Bonafide Marketing Genius

How to Market Kimberleigh Roe Online

With over 100 million US downloads on Google Play alone, it’s no surprise that Rise of the Guardians is one of the most popular games of 2020. Developed by Gameloft, the game stars Marvel’s most famous guardians as they protect the Earth from alien invasion. The game’s plot seems pretty standard—the aliens want to destroy the planet—but the gameplay is anything but. You play as the Guardians of the Galaxy battling it out with rival factions, taking on challenges, and investigating planet-wide threats. You’ll need to make quick decisions, watch your back, and strategize to stay ahead.

If you’re looking to expand your reach to a global audience, you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to walk you through the steps to take to market your very own breakout game app.

Before you start, it’s important to realize that game marketing can be a lot more complex than usual marketing. Typically, app marketers focus on driving download numbers and gaining ratings in the App Store. While these are both incredibly important metrics to track, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. In order to succeed as a game publisher, you need to consider all of your marketing metrics, including but not limited to the following:

  • Player acquisition;
  • Player engagement; and
  • Player retention.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these critical metrics.

Player Acquisition

Getting players to download your game is only half the battle. The other half is getting them to keep coming back for more. To acquire new players, you’ll need to consider a variety of tactics, including but not limited to the following:

  • Traditional advertising (paid or organic);
  • Community building (e.g. social media);
  • Content marketing (e.g. blogs, websites, and newsletters); and
  • Product placement (e.g. Samsung, Google, and Apple).

While all of these tactics have benefits, paid advertising is typically the cheapest and most efficient way to gain new players. However, if your budget allows, you can invest in other marketing channels to maximize your impact.

If you’re looking to hire freelance designers or developers, now is a great time to do so. The game industry has never been more attractive, and with new games launching on a monthly basis, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get your game into the hands of potential audiences.

Player Engagement

Another critical component of any game is its engagement metrics. You’ll need to consider how players are interacting with your game, including but not limited to the following:

  • Lift: the rate at which users are pressing the buttons in your game;
  • Time Spent Playing: how much time do users spend playing your game;
  • Average Session Duration: how long do users spend playing your game on average; and
  • Tries: how many times have users failed before completing a task or accessing a feature in your game.

Along with acquisition, the engagement metrics above are important pieces of your puzzle. The more you know about what’s engaging your users, the better you’ll be able to create additional content, campaigns, and offers to keep them coming back for more.

Player Retention

Last but not least, we have player retention. You’ll need to consider how users are interacting with your game, and whether or not they’re coming back for more after they’ve played once. User retention encompasses a variety of metrics, including but not limited to the following:

  • Install Retention: the percentage of users that have installed your game at least once but haven’t opened it since installation;
  • Daily Active Users: the percentage of users that opened your game at least once a day;
  • Weekly Active Users: the percentage of users that opened your game at least once a week; and
  • Monthly Active Users: the percentage of users that opened your game at least once a month.

This last metric is also vital because it provides you with an idea of how effective your overall marketing strategy is. If you see that only 10% of your users are regularly active, you’ll want to discover why this is the case.

With the above metrics in mind, you can begin to determine how you’ll go about marketing your game. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to invest primarily in user acquisition, and to a lesser extent, in player engagement and retention.

To this end, you may decide to undertake the following:

  • Cross-platform (mobile and desktop) testing;
  • User-centered design; and
  • Segmentation research.

Let’s have a look at each of these in detail.

Cross-platform Testing

As the name would suggest, cross-platform testing measures the performance of your game across different platforms. In other words, you want to ensure that your game works well on mobile as well as desktop, or Mac as well as Windows. Testing on different platforms can also uncover issues that would otherwise go undiscovered.

If you’ve ever tried to run a business while also being a sole parent, you’ll know how hard it is to find the time to do everything needed to keep your business afloat. Being physically present on all of your platforms is unavoidable, but you can use tools like UserTesting.com to make sure that everything is running smoothly on all of your accounts, from mobile to tablet to desktop. You can sign up for free, and within minutes, you’ll be given a task that will require your input. If you’re happy for us to perform this task on your behalf, simply click the button below to get started.

User-centered Design

As the name would suggest, user-centered design focuses on making the user the center of the development process. This entails not only considering what the users want, but also how they want it. Designing for user experience (UX) is an important piece of the game development process, and one that game programmers shy away from for fear of being labeled as ‘designers.’

However, good UX design is just as important for games as it is for any other app or website. This entails not only making sure that everything is easy to use and to find, but that the layout and design are also appropriate for the type of content that you’re displaying.

It’s important to note that the above two metrics—user acquisition and UX design—are highly related, and when applied together, you’ll get close to a perfect 10 in terms of marketing ROI. This is because user acquisition usually entails some level of UX design. For example, you may want users to easily find and use your app’s features, so you’d implement some level of UX design in order to make the app usable. As a general rule of thumb, you can say that user acquisition and UX design are two sides of the same coin. And both are important sides that you need to consider.

Let’s take a look at how we can apply the above two metrics to a real-life example.

Example – Netflix

If you’ve ever used Netflix, you’ll know that the app not only offers a great experience for viewers, but the content is also perfectly suited for different platforms, including but not limited to the following:

  • Mobile devices;
  • Tablets;
  • Steam Machines (especially the small form factor); and
  • VR (virtual reality) headsets (e.g. Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard).

The above is a small fraction of the platforms that Netflix supports. This is because Netflix understands that games and video content can be enjoyed on any of the above devices, and they make sure that their content is optimized for maximum viewing pleasure.

This is exactly the type of user experience that you should be aiming for. When users reach for their smartphones to watch a video, it’s usually because the content is easy to access and entertaining. In other words, they have a good UX experience.

If you’re looking to hire freelance designers or developers, now is a great time to do so. The game industry has never been more attractive, and with new games launching on a monthly basis, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get your game into the hands of potential audiences.