Gavin Colborne, MD of Little Forest, discusses the Gamification of Web Governance for International Brands.
15th September 2017 – Brighton SEO
(00:28) What is web governance and why is it something that needs to be talked about in the context of international businesses?
Key takeaways: Governance is different from management. It’s an umbrella that supports everything to do with digital marketing. It is necessary to ensure quality and consistency across a company’s digital estate, particularly in large companies.
(00:58) The gamification of governance sounds like a bit of a contradiction! What is gamification and how does it work in the context of governance?
Key takeaways: When people think of the word governance, they often think about control. However, by turning it into a game, it becomes much more motivating and engaging. – We design games where each department (e.g. social media, content marketing, website performance) gets to choose their key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs then create a score which is indicative of their success. – This motivates the teams to do everything they can to get their scores as high as possible and ultimately win the game! – The numerical nature of the games also helps managers and directors to understand what all the different teams are doing and how they are performing.
“data at your fingertips”
(02:26) What are the fundamentals that a business must do to ensure that they have a governance structure and gamification framework in place?
Key takeaways: There’s lots of useful data out there that you can use to form your scores! Here are two examples: the Google page speed score and net promoter scores (i.e. feedback from your customers). You can take these various different scores and combine them to form a score for a particular department’s performance. So long as you have these data at your fingertips, you should have a good basis for your gamification efforts.
(03:20) Putting gamification into practice can be difficult, especially for big brands with lots of teams based in different locations. How do you ensure you have consistency? How do you roll out a governance programme so that everyone understands and supports the framework that they’re working in?
Key takeaways: You need to involve all your team members and get their feedback from the very beginning in terms of what they think is a good indicator of success and what they control in their day-to-day work. This feedback should be reviewed on a regular basis.
“Putting gamification into practice can be difficult, especially for big brands”
(04:31) There will always be differences of opinion in terms of what should be measured. How should businesses handle that? What is the best way to make sure that everyone is bought into the idea but that they are ultimately achieving the results that the business needs to achieve?
Key takeaways: There needs to be a two-way conversation and everyone needs to be aware that there are differences in terms of each site or product. These differences need to be fairly accounted for when creating the scoring system in the game.
(05:37) This is one approach that you’re taking with your clients. For businesses who don’t have this in place or aren’t at that stage yet, what are the things they can be doing to bring in this kind of gamification approach and make governance seem less like a dictatorship and more like a framework to help everyone do better?
Key takeaways: There is a lot of information out there in terms of industry best practice. – Also, ensure that you involve your whole digital team. Make sure that you don’t forget about anyone! – Having a round table event is a good way to make sure that everyone has a voice.
“You need an interface that allows for very quick and easy comparisons”
(06:56) Let’s talk about managing and monitoring gamification. What are the ways in which a global team can actually keep an eye on what’s happening in all the different markets and identify where things are going well and not so well, or identify when rules are not being followed?
Key takeaways: There are interesting product design elements that come into play here, especially when you have a lot of different websites or products. You need an interface that allows for very quick and easy comparisons. Early warning systems are also a good idea for spotting when things are going wrong.
(07:54) For businesses that haven’t yet launched a governance programme, what is the starting point?
Key takeaways: Have a round table discussion. Bring in people from all the relevant departments in the business and get their input.
Want to know how Little Forest could help you with the Gamification of Web Governance at your organisation?
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