MarketingSherpa Lead Gen Summit 2013 is a chance for marketers to learn through real-world case studies and practical application how to improve the entire lead generation process, from lead capture to sales hand-off. In anticipation of this event, here is a video excerpt of a session from last year’s B2B Summit, “B2B Gamification: How Autodesk used game mechanics for in-trial marketing.”
Dawn Wolfe, Senior Marketing Manager, and Andy Mott, Marketing Manager, both of Autodesk, shared with the audience at Summit how they incorporated game mechanics into the free trial of an Autodesk software program, 3ds Max. Autodesk makes 3D design, engineering and entertainment software.
Trials are essential to its business. Autodesk offers complex, high-end software customers prefer to try before purchasing. The in-trial marketing team is tasked with taking the trial users and converting them to sales in the Autodesk online store.
In this video excerpt, Wolfe explains how Autodesk reached two types of audiences with two different approaches to in-trial marketing.
One approach is drive to purchase, which is applied to lower-end products that have a shorter, less complex sales cycle.
On the other hand, the nurture approach creates an engaging trial experience for more complex purchases. Using in-trial marketing, the team wanted to engage customers in this phase of the sales cycle.
Wolfe also discussed a test for the nurture approach for 3ds Max, which led to Autodesk implementing a gamification program for the trial process, resulting in a dramatic increase in the amount of users participating in the free trial. “There’s a lot of buzz around gamification right now … and the more we got into it, we started to think there’s really something here that can help us in this instance,” Wolfe said.
Watch the entire, free video replay of this B2B Summit session to learn more about gamification:
- How Autodesk implemented game mechanics into its product trial
- The storyline and user achievements Autodesk created for campaign
- The results of this effort
Related Resources:
Lead Gen Summit 2013: Sept. 30 – Oct. 3, San Francisco
Gamification: 3 tips for gamification apps as part of your content marketing
B2B Social Media: Gamification effort increases Web traffic 100%, employee collaboration 57%
