Marketers are beginning to tap into the lucrative mobile gaming space in an effort to reach consumers. Thanks to the uptick in smartphone usage, it’s estimated that mobile ads will pull in billions in revenue each year. But in such a competitive market, you’ll need a unique strategy.
How to Market Your Mobile Game Effectively
Marketing your mobile game by yourself can take a lot of time, money, and expertise. If you need some help adopting our tips, consider hiring a marketing agency like Upptic, which specializes in growth marketing for Web3 and mobile games.
1. Understand Your Audience (News - Alert) Before Pre-Launch
You may think that marketing to a general audience is the best way to sell your game, but it’s actually one of the worst. By identifying your target audience, you’ll get the results you want without wasting time or money. To research your target users, look at your direct competitors.
Once you understand who your customers are and why, you can set a release date for your game and start crafting your pre-launch marketing materials, like a landing page and email list.
2. Design a Landing Page and Email Funnel
When it comes to advertising, you should never wait until your product is launched. Start utilizing your current social media following to drum up publicity. You’ll need to use other marketing techniques, like content marketing and SEO, to bring in organic traffic from day one.
From there, you can direct your followers to your landing page. Place links and email form pop-ups that direct them to your pre-launch funnel. These emails can be used to inform your list about game updates, exclusive discounts, behind-the-scenes material, and the release date.
3. Optimize Organic Marketing Channels First
Ads are effective in the mobile gaming space, but you’ll still want to build your organic reach in the background. SEO factors, like keyword use, backlinking, and UX-focused design, won’t cause your website to rank right away, but once it does, it’ll continue to rank without paid ads.
Don’t forget to concentrate on app store optimization. An engaging app store listing has to include relevant icons, titles, keywords and descriptions and screenshots, and game footage.
4. Content Marketing and Social Media Platforms
Content marketing is the most effective way to bring new and loyal customers back to your site. Your content marketing strategy can include blog posts, instructional videos, a podcast, ebooks, webinars, and more. If your content is valuable and consistent, you’ll attract a broader audience.
However, it’s difficult to market to your target audience if you’re using the wrong platform. You also don’t want to spread yourself too thin, so don’t take a shotgun approach. Instead, find the sites your users prefer to spend their time and hire influencers that can pitch to your audience.
5. Favor Contextual Ads Over General Placement
While it can be challenging to target your audience before they play your game, it’s much easier to sell something similar to said audience once you have their attention. If you're creating an RPG, you know your users like that genre, so place an ad inside another RPG mobile game.
Youtube is a great place to market your mobile games, as most of its users already watch videos from their smartphones. Plus, there are plenty of gaming channels to choose from.
6. Focus on Video, Playable, and Reward Video Ads
If a customer plays one mobile game, there’s a high chance that they’ll play another. For this reason, video, playable, and reward video ads make sense. Playable ads are ranked as the most effective ad format, but video ads can work well depending on the nature of your game.
Reward ads can be even more effective than playable ads alone because the consumer is choosing to take part. Plus, they have to watch the ad for a certain amount of time to get the reward. This makes it more likely that they’ll engage with the ad instead of zoning out.
7. Measure, Test, and Pay Attention to Your Analytics
Your initial marketing strategy may not work as expected, and that’s okay. If you were using software to track your marketing projects and their relevant metrics, you can use your missteps as a learning experience. However, you’ll need to select and pay attention to the right KPIs.
If you need help getting started, track your game’s conversion rate, retention rate, average revenue per user, customer acquisition cost, lifetime user value, and return on ad spending.
