Data Storytelling: What It Is and Why Your Game Marketing Needs It

With 2.5 quintillion bytes of data being generated on a daily basis, information is the cornerstone of success for businesses. From Netflix, General Electric, and Capital One to American Express, Amazon, Starbucks, and T-Mobile, brands from all industries are leveraging big data to escalate their businesses to new thresholds and capture a bigger market share. 

Understanding how to use big data to make business decisions and help stakeholders to articulate this information better is key to making your big data marketing strategy work for your game. So, what do you have to do? Use data storytelling!

What is data storytelling?

Data storytelling is the process of building a narrative around datasets and using data visualization to convey its meaning in a powerful and compelling way. This method of storytelling is great at influencing decisions and actions, and perfect to help you illustrate why your video game is so good.

Data analytics and marketing are two of the most sought after essential skills in many of today’s businesses, and without it you’re missing out on important insights. Gone are the days when brands would make decisions based on intuition. If an organization is not equipped with data science and unable to present impressive insights to consumers, it is bound to fail eventually. 

From helping your customers retain information and increasing their engagement to persuading them to make purchase decisions, data storytelling is an instrumental tool to help increase your business growth amidst fierce competition you encounter in the gaming industry. 

Why telling stories is important for your business

Humans are wired for stories, and this is why storytelling is one of the best tools to draw your audience’s attention. Whether you want to see how people respond to your business or feel like showcasing content that intrigues your audience, storytelling is an excellent option. And it goes without saying that video games are all about telling a story!

With data piling up on businesses all over the world, the need for marketers and business owners to extrapolate information from these large datasets is ever increasing. Businesses today are faced with fierce competition and are at risk of losing prospects to their competitors. To acquire and retain players, you will need to distinguish yourself from the market and use data to show them why your game is the number one pick. 

Through data storytelling you can analyze your internal data and your competitors as well to gain a holistic view of your products and services from the market standpoint. In addition, it allows you to gain insights into the pain points of your customers. This valuable insider information will aid you to offer better services to your customers and differentiate you from competitors. 

A business doesn’t become a brand without being emotionally appealing to potential customers. Data storytelling helps you map out insights with a compelling narrative that will help you establish an emotional connection with your audience. It helps you get the best of both worlds, to increase conversions, customer retention, and customer loyalty as well. 

How data is used to communicate effectively

Creating valuable copy

Most industries are heavily content driven, and the gaming industry is even more so. To provide unique content and stand out to your audience, you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Data helps you set yourself apart. 

With data insights, you can accurately find out what your audience is interested in and how to get it to them. By doing so, you can cut down on the noise, garner attention from your target market and establish your business as a thought leader. 

From identifying the types of content that will have the biggest impact on your audience including blog titles, content categorization and scheduling publications to analyzing your competitors strategies and identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), data helps you shed light on what’s important to your audience. With unique data at your fingertips, you can craft compelling content that is exclusive to your customers' needs and the gaming industry easily. 

Providing insights with clean, clear visuals

Data, when presented with clear visuals, makes it interesting for your audience, stakeholders, and marketers to understand the information you have to share. Again, video gaming is a primarily visual industry, so it shouldn't be difficult for you to transform your information into beautiful infographics, GIFs and videos to engage your audience.

Whether you want to showcase to your stakeholders the logistics scenario during the holiday season, the growth of breweries in your country, or the rise of video gaming content among diverse audiences, data storytelling and visual media can help you nail information presentation with finesse. 

A combination of the two is even better

Even if you have content that educates your customers and infographics that lock in your audiences, presenting data using just one of these two techniques might still turn audiences away. By combining infographics and content into one valuable package, you can present your narrative more effectively, helping prospects see the connection between your information and why it's important.

Why? Because the narrative supports the data in infographics, and the infographic supports the narrative. With this combination, you can appeal to your audience, help them process information faster, and assist them in retaining it for longer periods of time.

Positions you as an authority in your industry

Every industry is looking for leaders that are changing its course by using disruptive methods that provide real value. If you want to establish your video game as an industry leader, data storytelling can help you overtake your competitors. 

Here are a few ways in which you can leverage data storytelling to position yourself as an authority in your industry:

• Publish valuable content at zero cost frequently
• Be vocal about your content by speaking up at conferences, events, trade shows, and more
• Expose unexplored information to the audiences to capture their attention through data storytelling
• Share insightful information on the right platforms
• Creating content around specific topics like your customer data, survey data, and answering your audience's questions will elevate your stand compared to your competitors in the industry

Where to implement data storytelling for your business

Social media

With more than 3.6 billion people using social media in 2020 and the total users on different social platforms slated to hit an incredible 4.4 billion by 2025, these virtual spaces are one of the best places to implement data storytelling and to undertake game marketing. You can post infographics and GIFs, or share links to other content sources with the click of a button! Your audience is already thriving here, chatting about the things they love. So, why not get them talking about your game too? 

Blogging

Yet another excellent platform to implement data storytelling on is your company blog. Blogs are one of the most prominent go-to strategies for businesses to promote their content and drive their website traffic. Over 80 percent of businesses claim that blogging is an inexpensive method that helps them increase customer acquisition. Leverage your own blog space to put forth your best content and provide value to your potential customers. 

Paid ads

While organic content helps you improve your branding, SEO and awareness, it can take a long time to pay off. However, paid advertising makes it easy for you to reach your customers quickly and gives guaranteed results when done right. Ads on social media and search engines are now very affordable, meaning that it is now easier than ever to capture qualified leads. 

With 96 percent of brands investing heavily in Google Ads, you need to make your ads stand out when compared to your competitors’. If you find this process overwhelming but want your game to reap the best results from paid advertising campaigns, reaching out to an accomplished video game marketing agency will help your efforts pay off. 

Landing pages

While the average conversion rate that industries gain from using landing pages in their marketing strategy is 9.7 percent, a good conversion rate crosses the threshold of 10 percent. For this reason, you need to invest your time to carefully consider what elements to incorporate in your landing pages to improve your conversions. 

Proper landing page use has a range of benefits including 

• Helping you promote your video game
• Building brand credibility
• Increasing website traffic 
• Generating leads
• Increasing conversions
• Leaving a good first impression on your prospects

Incorporating data storytelling in your landing page content strategy will help you get the best return.  

Web pages

It takes a mere 50 milliseconds for people to make an opinion about your website. This means that you have only 0.05 seconds to either make or break with your first impression on your potential customers. Sometimes, they will make this decision if you site loads too slowly. You don't want them to bounce before they've even had a look!

Improving your website in terms of performance, visuals, navigation, data storytelling, and including compelling CTAs are just a few of the many different ways to captivate your audience. With most of the world's population using mobile devices to reach out to businesses, you also need to ensure that you optimize your website for smartphones and tablets to help you be more mobile friendly and rank better in search engine results. 

Start tracking like a pro

If game marketing wasn’t hard enough, add analytics into the fray! This is a crucial part of your campaign, and something you’ll need to master if you want to get results. But it’s dangerous to go alone! Take this: The Game Dev's Complete Guide to Game Marketing Analytics.

Creating incredible stories with data insights will help you gain the traffic you’re longing for. Making data storytelling a part of your marketing strategy will help you yield incredible results for your business, but it requires relevant skills and expertise. 

Game Marketing Genie understands your needs, your audience, and the gaming industry. We can help you create a winning video game marketing strategy and accelerate your business growth substantially. Talk to our team of game-loving experts today!

Don't wait for your game to disappear into the sea of unplayed games. Let's chat soon about how to help it succeed on its quest!