Steve Mann wrote a great article on Enterprise Irregulars last week called the Brains Behind Digital Marketing. This is a subject near and dear to my heart, because at Quikly, we have designed a promotional marketing platform that leverages customer psychology. We get customers excited by activating love of competition, fears about scarcity and missing out, and delight in anticipating something fun … especially when we don’t know exactly when it will happen.
In his article, Mann says “Gamification is all about the use of game thinking and game mechanics to drive what I call striving behaviors – eliciting the desire to want more of something and receiving a sense of pleasure once that want is fulfilled.” He reviews the two most prominent pleasure-related neurochemicals: dopamine (makes us want more of something because it drives pleasure-seeking behaviors) and endorphins (morphine-like neurochemicals that stimulate our pleasure center. Think runners’ high!)
Basically, gamification isn’t the only way for marketers to stimulate endorphins and dopamine, but it is a great way and can produce what Mann calls “engagement addicts.”
Check out the article: you don’t have to be a neuroscientist to be a great marketing, but understanding some basics can help make your tactics more effective.
