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Benefits of Gamification

Surprise and Delight Your Base

Gamification makes your advocacy program more fun and engaging. Even if your program’s subject matter is heavy, you can boost the fun factor using customizable gamified elements allowing you to lean into your organization’s branding and culture to surprise and delight advocates. [callout align="right" heading="See how Toyota received a 50% response rate to advocacy campaigns with gamification." button_text="Learn Toyota's Strategy" button_link="https://www.quorum.us/case-studies/toyota-corporate-advocacy-program/"]When Toyota gamified their corporate advocacy program, they created a ninja warrior theme with different animated ninja characters assigned based on the level an advocate reached. Their fun theme and element of surprise make advocates want to continue taking action, which in turn drives higher engagement. With these additions, Toyota increased its average advocate response rate to 50%, an impressive feat.

Expand the Impact of a Small Team

Gamification works well for teams of all sizes, even a one-person team. Once gamification is live on your website, advocates will be more likely to return to your campaign on their own and can reallocate time back to other aspects of your work.

Grow From Grassroots to Grasstops

Gamification helps you identify grasstops advocates based on who has accrued the most points or reached the highest levels of your campaign. Sorting your advocates by level allows your team to make more advanced asks of your grasstops advocates - like participating in a fly-in or scheduling an in-district meeting.

Target Communications By Engagement Level

Different levels and point structures enable you to use different communications tactics and messaging based on an advocate’s points. For advocates with only a few points, you could implement a raffle system, poll, or survey to yield a higher response rate. If an advocate already has a higher number of points or has reached a higher level, reward their continued participation by sending more advanced communications, like policy updates on a piece of legislation they took action on, or a report from your latest fly-in. This makes for a more individualized advocate experience, moving your advocacy program from a “one size fits all” approach to a more unique user experience.

How to Implement Gamification into Your Advocacy Campaign:

Below is a step-by-step guide for implementing gamification into your advocacy program.

1. Assign Points To Your Actions

To set up gamification, you’ll first need to decide what actions you want advocates to take and assign point numbers for each action. You’ll want to scale the number of points per action based on the value they contribute to your organization — more valuable actions should be more points. For example, provide more points to tasks that take longer and require more effort from advocates. If you have a 5-minute video and a 15-minute podcast for advocates to learn about your issue, you might assign more points to the podcast than the video. In campaigns where you are asking advocates to engage legislators, assign more points to actions that legislators have communicated are more valuable. Research shows that phone calls from constituents are more impactful than emails, so assign points accordingly.

2. Set Your Levels

With point values assigned for each action, create a point threshold for each level to encourage return participation. Name your levels to fit within your advocacy theme, your branding, or your organization's culture. For example, if your organization advocates for education improvement, you could name your levels “Student”, “Teacher”, “Principal”, and so on to play on that school theme. How do levels make a difference? Levels are earned titles that resonate with your advocate base, motivating them to obtain that title by taking more actions to level up.

3. Create a Public Leaderboard

Social pressure and competition do wonders for advocacy campaigns. Publicize advocate scores with a leaderboard on your website to encourage friendly competition. Or, if you're team is in a physical location, like an office or warehouse, display the leaderboard prominently in person where advocates are sure to see it. This motivates your advocates to act faster and race to the top. IHRSA, which represents fitness facilities, used a public leaderboard and the natural competitiveness of its athlete-advocates to drive increased traction in their campaigns. They used a reporting dashboard in Quorum Grassroots to publicize the number of co-sponsors in each state and a live feed of advocate actions to drive advocates to help build a larger coalition of support for the GYMS Act.

4. Use Exclusive Prizes to Drive Participation

[callout align="left" heading="See how AEM's prize strategy drove participation with association members. " button_text="Read AEM's Story" button_link="https://www.quorum.us/case-studies/aem-gamified-grassroots-advocacy/"] Incentivize engagement with prizes or raffles. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers saw great return participation when they offered prizes to their top point earners, averaging 3.5 actions per participant. The key to a successful incentives program? Offer prizes that you know will excite your advocate base, personalizing your offerings to the audience you’re trying to reach. The most cherished incentives are exclusive, like a collectible related to a specific campaign. Think about something advocates would be proud to display. That way, when coworkers or friends pass by their desks, the items may pique their interest to take action as well. Here are some examples of common incentives:
  • Work or conference badge holder
  • Water bottle
  • Magnets or stickers 
  • Notepads
  • Earbuds
  • Merchandise like t-shirts, socks, or desk gear
Exclusivity is more powerful when experienced—and even better if other people can witness it. Reward advocates with invites to virtual or in-person VIP meetups or a focus group discussion with board members. Offer them early notice on hotel block openings or access to meet-the-keynote sessions and special receptions. If you work at an association, member companies are often happy to help turn employees into advocates. Ask them to arrange an exclusive breakfast or lunch for high-point advocates with company leaders to hear updates on key company issues and projects or to get an exclusive tour of a facility and lunch with company VIPs.

5. Create a Gamified Referral System

Give each advocate a unique link they can share with their networks. When a new advocate uses a referral link to register for an account, you’ll be able to track which advocates drove the most signups. A gamified referral program is mutually beneficial - advocates get more points, and your program reaches a wider audience.

6. Make Advocacy Participation Evergreen with Growing Opportunities for Action

Keep your advocates on their toes, anticipating surprises and always checking back in. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers released new actions each month to entice participants to return so they could increase their chances of winning weekly prizes and crossing the 100-point threshold required to qualify for the grand prize drawing.  By incentivizing returning to your advocacy action center, you make advocacy a habit rather than a once-in-a-while thing that advocates do when a major bill pops up. But what kind of actions can you offer if there isn't major legislation right now? Consider including actions like "Share Your Story" campaigns that can help you create content to bring to your lobbying meetings. Or, if your campaigns are typically limited to Congress, expand your advocacy to the state and local levels where more legislation is moving on a regular basis. Finally, add more educational actions like listening to podcasts on the issues to help your advocates grow their comfort in speaking on the issues that matter to your organization. [post_title] => Incorporating Gamification in Your Advocacy Program [post_excerpt] => Gamification in advocacy programs makes them more engaging. Implement gamification by assigning points to actions and creating a referral system. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => advocacy-gamification-how-to [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-03-20 15:20:54 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-03-20 15:20:54 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.quorum.us/?post_type=resources&p=5085 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => resources [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [queried_object_id] => 5085 [request] => SELECT wp_posts.* FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_name = 'advocacy-gamification-how-to' AND wp_posts.post_type = 'resources' ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC [posts] => Array ( [0] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5085 [post_author] => 43 [post_date] => 2022-12-21 18:33:46 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-12-21 18:33:46 [post_content] => We live in an attention economy, where every app, email, advertisement, and more vie for your attention. This environment makes it increasingly difficult to attract and retain advocates. Humans are also motivated by the natural desire for exclusivity, affiliation, and prestige. Seeing your name on a leaderboard, showing off a limited-edition collectible, or gaining special access to an exclusive event are all powerful motivators, even if we don’t always want to admit it. So how can you combat this attention fatigue and take advantage of the desire for exclusivity to get advocates excited to participate in your campaigns? By implementing gamification into your advocacy program. With gamification, you can catch an advocate’s attention and encourage return participation with your advocacy campaigns with a fun and interactive user experience. Gamification works by assigning rewards (points, badges, etc.) based on advocates’ actions. Levels, like in a video game, incentivize continued participation. Here are a few benefits of gamification and an overview of how to set it up for your next campaign:

Benefits of Gamification

Surprise and Delight Your Base

Gamification makes your advocacy program more fun and engaging. Even if your program’s subject matter is heavy, you can boost the fun factor using customizable gamified elements allowing you to lean into your organization’s branding and culture to surprise and delight advocates. [callout align="right" heading="See how Toyota received a 50% response rate to advocacy campaigns with gamification." button_text="Learn Toyota's Strategy" button_link="https://www.quorum.us/case-studies/toyota-corporate-advocacy-program/"]When Toyota gamified their corporate advocacy program, they created a ninja warrior theme with different animated ninja characters assigned based on the level an advocate reached. Their fun theme and element of surprise make advocates want to continue taking action, which in turn drives higher engagement. With these additions, Toyota increased its average advocate response rate to 50%, an impressive feat.

Expand the Impact of a Small Team

Gamification works well for teams of all sizes, even a one-person team. Once gamification is live on your website, advocates will be more likely to return to your campaign on their own and can reallocate time back to other aspects of your work.

Grow From Grassroots to Grasstops

Gamification helps you identify grasstops advocates based on who has accrued the most points or reached the highest levels of your campaign. Sorting your advocates by level allows your team to make more advanced asks of your grasstops advocates - like participating in a fly-in or scheduling an in-district meeting.

Target Communications By Engagement Level

Different levels and point structures enable you to use different communications tactics and messaging based on an advocate’s points. For advocates with only a few points, you could implement a raffle system, poll, or survey to yield a higher response rate. If an advocate already has a higher number of points or has reached a higher level, reward their continued participation by sending more advanced communications, like policy updates on a piece of legislation they took action on, or a report from your latest fly-in. This makes for a more individualized advocate experience, moving your advocacy program from a “one size fits all” approach to a more unique user experience.

How to Implement Gamification into Your Advocacy Campaign:

Below is a step-by-step guide for implementing gamification into your advocacy program.

1. Assign Points To Your Actions

To set up gamification, you’ll first need to decide what actions you want advocates to take and assign point numbers for each action. You’ll want to scale the number of points per action based on the value they contribute to your organization — more valuable actions should be more points. For example, provide more points to tasks that take longer and require more effort from advocates. If you have a 5-minute video and a 15-minute podcast for advocates to learn about your issue, you might assign more points to the podcast than the video. In campaigns where you are asking advocates to engage legislators, assign more points to actions that legislators have communicated are more valuable. Research shows that phone calls from constituents are more impactful than emails, so assign points accordingly.

2. Set Your Levels

With point values assigned for each action, create a point threshold for each level to encourage return participation. Name your levels to fit within your advocacy theme, your branding, or your organization's culture. For example, if your organization advocates for education improvement, you could name your levels “Student”, “Teacher”, “Principal”, and so on to play on that school theme. How do levels make a difference? Levels are earned titles that resonate with your advocate base, motivating them to obtain that title by taking more actions to level up.

3. Create a Public Leaderboard

Social pressure and competition do wonders for advocacy campaigns. Publicize advocate scores with a leaderboard on your website to encourage friendly competition. Or, if you're team is in a physical location, like an office or warehouse, display the leaderboard prominently in person where advocates are sure to see it. This motivates your advocates to act faster and race to the top. IHRSA, which represents fitness facilities, used a public leaderboard and the natural competitiveness of its athlete-advocates to drive increased traction in their campaigns. They used a reporting dashboard in Quorum Grassroots to publicize the number of co-sponsors in each state and a live feed of advocate actions to drive advocates to help build a larger coalition of support for the GYMS Act.

4. Use Exclusive Prizes to Drive Participation

[callout align="left" heading="See how AEM's prize strategy drove participation with association members. " button_text="Read AEM's Story" button_link="https://www.quorum.us/case-studies/aem-gamified-grassroots-advocacy/"] Incentivize engagement with prizes or raffles. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers saw great return participation when they offered prizes to their top point earners, averaging 3.5 actions per participant. The key to a successful incentives program? Offer prizes that you know will excite your advocate base, personalizing your offerings to the audience you’re trying to reach. The most cherished incentives are exclusive, like a collectible related to a specific campaign. Think about something advocates would be proud to display. That way, when coworkers or friends pass by their desks, the items may pique their interest to take action as well. Here are some examples of common incentives:
  • Work or conference badge holder
  • Water bottle
  • Magnets or stickers 
  • Notepads
  • Earbuds
  • Merchandise like t-shirts, socks, or desk gear
Exclusivity is more powerful when experienced—and even better if other people can witness it. Reward advocates with invites to virtual or in-person VIP meetups or a focus group discussion with board members. Offer them early notice on hotel block openings or access to meet-the-keynote sessions and special receptions. If you work at an association, member companies are often happy to help turn employees into advocates. Ask them to arrange an exclusive breakfast or lunch for high-point advocates with company leaders to hear updates on key company issues and projects or to get an exclusive tour of a facility and lunch with company VIPs.

5. Create a Gamified Referral System

Give each advocate a unique link they can share with their networks. When a new advocate uses a referral link to register for an account, you’ll be able to track which advocates drove the most signups. A gamified referral program is mutually beneficial - advocates get more points, and your program reaches a wider audience.

6. Make Advocacy Participation Evergreen with Growing Opportunities for Action

Keep your advocates on their toes, anticipating surprises and always checking back in. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers released new actions each month to entice participants to return so they could increase their chances of winning weekly prizes and crossing the 100-point threshold required to qualify for the grand prize drawing.  By incentivizing returning to your advocacy action center, you make advocacy a habit rather than a once-in-a-while thing that advocates do when a major bill pops up. But what kind of actions can you offer if there isn't major legislation right now? Consider including actions like "Share Your Story" campaigns that can help you create content to bring to your lobbying meetings. Or, if your campaigns are typically limited to Congress, expand your advocacy to the state and local levels where more legislation is moving on a regular basis. Finally, add more educational actions like listening to podcasts on the issues to help your advocates grow their comfort in speaking on the issues that matter to your organization. [post_title] => Incorporating Gamification in Your Advocacy Program [post_excerpt] => Gamification in advocacy programs makes them more engaging. Implement gamification by assigning points to actions and creating a referral system. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => advocacy-gamification-how-to [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-03-20 15:20:54 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-03-20 15:20:54 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.quorum.us/?post_type=resources&p=5085 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => resources [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 1 [current_post] => -1 [before_loop] => 1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 5085 [post_author] => 43 [post_date] => 2022-12-21 18:33:46 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-12-21 18:33:46 [post_content] => We live in an attention economy, where every app, email, advertisement, and more vie for your attention. This environment makes it increasingly difficult to attract and retain advocates. Humans are also motivated by the natural desire for exclusivity, affiliation, and prestige. Seeing your name on a leaderboard, showing off a limited-edition collectible, or gaining special access to an exclusive event are all powerful motivators, even if we don’t always want to admit it. So how can you combat this attention fatigue and take advantage of the desire for exclusivity to get advocates excited to participate in your campaigns? By implementing gamification into your advocacy program. With gamification, you can catch an advocate’s attention and encourage return participation with your advocacy campaigns with a fun and interactive user experience. Gamification works by assigning rewards (points, badges, etc.) based on advocates’ actions. Levels, like in a video game, incentivize continued participation. Here are a few benefits of gamification and an overview of how to set it up for your next campaign:

Benefits of Gamification

Surprise and Delight Your Base

Gamification makes your advocacy program more fun and engaging. Even if your program’s subject matter is heavy, you can boost the fun factor using customizable gamified elements allowing you to lean into your organization’s branding and culture to surprise and delight advocates. [callout align="right" heading="See how Toyota received a 50% response rate to advocacy campaigns with gamification." button_text="Learn Toyota's Strategy" button_link="https://www.quorum.us/case-studies/toyota-corporate-advocacy-program/"]When Toyota gamified their corporate advocacy program, they created a ninja warrior theme with different animated ninja characters assigned based on the level an advocate reached. Their fun theme and element of surprise make advocates want to continue taking action, which in turn drives higher engagement. With these additions, Toyota increased its average advocate response rate to 50%, an impressive feat.

Expand the Impact of a Small Team

Gamification works well for teams of all sizes, even a one-person team. Once gamification is live on your website, advocates will be more likely to return to your campaign on their own and can reallocate time back to other aspects of your work.

Grow From Grassroots to Grasstops

Gamification helps you identify grasstops advocates based on who has accrued the most points or reached the highest levels of your campaign. Sorting your advocates by level allows your team to make more advanced asks of your grasstops advocates - like participating in a fly-in or scheduling an in-district meeting.

Target Communications By Engagement Level

Different levels and point structures enable you to use different communications tactics and messaging based on an advocate’s points. For advocates with only a few points, you could implement a raffle system, poll, or survey to yield a higher response rate. If an advocate already has a higher number of points or has reached a higher level, reward their continued participation by sending more advanced communications, like policy updates on a piece of legislation they took action on, or a report from your latest fly-in. This makes for a more individualized advocate experience, moving your advocacy program from a “one size fits all” approach to a more unique user experience.

How to Implement Gamification into Your Advocacy Campaign:

Below is a step-by-step guide for implementing gamification into your advocacy program.

1. Assign Points To Your Actions

To set up gamification, you’ll first need to decide what actions you want advocates to take and assign point numbers for each action. You’ll want to scale the number of points per action based on the value they contribute to your organization — more valuable actions should be more points. For example, provide more points to tasks that take longer and require more effort from advocates. If you have a 5-minute video and a 15-minute podcast for advocates to learn about your issue, you might assign more points to the podcast than the video. In campaigns where you are asking advocates to engage legislators, assign more points to actions that legislators have communicated are more valuable. Research shows that phone calls from constituents are more impactful than emails, so assign points accordingly.

2. Set Your Levels

With point values assigned for each action, create a point threshold for each level to encourage return participation. Name your levels to fit within your advocacy theme, your branding, or your organization's culture. For example, if your organization advocates for education improvement, you could name your levels “Student”, “Teacher”, “Principal”, and so on to play on that school theme. How do levels make a difference? Levels are earned titles that resonate with your advocate base, motivating them to obtain that title by taking more actions to level up.

3. Create a Public Leaderboard

Social pressure and competition do wonders for advocacy campaigns. Publicize advocate scores with a leaderboard on your website to encourage friendly competition. Or, if you're team is in a physical location, like an office or warehouse, display the leaderboard prominently in person where advocates are sure to see it. This motivates your advocates to act faster and race to the top. IHRSA, which represents fitness facilities, used a public leaderboard and the natural competitiveness of its athlete-advocates to drive increased traction in their campaigns. They used a reporting dashboard in Quorum Grassroots to publicize the number of co-sponsors in each state and a live feed of advocate actions to drive advocates to help build a larger coalition of support for the GYMS Act.

4. Use Exclusive Prizes to Drive Participation

[callout align="left" heading="See how AEM's prize strategy drove participation with association members. " button_text="Read AEM's Story" button_link="https://www.quorum.us/case-studies/aem-gamified-grassroots-advocacy/"] Incentivize engagement with prizes or raffles. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers saw great return participation when they offered prizes to their top point earners, averaging 3.5 actions per participant. The key to a successful incentives program? Offer prizes that you know will excite your advocate base, personalizing your offerings to the audience you’re trying to reach. The most cherished incentives are exclusive, like a collectible related to a specific campaign. Think about something advocates would be proud to display. That way, when coworkers or friends pass by their desks, the items may pique their interest to take action as well. Here are some examples of common incentives:
  • Work or conference badge holder
  • Water bottle
  • Magnets or stickers 
  • Notepads
  • Earbuds
  • Merchandise like t-shirts, socks, or desk gear
Exclusivity is more powerful when experienced—and even better if other people can witness it. Reward advocates with invites to virtual or in-person VIP meetups or a focus group discussion with board members. Offer them early notice on hotel block openings or access to meet-the-keynote sessions and special receptions. If you work at an association, member companies are often happy to help turn employees into advocates. Ask them to arrange an exclusive breakfast or lunch for high-point advocates with company leaders to hear updates on key company issues and projects or to get an exclusive tour of a facility and lunch with company VIPs.

5. Create a Gamified Referral System

Give each advocate a unique link they can share with their networks. When a new advocate uses a referral link to register for an account, you’ll be able to track which advocates drove the most signups. A gamified referral program is mutually beneficial - advocates get more points, and your program reaches a wider audience.

6. Make Advocacy Participation Evergreen with Growing Opportunities for Action

Keep your advocates on their toes, anticipating surprises and always checking back in. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers released new actions each month to entice participants to return so they could increase their chances of winning weekly prizes and crossing the 100-point threshold required to qualify for the grand prize drawing.  By incentivizing returning to your advocacy action center, you make advocacy a habit rather than a once-in-a-while thing that advocates do when a major bill pops up. But what kind of actions can you offer if there isn't major legislation right now? Consider including actions like "Share Your Story" campaigns that can help you create content to bring to your lobbying meetings. Or, if your campaigns are typically limited to Congress, expand your advocacy to the state and local levels where more legislation is moving on a regular basis. Finally, add more educational actions like listening to podcasts on the issues to help your advocates grow their comfort in speaking on the issues that matter to your organization. [post_title] => Incorporating Gamification in Your Advocacy Program [post_excerpt] => Gamification in advocacy programs makes them more engaging. Implement gamification by assigning points to actions and creating a referral system. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => advocacy-gamification-how-to [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-03-20 15:20:54 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-03-20 15:20:54 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.quorum.us/?post_type=resources&p=5085 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => resources [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 1 [max_num_pages] => 0 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => 1 [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => [is_privacy_policy] => [is_404] => [is_embed] => [is_paged] => [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => 1 [is_robots] => [is_favicon] => [is_posts_page] => [is_post_type_archive] => [query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => 112f43f4074b752e5597e86873bc7f39 [query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] => [thumbnails_cached] => [allow_query_attachment_by_filename:protected] => [stopwords:WP_Query:private] => [compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => query_vars_hash [1] => query_vars_changed ) [compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => init_query_flags [1] => parse_tax_query ) )
!!! 5085
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Incorporating Gamification in Your Advocacy Program

Incorporating Gamification in Your Advocacy Program

We live in an attention economy, where every app, email, advertisement, and more vie for your attention. This environment makes it increasingly difficult to attract and retain advocates.

Humans are also motivated by the natural desire for exclusivity, affiliation, and prestige. Seeing your name on a leaderboard, showing off a limited-edition collectible, or gaining special access to an exclusive event are all powerful motivators, even if we don’t always want to admit it.

So how can you combat this attention fatigue and take advantage of the desire for exclusivity to get advocates excited to participate in your campaigns? By implementing gamification into your advocacy program. With gamification, you can catch an advocate’s attention and encourage return participation with your advocacy campaigns with a fun and interactive user experience.

Gamification works by assigning rewards (points, badges, etc.) based on advocates’ actions. Levels, like in a video game, incentivize continued participation.

Here are a few benefits of gamification and an overview of how to set it up for your next campaign:

Benefits of Gamification

Surprise and Delight Your Base

Gamification makes your advocacy program more fun and engaging. Even if your program’s subject matter is heavy, you can boost the fun factor using customizable gamified elements allowing you to lean into your organization’s branding and culture to surprise and delight advocates.

When Toyota gamified their corporate advocacy program, they created a ninja warrior theme with different animated ninja characters assigned based on the level an advocate reached. Their fun theme and element of surprise make advocates want to continue taking action, which in turn drives higher engagement. With these additions, Toyota increased its average advocate response rate to 50%, an impressive feat.

Expand the Impact of a Small Team

Gamification works well for teams of all sizes, even a one-person team. Once gamification is live on your website, advocates will be more likely to return to your campaign on their own and can reallocate time back to other aspects of your work.

Grow From Grassroots to Grasstops

Gamification helps you identify grasstops advocates based on who has accrued the most points or reached the highest levels of your campaign. Sorting your advocates by level allows your team to make more advanced asks of your grasstops advocates – like participating in a fly-in or scheduling an in-district meeting.

Target Communications By Engagement Level

Different levels and point structures enable you to use different communications tactics and messaging based on an advocate’s points.

For advocates with only a few points, you could implement a raffle system, poll, or survey to yield a higher response rate. If an advocate already has a higher number of points or has reached a higher level, reward their continued participation by sending more advanced communications, like policy updates on a piece of legislation they took action on, or a report from your latest fly-in. This makes for a more individualized advocate experience, moving your advocacy program from a “one size fits all” approach to a more unique user experience.

How to Implement Gamification into Your Advocacy Campaign:

Below is a step-by-step guide for implementing gamification into your advocacy program.

1. Assign Points To Your Actions

To set up gamification, you’ll first need to decide what actions you want advocates to take and assign point numbers for each action. You’ll want to scale the number of points per action based on the value they contribute to your organization — more valuable actions should be more points.

For example, provide more points to tasks that take longer and require more effort from advocates. If you have a 5-minute video and a 15-minute podcast for advocates to learn about your issue, you might assign more points to the podcast than the video.

In campaigns where you are asking advocates to engage legislators, assign more points to actions that legislators have communicated are more valuable. Research shows that phone calls from constituents are more impactful than emails, so assign points accordingly.

2. Set Your Levels

With point values assigned for each action, create a point threshold for each level to encourage return participation. Name your levels to fit within your advocacy theme, your branding, or your organization’s culture. For example, if your organization advocates for education improvement, you could name your levels “Student”, “Teacher”, “Principal”, and so on to play on that school theme.

How do levels make a difference? Levels are earned titles that resonate with your advocate base, motivating them to obtain that title by taking more actions to level up.

3. Create a Public Leaderboard

Social pressure and competition do wonders for advocacy campaigns. Publicize advocate scores with a leaderboard on your website to encourage friendly competition. Or, if you’re team is in a physical location, like an office or warehouse, display the leaderboard prominently in person where advocates are sure to see it. This motivates your advocates to act faster and race to the top.

IHRSA, which represents fitness facilities, used a public leaderboard and the natural competitiveness of its athlete-advocates to drive increased traction in their campaigns. They used a reporting dashboard in Quorum Grassroots to publicize the number of co-sponsors in each state and a live feed of advocate actions to drive advocates to help build a larger coalition of support for the GYMS Act.

4. Use Exclusive Prizes to Drive Participation

Incentivize engagement with prizes or raffles. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers saw great return participation when they offered prizes to their top point earners, averaging 3.5 actions per participant. The key to a successful incentives program? Offer prizes that you know will excite your advocate base, personalizing your offerings to the audience you’re trying to reach.

The most cherished incentives are exclusive, like a collectible related to a specific campaign. Think about something advocates would be proud to display. That way, when coworkers or friends pass by their desks, the items may pique their interest to take action as well. Here are some examples of common incentives:

  • Work or conference badge holder
  • Water bottle
  • Magnets or stickers 
  • Notepads
  • Earbuds
  • Merchandise like t-shirts, socks, or desk gear

Exclusivity is more powerful when experienced—and even better if other people can witness it. Reward advocates with invites to virtual or in-person VIP meetups or a focus group discussion with board members. Offer them early notice on hotel block openings or access to meet-the-keynote sessions and special receptions.

If you work at an association, member companies are often happy to help turn employees into advocates. Ask them to arrange an exclusive breakfast or lunch for high-point advocates with company leaders to hear updates on key company issues and projects or to get an exclusive tour of a facility and lunch with company VIPs.

5. Create a Gamified Referral System

Give each advocate a unique link they can share with their networks. When a new advocate uses a referral link to register for an account, you’ll be able to track which advocates drove the most signups. A gamified referral program is mutually beneficial – advocates get more points, and your program reaches a wider audience.

6. Make Advocacy Participation Evergreen with Growing Opportunities for Action

Keep your advocates on their toes, anticipating surprises and always checking back in. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers released new actions each month to entice participants to return so they could increase their chances of winning weekly prizes and crossing the 100-point threshold required to qualify for the grand prize drawing. 

By incentivizing returning to your advocacy action center, you make advocacy a habit rather than a once-in-a-while thing that advocates do when a major bill pops up. But what kind of actions can you offer if there isn’t major legislation right now? Consider including actions like “Share Your Story” campaigns that can help you create content to bring to your lobbying meetings. Or, if your campaigns are typically limited to Congress, expand your advocacy to the state and local levels where more legislation is moving on a regular basis. Finally, add more educational actions like listening to podcasts on the issues to help your advocates grow their comfort in speaking on the issues that matter to your organization.

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