Game-based features or “gamification” is a great way to stimulate member engagement and improve retention statistics. This article takes you through the ways you can incentivize participation in a membership site through gamification.

Gamification and WordPress

Gamification is the addition of game elements to non-game activities.

Read more on “What is gamification”

Gamification of your WordPress membership site is a process of applying game-design elements to engage and reward members for participation. The goal is to promote members’ active interest, boost user experience, and motivate them to take specific actions.

Awarding Points: Setting Up a Reward Program

There are several reasons you would want to award points to members for completing an activity on the site. This can include members earning badges for their continued contributions, offering gift cards for regular shopping, or loyalty points for their recurring purchases.

Other ways to consider incorporating gamification can be to recognize new activities. For example a member’s first forum post, first comment, or the first completed course. This goes a long way in motivating members to engage with other members, and even take action in the future.

For members completing specific activities, such as referring a friend, completing a set of courses, participating in a given program, etc. you would want to reward them with specific points, badges, or gifts. This makes them feel special in a way – since they aren’t just members, but a robust support system behind your success.

Other techniques you can consider to award points include:

  • Log in activity – number of visits per week/month
  • Membership duration – “Member since” awards
  • User profile completeness – Rank members, based on the percentage of data on their profile. 

What Can a Member Do With Points?

Points are only valuable if they come with rewards. Rewards can be tangible (cash, discounts on the next purchase, free tickets) or virtual (levels, badges). Depending on what you offer on the membership site, you can customize it to accommodate a reward program for members with the highest points. Such points can be exchanged for gifts, discounts, or other non-monetary rewards. 

NOTE: In PMPro, you can not use “points” as a currency to credit for membership without custom code or manual processes. If you need help with this, be sure to get in touch with our technical team by opening a new support ticket in the member support area.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Grab the free getting started guide to add gamification to your membership site. Learn about common gamification methods and get step-by-step instructions on creating a more immersive user experience through gamification.

Creating Competition for Status

Competitions, whether for status (badges, levels), prizes, or honour, are some of the oldest forms of recreation. Many people are pushed by the urge to compete, and leveraging this instinctive impulse is a perfect way to motivate desired user behaviours.

The use of leaderboards in a gamified system is quite effective in creating competition among members. The idea is to show them where they rank relative to their peers. This way, they are motivated to take more action to earn enough points to boost their rankings and satisfy their desire to rank on top of the leaderboard.

If you’re looking to advance the competition aspect, you could turn an entire membership module into a game. For instance, a member could reach the next level based on activity. Or complete a couple of events, unlocking member-limited information as they level-up.

Gamifying Your Membership Site with PMPro

Gamification leverages your members’ motivation to take a specific action, and we believe this has a positive effect on your membership site. Finding a way to incorporate this ingenious methodology in your membership site is one step to boosting engagement and taking your site’s business model to the next level.

Fortunately, Paid Memberships Pro has some options where you can gamify your membership site – so you can engage and win over your members by using recognition, privileges, and monetary rewards.

We will be exploring the following essential tools and options that you can use to gamify your PMPro site:

  • Our MyCred Integration
  • Our Goals Progress Bar Add On
  • Third-party integrations like GamiPress and BadgeOS

MyCred Integration

Icon for myCRED Management System

MyCred is an adaptive and user-oriented points management system that enables you to create and manage digital rewards such as points, badges, and ranks on your WordPress website. This system sets events and triggers that allow real-time tracking of your members’ activity. It then credits members automatically with points.

MyCred also sets ranks within your site’s leaderboards and rewards specific members after they meet some requirements. With a badge reward system, you can make some customizations so that members receive specific badges for their exceptional performance. The system comes with several tools and built-in Add Ons, which are crucial for managing your site’s gamification efforts. 

With this option, you can award points to members at checkout or with each recurring payment in the following two ways:

  1. Award points at the initial membership checkout.
  2. Award points with every recurring membership payment made. With this, you can customize the point value awarded per membership level.

Read more on how to award points with PMPro and MyCred.

Goals Progress Bar Add On

Icon for Goal Progress Bar Add On with Paid Membership Pro

Any membership business wanting to be a success should have specific and reachable goals. Having specific goals to reach is a great way to motivate yourself and your team to stay on target. This can include goals like the number of new member sign-ups or a specific monthly revenue target.

The PMPro development team was inspired back in March 2019 to develop a progress bar for tracking membership revenue and signups. To give our users a visual tool to stay motivated and on target. This is how the Goals Progress Bar Add On was developed.

The Paid Memberships Pro Goals Progress Bar Add On creates a dynamic progress bar that can be used in your posts, pages or widgets. Each progress bar offers unique settings to customize the appearance and the target, including which membership levels to count in the total goal progress calculation. You can set up more than one Goal Progress Bar on a single page or insert them on multiple pages of your site.

This progress bar can be set-up for your personal business goal, staff engagement and motivation on your site. But what if you can use this as an incentive for your members? For example, having a limited amount of spots available for a special discounted price and having this number count down every time a new member joins. Or giving something away for free when you reach a specific revenue target.

Please note: The Add On is designed to show a membership sites overall goal, rather than an individual’s progress through your unique program.

Third-party Integrations

GamiPress

Icon for GamiPress

GamiPress is a highly extensible gamification plugin that combines three awards systems in one seamless package – ranks, points, and achievements.

This plugin makes it possible to automatically award members for interacting with your membership site. It also awards members for different achievements after completing a set of requirements. Members can then rise through the ranks by completing all the rank requirements. GamiPress comes with several features and can be integrated with several plugins. In this way it allows you to add gamification to your site regardless of the environment or business model.

The GamiPress – PMPro Integration Plugin is available for free in the WordPress repository. This integration automatically connects GamiPress with Paid Memberships pro by adding new activity events and functionalities to your site.

The GamiPress PMPro integration can trigger the following events:

  • Purchase any membership: When an user purchases or renews any membership.
  • Purchase a specific membership: When an user purchases or renews a specific membership.
  • Cancel any membership: When an user cancels any membership.
  • Cancel a specific membership: When an user cancels a specific membership.
  • Get any membership expired: When an user membership gets expired.
  • Get a specific membership expired: When an user specific membership gets expired.

BadgeOS

Icon for Badge OS for Paid Membership Pro

BadgeOS can turn your membership site into a performance and badging system. It allows you to create badges and format the steps and achievements users need to complete to earn these badges or rewards.

The BadgeOS Paid Memberships Pro Integration Add On allows you to add gamification to your Paid Memberships Pro powered membership site to engage your members.

The BadgeOS PMPro integration includes the following features:

  • On Subscribing Any Membership Level: You can award achievements when the user subscribes to any PMPro membership level like free, paid, or subscription.
  • Revoke Achievements on Cancel/Expiry: You can also revoke achievements when the user cancels any PMPro membership level or the membership level expires.
  • Revoke Ranks on Cancel/Expiry: You can also revoke ranks when the user cancels any PMPro membership level or the membership level expires.

Conclusion: Gamify to Win

The world of content marketing is moving towards engaging your customers and giving them value for their money. Even better if you can give them an experience and awards them for their continued support.

Why wait, turn your site into an interactive gamified membership experience.

You can read more on gamification in the following articles:

Cover image from ebook 29 Nuggets of Wisdom Volume 1 - Sample Collection

Download the free ebook: Get 29 insights and ‘aha moments’ for new or veteran membership site business owners. Use these nuggets of wisdom to inspire or challenge you.

Was this article helpful?
YesNo