy for your mobility app? As the shared mobility market keeps growing, building brand loyalty becomes a crucial way to drive growth. Not only do loyal customers spend more, and more often, but they are also more likely to refer friends! Find out everything you need to build your own bullet-proof strategy here!

Read Story

How to build a loyalty program strategy on your mobility app

As the shared mobility market grows, so will the importance of customer loyalty. For one, loyal customers spend more money and time with your brand. Furthermore, they are more likely to recommend your shared mobility app to their friends. To maximize your chances of success, you need to create a loyalty program strategy! In other words, how will you create a user experience that turns new customers into loyal advocates?

Developing a robust loyalty program is essential for growth in the competitive mobility sector. Previously, we discussed how customer loyalty drives growth for shared mobility. In this article, let’s see how we to build on that and create an effective loyalty program strategy.

What is a loyalty program strategy? (and how it works)

The goal of a loyalty program strategy is to increase long-term customer loyalty and encourage repeat business. By offering rewards such as discounts, points, or other incentives you can even boost the number of trips booked, or the total amount of miles per trip!

Unfortunately, most loyalty programs are just a mess of random and undirected rewards. They throw points or discounts at customers in the hopes of keeping them engaged. However, these rewards don’t feel earned, or even useful to customers.

Luckily, a great loyalty program strategy can change that! First of all, you need to create a narrative around your customer experience. Secondly, rewards should feel ‘earned’ and ‘desired’. In other words, go beyond just discounts. What behavior do you want to see clients act on? Rightly timed rewards can positively reinforce this behavior and lead to long-term customer growth!

For instance, the shared mobility service HumanForest rewards customers with free riding minutes, while also visualizing the positive impact they make on the environment. This combination of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards fuels motivation and leads to true brand loyalty.

In short, creating a successful loyalty program is not a cut-and-paste job. So if you want to reward and incentivize customer loyalty, you need a loyalty program strategy built around your brand and target audience. After all, what works for one shared mobility app might not work for yours.

8 statistics that illustrate the importance of customer loyalty in shared mobility

#1 54% of consumers like points-based loyalty schemes

Points are popular! What’s more, collecting points is even more popular among younger audiences - an important target group for mobility operators. In a Deloitte study, 60% of those aged 18-24 reported liking gamified point systems.

#2 Shared mobility will be 10x bigger in 2025 than in 2017

Shared mobility is set to grow from $24 billion in 2017 to a staggering $230 billion in 2025. Given this growth, shared mobility apps should expect tougher competition to retain new customers entering the market.

This graph illustrates the projected exponential growth of the shared mobility market, underscoring the need for effective customer retention strategies.

#3 Retaining just 5% more of your users can increase profits by as much as 95%

In a tough market like shared mobility, boosting your profits by keeping customers around for longer can help you develop a competitive edge!

#4 Loyal customers spend 33% more than new customers

Profitability is hard to achieve as a shared mobility app. Starting with hardware like e-scooters requires a hefty upfront investment. And then comes maintenance! By some estimates, an e-scooter needs to be in use for 4 years to become profitable. So you will want to get the most out of your customers, and that means fostering loyalty.

#5 67% of consumers expect to use shared mobility services more often in the future

Data from McKinsey shows that over a third of consumers expect to use more shared mobility services like car-sharing and ride-hailing in the future. In return, these customers will be expecting benefits for their increased usage and loyalty.

#6 Consumers expect a 150% return on their loyalty

According to McKinsey, paid loyalty programs are a great way to fuel both acquisition and loyalty. However, to consistently drive sign-ups you need to clearly illustrate the value of your loyalty program. In fact, customers expect a return on investment to the tune of 150%. In other words, they’re looking for hard benefits such as discounts, free riding minutes, exclusive benefits, special vehicles, and so on.

#7 Discounts greatly improve loyalty among new customers

Creating loyalty begins at the start of the customer journey! If you don’t, customers will leave, which is also called ‘user churn’. Simply put, user churn occurs when customers stop using your service. Luckily, discounts help to prevent exactly that! In fact, a 2021 study into shared mobility apps found that rewarding new customers with coupons limits user churn.

But the effect loses its power after 130 days, illustrating the importance of a loyalty program strategy that takes into account a change in tactics.

The data shows how initial discounts can effectively reduce user churn, a key insight for any loyalty program strategy.

#8 82% of Millennials rely on trusted recommendations for buying decisions

Loyal customers provide the best and most trusted recommendations. But why is it so important that Millennials need a personal recommendation? Because Millennials, those aged 25-40, are more likely to use shared mobility apps.

The psychology behind a loyalty program strategy

To successfully foster loyalty, you need to understand your customer journey. And every customer journey relies on many psychological triggers to progress:

Reciprocity. Customer relationships require both give and take. In short, when customers trust you with their time and money, you need to reciprocate! Your loyalty program strategy can plan for this by rewarding customers for their first ride with a free entry into a lottery or a discounted journey.
Exclusivity. A generic loyalty program is not good enough. Your program needs to feel personalized to each customer. In other words, you need to link rewards to customer behavior and immediate needs. To do this you’ll need to connect your app data directly with your loyalty program.
Positive emotions. This one is simple. It feels good to be recognized and rewarded. Positive reinforcement, like earning points, can help establish an emotional connection between you and your customer.
Gamification. The use of game-like elements in a non-game context. This makes the experience more fun and memorable. It motivates customers to engage with your loyalty program, and keep coming back. For example, by introducing variable rewards or progress indicators!

If your loyalty program strategy can unlock these psychological triggers, you are on the road to success!

The psychology behind customer loyalty: How we used gamified rewards to multiply in-app purchases for EVO Sharing!

7 steps to creating an effective loyalty program strategy

#1 Learn from the competition

Many shared mobility apps have loyalty programs, but you will want to look deeper into your direct competition. Can you work out what they are trying to achieve? This step is useful to help differentiate your mobility service from the competition.

#2 Set goals that will help you achieve your business objectives

Think about what actions your customers can take in order to help you grow. Besides increasing the number of trips booked, or the distance covered, you could also reward customers for other initiatives. For instance, when they refer a friend or partake in a social media marketing campaign.

#3 Find out what motivates your customers

The basis of any successful loyalty program strategy relies on your understanding of what motivates your customers. Offering relevant and meaningful rewards are detrimental to success.

#4 Design a gamified experience to reinforce customer loyalty

Next up, you must devise a gamification design plan that aligns with your overall loyalty program strategy. What will you do to trigger and reward desired customer actions such as booking a trip, or completing a certain number of miles? In what ways can customers earn points? And what can they do with those points?

Additionally, these rewards should feel well-timed and earned. That way, customers notice a clear correlation between carrying out an action & earning a reward.

#5 Implement your loyalty program

It’s showtime! You don’t have to start by launching a complex program at once. In fact, doing too much might be overwhelming for existing customers. Luckily, the beauty of gamification is that each feature works as a part of a whole, but also on its own.

Points or in-app currencies for instance are a great way to incentivize customers. It can be exchanged for a variety of different things such as free-riding minutes and webshop items,... Depending on the stage of your loyalty program and customer lifetime this can become increasingly more complex. You can even organize raffles among customers!

#6 Collect feedback from your customers

The first thing you want to do after implementing your loyalty program strategy is to ask for feedback from your loyal customers. What works well? Double down on it. What can be improved? Listen and tweak accordingly.

#7 Tweak and improve your loyalty program

There are always improvements to be made! That’s why it’s important to have a flexible toolkit that lets you change things quickly and easily.

How to measure the success of your loyalty program strategy

To ensure your success, you need to measure your progress. But while there is no simple measure for loyalty, there are a few metrics that shared mobility apps can use to track the success of their loyalty program strategy.

Participation rate

What percentage of customers actively partake in your loyalty program? What are the similarities between customers? What do they use it for? Knowing who uses your loyalty program, and how will help you to keep improving the overall experience.

Participation rate = Active loyalty program users / Total customers

What’s great about using a platform like StriveCloud is that it removes an initial barrier to engagement. Because the loyalty program remains inside your shared mobility app it feels more like an extension rather than an addition. Therefore, customers don’t need to sign up elsewhere or leave the app to get the full benefit!

Customer lifetime value (CLV)

A loyalty program should provide a boost to your CLV. In other words, customers remain longer, and spend more and more often. As a result, your overall value per customer should increase.

CLV = Average transaction * Annual purchase frequency * Expected years of loyalty – Total costs of acquiring and serving the user

Customer retention rate

Loyal customers stick around for longer. Therefore, a rise in customer retention should indicate an increase in customer loyalty. In short, the higher the number, the better! To effectively study the effect of your loyalty program strategy, you can compare retention among participants and non-participants.

Customer retention rate = Active customers across period / Active customers in previous period x 100

To provide an example, we partnered with HumanForest to create London’s top e-bike loyalty program. And the results were amazing! In June 2022, HumanForest hit a record 150,000 trips - and 70% of these trips were made by repeat users!

This animation of the HumanForest app shows how gamified elements like earning minutes and seeing environmental impact can create an engaging user experience.

Read the HumanForest success story! Discover how our loyalty program strategy helped the e-bike operator become a big player in a big city.

Optimizing the cost of your customer loyalty program with gamification

Gamification is the use of game-like elements and psychology in a non-game context. It makes the experience more enjoyable and memorable. Therefore, customers are more likely to engage and keep coming back to your loyalty program. Furthermore, it helps to scale customer loyalty without spending lots of money on discounts or special perks!

Investing in a loyalty program can be costly - but it doesn’t need to be. In fact, monetary rewards only go so far. To really motivate and keep customers engaged you need a mixture of extrinsic (monetary, discounts, hard benefits) and intrinsic (personal achievement, purpose,...) rewards.

So, you don’t need to reward users with free minutes and cash prizes to get them engaged! In fact, research finds that gamification features like badges and points are more affordable AND more motivating than any financial reward!

Charlie Schroder, Digital Strategist - "We’ve played around with a number of incentives including cash rewards versus badges and points, and badges and points win out every time over cash, over anything tangible, and it’s across every demographic."

In brief, by creating a deeper level of motivation with gamification, you can entice customers to come back and spend more - and ultimately foster long-lasting loyalty.

How StriveCloud helps you create a gamified loyalty program inside your shared mobility app

By now you probably see the value of a loyalty program strategy that makes use of gamification. Not only does it increase overall metrics, but it also helps to limit your costs.

So how can we help you on this journey? Our team of gamification experts has worked with multiple mobility operators to drive loyalty and growth. Here are the three steps we use to do it:

Book a consultation & workshop. Join us for a workshop and let’s achieve growth! Together, we will identify the best solution for your challenges, as well as how to engage your specific audience.
Set up! We’ll integrate the new features straight into your mobility app. Easily edit & change them from a control panel, live into your app!
Onboarding & support. We’ll train your team on how to use our software so they can easily manage the experience themselves! How can you customize features to fit your loyalty strategy?

Ready to create your own loyalty program? Book a free consultation with our experts and start your journey today!

FAQs

What is a loyalty program strategy?

A great loyalty program strategy gives meaning to customer rewards. The goal is to increase long-term customer loyalty and encourage repeat business. By offering rewards such as discounts, points, or other incentives you can even boost the number of trips booked, or distance covered!

Why do shared mobility apps need a loyalty program strategy?

Loyal customers spend 33% more than new customers - and that makes a huge difference in shared mobility, where many apps still haven’t turned a profit. To maximize your loyalty program’s success, you need a loyalty program strategy tailored to your goals and audience!

How does a loyalty program strategy work?

The success of your loyalty strategy depends on three major psychological triggers. The first is reciprocity, where you reward customers for their behavior. The second is exclusivity. In short, making customers feel special. Finally, you need to create positive emotions!

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