Profitable Game Marketing Campaigns: 6 More Things You Need To Have

Data from Statista shows that the video game industry has generated more than $175 billion in revenue in 2021, up from $78.61 billion in 2017. The number of game downloads has also increased during this period, with statistics from TechCrunch showing that mobile games will account for 41 percent of new installs by 2024.

This is great news for game developers as it means there’s a huge market for your video game and lots of revenues to earn when you finally launch your game. But, it also means you face increased competition to get your game to players.

This article shares the best video game marketing strategies you should deploy to increase downloads and game revenue.

1. A killer launch or relaunch

This is the make or break for many games. With thousands of games getting launched every day, you need a proper indie game marketing plan to ensure your game stands out among all the noise.

To make your game’s launch or relaunch successful, you need to start preparing early to ensure you have everything in place to connect with fans properly. Don't leave it to the last moment as this could see you miss out on essential activities that are crucial to the launch.

One of the key activities you should do before launching your game is to get your community together. These are the people who will play your game once it's available, and you need to carefully research your audience to see who will enjoy playing your game. Connect with players in gaming communities and tell them about what you’re working on to create hype for the launch.

Don’t forget to partner with the right influencers to promote your game at launch. With their established connections and understanding of the video game niche, influencers are a valuable asset in giving you the necessary exposure and getting people excited about your upcoming game

Getting press coverage is another tactic that will help you build hype for your game at launch. Getting featured in the top gaming publications will help you connect with passionate gamers who subscribe to the publications for the latest news.

We have covered more things you need to do to make your launch successful in our blog, 6 Strategies to Build Hype for Your Upcoming Launch.

2. Good creatives

You cannot run a successful game marketing campaign without good creatives. Eye-catching creatives make your game appealing to gamers and encourage downloads. Once the creatives are ready, you will publish them on your website and social media to promote your game to the masses.

To get started with creatives, you should make a kick-ass trailer to promote your game. The trailer should tell your game’s story and give players a glimpse of the characters and setting of your game. Ensure the trailer is unique since players have seen thousands of them, and you want your trailer to get them excited about your game.

Also, make a promo video that covers the basic functionalities of your game. Most developers create promo videos that are longer than their game trailers and publish them on their app store pages to sell video games.

Lastly, make sure to create screenshots that will help you catch players' attention when they land on your app store page. The screenshots should be high-quality and showcase the best parts of your game for them to be effective.

Check out our blog, How to Make Your iOS App Store Screenshots Convert, to learn how to create attention-grabbing screenshots for mobile game marketing.

3. A gaming community-building strategy

All the high-performing games of our time gained massive popularity because of their supportive communities. Any developer looking to emulate their success should band together their passionate fans into an online community where they get to hang out and talk about the latest updates.

Create a community for your game and invite your fans for a hangout. Engage the players by sharing the game development updates and the creative content you've been working on. When you're open and sincere in your communication with the players who have shown an interest in your video game, you build a core group of fans who spread the word about your latest creation. By doing this, you make people feel like they are a part of your brand. This inspires them to take over your video game marketing efforts and tell everyone about the game.

When talking about your game in the community, make sure to highlight what makes it unique from all the games out there. Address everyone who writes to you individually to show them that you care.

4. Gaming industry outreach platforms

Data from Statista projects that the number of social media users globally will reach 4.41 billion by 2025. With such a huge portion of the global population using social media, there’s absolutely no way your target users don’t fall into this category. This means that you’re missing out on the biggest opportunity to acquire players for your game if you’re not on social media.

Getting on the usual social media platforms is a must-do, but you also need to use gaming-specific platforms like Twitch, Discord, YouTube Gaming, and gaming forums on Reddit. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will help you reach many people with your brand messaging, but it's in these gaming-specific channels where you get to hang out with passionate gamers and tell them about your work.

Most of these platforms support live streaming, thus helping you showcase your game to interested users. You can collect feedback from players as you stream your game, offer incentives to players, and even collaborate with gaming influencers to reach a wider audience.

Our blog, 10 Social Media Platforms Your Gaming Studio Should Consider, shares the best social channels for your brand.

5. Metrics and data

Don’t deploy various game marketing strategies without a plan for measuring success. You wouldn’t want to continue with underperforming campaigns, and that’s why you should track your marketing efforts to see how they perform over time. Another reason to track your marketing efforts is that underwhelming campaigns consume marketing funds without bringing the desired outcome. As a result, they should be discontinued immediately to prevent any further loss of funds.

Some of the metrics that you should tracking when running campaigns are impressions, page views, click-through rate, leads, and the lead conversion rate. However, some of these metrics don't matter for your business, and you need to carefully access your campaign to determine the ones that matter.

The metrics you're tracking should be tied to your brand goals. For example, if your goal was to improve brand awareness, impressions and page views are some of the metrics you need to track. But if you want to boost your revenue, you will be interested in knowing how many leads you've converted and the cost per lead.

Work with a mobile game marketing agency to identify the right metrics to track for your campaign.

6. The right marketing team

Marketing a video game isn't a one-person job. No matter how passionate you are about your game, you cannot do it alone and successfully go to market. You need to do a lot of things to take your game to market, and you'll be overwhelmed if you have to do everything by yourself.

For this reason, you should work with video game marketing companies to come up with the right strategies to promote your game in the competitive gaming industry. Large gaming brands with dedicated marketing departments can choose to run their marketing in-house, but small studios don't have this luxury. It's costly to put together an in-house marketing team, but working with a gaming marketing agency allows you to run a profitable game marketing campaign while keeping your costs low.

The agencies also understand the best strategies to use to take your game forward, thus saving you a lot of time and effort deliberating on the best tactics to beat the competition and attract players. Their understanding of analytics allows them to accurately measure campaign performance to know which programs to stop, and which to duplicate.

Learn more about video gaming marketing agencies in How To Choose the Right Video Game Marketing Agency.

The ultimate guide to game marketing

Wanna know more? We've got all the best game marketing tips in The Ultimate Guide to Game Marketing: Everything You Need to Know.

The gaming industry is growing rapidly, and you risk getting crowded out without proper marketing. You've spent a lot of time and effort creating the perfect game, but you need to do more to attract users. The strategies we’ve mentioned will help you run a profitable game marketing campaign and grow your revenue.

Need help from the experts? The team at Game Marketing Genie can help you on your quest and implement the best strategies to help you achieve your goals faster.

Contact us for the best strategies to market your game.

And if you haven't already, check out the first part of this series here: The 6 Fundamentals to Running a Profitable Game Marketing Campaign.