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How to market your mobile game in 2022
Marketing your game in 2022 requires some hustle,and for that you must have some strategies ready for your game can hit themarket. HyperPad allows you to build your own game without the need of anycoding, but here are some tips you can use to take your game to the next level.Once your game is submitted to the AppStore make sure to follow some of thesetips that can be applied not only in the gaming industry but in any otherbusiness you have.
When you are in the process of making your game andbrainstorming ideas there is some process behind that. Firstly, you come upwith a story plot. Then you add your characters and backgrounds. After that youcome up with scenarios and with a general idea with what kind of game you arebuilding. For instance, a puzzle game or a Mario-tyle game or maybe your owngame creation style!
Once you gather all the game design compound,think about who the users and the audience are and who you would like toattract to play your game. Your audience can be gathered according to theirage, nationality, gender, sex, jobs, and any kind of audience you can think.The more specific the better it can be for your marketing strategy. With that,you can adapt your story line to your targeted audience. For instance, if youare making a Pokémon Go game, your age target will be between 16-25 years sincethese age gap watched the show and play these games (Analysis of Pokémon GO: aSuccess Two Decades in Marketing, 2016).
Once you understand who your audience is, youcan then move on to the next phase of your marketing strategy, which is togrowth your channel with organic and paid advertising. In marketing the idealis to have a balance of both organic and paid advertising. Now let’s understandthese marketing terms:
- Organic channels: meaning all social media platforms and anything that requirescontent creation in different media outlets such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube. These contents can also be blog posts on websitesand any other social media outlets that let you post it for free. This isfundamental to help you to be found on Google Search and on any other socialplatforms that requires the use to keywords. These keywords are super importantas backlinks to your website, social media, and essentially to the purchase anddownload of your game.
- Paid Marketing: Also requires content creation for social media, but this is amore strategic one because it involves planning who your target audience is,how much money you are willing to spend, and which social media is the best foryour product for paid advertising. The is many strategies for this, but thebest way is by try and error, and this is something that changes every day wecan only give you some tips, but the algorithmic is constantly changing.Welcome to marketing 101! Try and error is how we learn, and most importantly,don’t’ forget to identify patterns and learn from it.
Correlate your game or your marketing strategy witha nostalgic message. Research has shown that nostalgiamarketing can affect consumer’s behaviour. There is also a rising trend ofnostalgia marketing, for example, we can use the game Pokemon GO as aninspiration. This game reached more than 10 million downloads with the power ofnostalgia. It was the fastest mobile game downloaded in a week (Molina, 2016). Also,in 2019 the game was downloaded more than a billion times (Thubron, 2019).
Another examplein the media industry is the TV show Stranger Things where the whole show plothas a nostalgic message. Thus, when making your game with a nostalgic message youcan also bring positive memories of childhood by letting people relive previousexperiences that shaped one’s identities and personalities (Eloranta, 2022). With that said, games nowadaysare directly correlated and influenced by media, and the most successful onesare the ones that bring this nostalgia warm feeling.
Thus, whenbuilding your game, think about building similar story plots that brings anostalgia effect, like Super Mario style or Zelda. Research shows that in thegaming industry customers spend more money on products that bring backchildhood memories (McCarthy, 2019). In addition, psychology proved that nostalgia can be aninfluence on customer’s decision to purchase a product (Eloranta, 2022). Itcreates a positive impact by bringing back good old memories. (Eloranta, 2022).Indeed, marketing your game with nostalgia is proven to be effective.
Marketing is not just throwing money and prayingfor the best, it also involves strategy, market research, and identifyingpatterns. If you want your game marketing to succeed do the following:
- Competitor Research:
There is a saying to keep your enemies close, solook at them and see what they are doing to succeed and adapt to your company’sneeds and audience. What you can do isto start typing keywords on Google Search to see what comes in and who are thecompanies that show in the search (your competitors). You can also use socialmedia to your advantage by also doing the same, keywords research on differentplatforms and see what kind of content shows and the businesses that are themost found online. Based on that, you can use this information to youradvantage.
- Identify Patterns:
With the information it shows, startsidentifying patters. Such as hashtags, content design, and anything you canalso use on your content. This is not about copying what others are doing butfinding strategies that are working and adapt to your game marketing campaignon a unique way. We need inspiration in everything in marketing and game designrequires that. Same goes with identifying what does not work, for instance socialmedia in the gaming industry has more attraction on YouTube, Twitter, andTikTok. However, it does not mean that you should not have other social medialike Instagram and Facebook, but choosing the right approach of which one ofthose you should spend more time and energy.
These are fundamental information to have whenplanning a new marketing campaign as it can facilitate the correct approach,specifically with paid advertising.
Research found that mobile advertising is themost personalised approach because each phone has a person, so that can lead toa positive or negative response from customers (Mittal et. al, 2022). That’s why once you identify your targeting audiencestrategies you can start to implement what kind of content is the best toattract your costumers to play and buy your game. Therefore, think about whatkind of content you should have on your organic channel and on your paidcampaign.
Also, when marketing your game, identifyingtrends and doing your research is key. Once you have that, come up with a planfor consistent content. Specifically with organic channel consistency is thekey, so post as much as you can, but focus on useful posts like tips,inspirational quotes, reels, and even memes. In the end of the day, it is a tryand error process, so see what works for your audience and the growth of yourgame.
However, if you are also planning to do paidadvertising, have a video with a call-to-action message. Video content short iswhat attract gamers and most audience nowadays as we live in a digital mediaworld, so make sure you create a video that is short and sweet. What I mean bythat is a video where you can show your product, be authentic about it, andconvey a message with a call to action. For instance, in the end of the videoyou can show a button where it says download today. Researchshows that advertised video should bring instant emotional engagement or itmight turn off the potential influencers and customers (Mittal et. al, 2022).
Whenbuilding your marketing campaign consider rewarding your customers, for examplewith giveaways, discounts, and anything that can be considered reward. Researchfound that this strategy can reduce costumer’s irritation and bring positiveresponse as well as viral marketing (Mittal et. al, 2022).
Rewards can alsobe gamified, meaning that on your game you can add a reward point when firstdownloading it for instance. It can also be done organically as well on socialmedia.
For instance, making a post on social media with a giveaway, like an iPhone ora headphone can be a great way to attract attention. After the giveaway,introducing the winner to the followers can also bring a lot of attention toyour social media.
Theseare the few steps to take when thinking about how to properly market your game.First, think of your audience by asking the who what where questions to get asspecific as possible. Then understanding concepts like paid and organicadvertising and how to properly run both campaigns. Once you understand thesekey terminologies and use consistency in both strategies you will have a greatadvantage on your campaign.
After that, usenostalgia marketing on your favour by creating either your game with a familiarplot or using a familiar message on your marketing campaign. Use Nintendo as anexample, the company was not doing well and they decided to sell retro consolesas a tentative to attract customers to buy the latest game system, NintendoSwitch (Abrams, 2019). The strategy could not had been better as they sold morethan 10 million retro units since relaunch (Abrams, 2019). Thus, studies showindeed that connecting product to the past is a great strategy as it can leadto customer’s attraction.
After that, weonce you have your nostalgic product and message you can focus on findingstrategies for your campaign, such as identifying pattens and analysingcompetitors. After that you can create a more tailored content that has abetter quality. Preferably visual content since in the gaming industry it ismore favourable videos. Lastly, don’t forget to add reward on your marketingcampaign as costumers love discounts and the psychological feeling of receivinggifts.
These are justsome tips of what research shows and general knowledge gathered to market yourgame. However, as I said, marketing is about trying and error, so your best betis to try as much strategies as possible and see what works for your game andyour audience and make the most authentic marketing campaign as possible.
Abrams, A. (2019, February 1). Nintendoand the magic of Nostalgia Marketing. FM Magazine. Retrieved September 23,2022, from https://www.fm-magazine.com/issues/2019/feb/nintendo-nostalgia-marketing.html
Eloanta, J. (2022). Marketing inthe Streaming and Gaming Industries: A Study of the Nostalgia MarketingStrategy and It’s Effectiveness. Metropolia. Retrieved from https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/749891/Eloranta_Joona.pdf?sequence=2
Mittal, S., & Kumar, V. (2022).A strategic framework for non-intrusive mobile marketing campaigns. InternationalJournal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 13(2), 190.https://doi.org/10.1504/ijemr.2022.121819
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