Storytelling and Gamification Survey Creation Principles
“Let the Games Begin!”
Part 1: Introduction
Creating a balance between story-based and game-based content is crucial for B2B edutainment. Both benefit from primary research that delivers facts incorporated into story sections.
Both stories and games have unique advantages, and when used together, they provide a dynamic, engaging, and tailored experience for business professionals. Below is a breakdown of how each approach contributes to education, engagement, and business outcomes.
Part 2: Stories Build Confidence and Clarity
Story-based assets allow users to navigate real-world business challenges, validate decisions, and build clarity on best practices for tasks such as process management, resource allocation, or cross-departmental collaboration. These stories compare strategies and methods, allowing participants to align views across teams and departments.
Part 3: Games Identify Strengths and Gaps
Game-based assets are ideal for task-based learning and process optimization. Games challenge users to demonstrate efficiency and avoid skill gaps while offering verification and certification for mastering specific business tasks. The gamified approach emphasizes immediate skill recognition and the development of future capabilities.
Part 4: Rich Media, Interactivity, and Sharing
Story-based and game-based assets can integrate rich media—video, audio, and interactivity—to create an engaging and immersive experience. Games encourage competition and immediate sharing of achievements, while stories foster reflection and collaboration, prompting participants to share their insights with colleagues.
Top 10 Best Practices for Writing a B2B Story-Based Survey
Define Clear Objectives: Align the survey with business goals like revenue, customer retention, or operational efficiency.
Use Real-World Business Scenarios: Focus on relevant challenges faced by B2B professionals, such as improving team alignment or adapting to industry changes.
Segment by Roles and Responsibilities: Create different sections for specific business roles (e.g., sales, operations, marketing).
Modular Design: Break the survey into concise modules, each addressing a specific task or responsibility.
Incorporate Strategic Decision-Making: Include scenarios that require respondents to prioritize resources or compare different business methods.
Cross-Departmental Challenges: Ensure the survey reflects the complexities of collaborating across teams or departments.
Build Confidence in Choices: Guide users through scenarios that help them validate and justify their decisions.
Emphasize Impact on Business Metrics: Measure how the respondent’s choices impact key business outcomes like revenue, time-to-market, or customer satisfaction.
Opportunities for Sharing: Design the survey so that results can be easily shared with team members to foster alignment.
Refinement through Reflection: Allow respondents to reflect on their decisions and offer opportunities to revise or adjust choices.
Top 10 Best Practices for Creating a B2B Game
Task-Focused Learning: Center the game around key business tasks such as resource management, process optimization, or customer service improvement.
Skill Verification: Ensure the game provides opportunities to verify skills, identify gaps, and earn certifications or recognition.
Real-Time Feedback: Provide immediate feedback on task performance, highlighting areas for improvement and skill development.
Modular Structure: Organize the game into stages, each focused on different levels of adoption, process depth, or scope of use.
Emphasize Efficiency: Design challenges that focus on reducing steps, saving time, and optimizing resources.
Incorporate Competitive Elements: Use leaderboards or badges to foster competition and motivate players to improve.
Reward Mastery and Certification: Offer rewards, such as certification, for completing tasks with high proficiency or mastering specific skills.
Interactive Tools and Resources: Provide respondents with tools or resources that they can combine or use to complete tasks more efficiently.
Drive Process Improvement: Ensure the game teaches skills that improve overall business processes, such as enhancing supply chain management or speeding up product development.
Link to Business Metrics: Ensure that the game measures how performance affects business outcomes, such as customer satisfaction, operational cost savings, or time-to-market.
