Solopress’ gamification campaign hits a high score with mobile business users. Jessica McGreal reports
Gaming apps are rare in B2B, but SME printer Solopress highlighted how going digital, and more importantly mobile, can boost business. In this case, the gaming app was the catalyst for a much larger change; one that means Solopress will soon be upping its digital offerings.
Testing
The campaign, launched at the end of May, aimed to increase brand awareness and engage with the increasing number of mobile business users in the UK. And why not mix business with pleasure from time to time?
Solopress’ campaign underlines its creative nature which is highlighted across its website, social channels, newsletter and blog. But it’s not all fun and games. The company prides itself on fast turnaround and cost-friendly printing solutions, with a collection of five star reviews featured on its homepage.
However, despite great reviews, Solopress found traditional advertising didn’t work well with its media savvy audience. As
a result, it was decided exciting new content and entertainment tools were required to grab prospects’ attention and to stay relevant.
Spurred on by the recent tornado of statistics regarding the benefits of mobile marketing, the brand chose to launch a gaming app and commenced the research stage of the campaign. This included an extensive enquiry to find the right application developer. LudoPhobia was chosen because of its expertise in gamification and advergame development. Its previous clients include Cadbury and Southampton Solent University.
Although the idea and design stages of the project were trouble-free; Solopress experienced problems associated with software development. Consequently, the firm tested the game as thoroughly as possible prior to the release and quickly reacted to any issues that arose. This included both inhouse testing and external test groups. A few small tweaks were made to the code once the app went live on Apple’s App Store, such as getting the high-score table function working correctly with web servers.
Gaming
The free tap game relies on a keen eye and quick reflexes to successfully work the conveyor belt at the busy Solopress printing factory. Users are challenged to match as many conveyor belt items to the correlating stencil in 20 seconds. It may sound simple, but it is highly addictive (I found out the hard way). Solopress has also added a high score competition ‘for a chance to win £200 in printing vouchers’ as an extra incentive to play. The winner will be announced in August.
The game drives traffic to the website by promoting the link via an initial notification and a further tab on the home screen. Yet, unlike a large collection of apps, Solopress does not bombard the users with pointless pop ups during the game.
At present the app is only available on iOS 6.0, although Android will be supported in future apps. This was a conscious decision as the majority of the print firm’s customers are graphic designers, photographers and marketers and were identified as Apple fans.
Multichannel marketing
Solopress has utilised a number of diverse methods to support the new campaign, including content marketing, sponsorships and online advertising.
The company’s blog is an interesting read and humanises the brand. Content ranges from weekly ‘Funny Friday’ posts ‘packed with spelling mistakes, typos and fun content from around the world’, together with newsletter reminders and design inspiration for its audience.
The printers believe word-of-mouth will always play a vital role for any brand, whether it’s chatting face-to-face, by
phone, via email, or shared in a tweet or Facebook post.
Furthermore, the campaign has been promoted across its vast social channels, which include Pinterest and YouTube – it hired its own inhouse digital video designer earlier in the year – although Facebook and Twitter remain the most popular networks.
Hitting a high score
The campaign is still in its very early stages and the commercial printer has not yet obtained any quantifiable data.
However, the team believe the biggest result of the project is that the Solopress team now includes two programmers and a designer after expanding. The app campaign spurred on, and has worked in parallel to, Solopress extending its digital offerings.
The SME is currently updating its desktop and mobile website and has branched out to digital. It will soon be offering web and mobile design, development, SEO, ecommerce and server hosting services to customers too.
Solopress’ co-founder, Aron Priest, says: “We’re very proud of the Solopress game app. It’s the first time any commercial printer has tried something like this. We can’t wait to show off our next project. But in the meantime, download our game and see if you can beat the high score.’