Inspiration
It all started a while back, when my sister and my mom were talking about how obsessed they were with playing “Solitaire” on their phones. They said, “we have to play every day to beat the daily challenge.”
“What do you get when you win the daily challenge?” I asked. Both replied, “points.” I then asked, “What do the points do?” They were stumped. My mom and sister have been playing this game every day for years to accrue points, of which, do nothing.
Gamifying the Blink App
I find human behavior to be such a magnificent, complex set of decisions and nudges, but in reality, it’s much more simpler than we’d like to believe. At its core, my sister and mom are playing for points. Digging deeper, we have both extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors, alongside metrics such as motivation, level of effort, and perceived value. If only one of them was playing the game, the points are moot without having a reference point to compare it to (the other player). I looked at this and wondered, where can I draw similarities from a simple gaming app (with its intended purpose to have users engaged and look at ads) to the Blink App, where engagement is our main driver?
The Blink App has over 500 instructor-led classes and guided workouts that amplify our in- and out-of-gym experience. As the product manager, I want to create that stickiness that drives members back to the app. With limited resources the roadmap looked daunting, but we managed to make it the other end about 6 months after, with even more gamification possibilities to come.
Workout Tracking
I designed the “workout tracking” feature, which at its core basically gave the member a count of all the workouts the member has completed (or 75% of the workout). Once you completed a workout, a small popup would appear at the bottom of the screen telling you the workout was logged, and linked to the corresponding page. Previously, a member wouldn’t even know how many workouts they’ve completed or which ones they’ve done.
Achievements
The “workout tracking” feature was really step one in creating a foundation for what I called “achievements.” I came to stakeholders with this idea, to create the stickiness around the app and build word of mouth, that members would be able to share their achievements on Instagram. Although I didn’t limit it to just app workouts--I also created achievements for personal training sessions and in-gym check-ins. This opens an area for opportunity within the Blink business and memberbase to build revenue streams off continued engagement with multiple pillars.
Measuring Success
I’ll be honest, Blink’s core business is centered around acquisition, and as a startup, we’re still finding our way in terms of measuring engagement against attrition. However, I do track daily app usage and features within the platform. I monitor conversion rate from when a member sees that they’ve earned a badge and click on “share on instagram,” which is around ~10%, which is really good for almost no marketing on the feature, just yet. The goal is to really drive engagement, and increase our returning users to the app and its content. I’ll update this page with goals as I work with marketing to promote the feature and measure its success.