My Game Marketing Log

Digital Marketing In the Game Industry 

Digital Marketing is what puts a face to the company, it can maintain good relationships with customers that will help to enhance reputation. The better the marketing then products will practically sell themselves. Marketing makes businesses grow and expand it is of the upmost importance that your brand is consistently represented to the highest standard possible in order to make sales and stand out from the competition. One of the most important things to remember when it comes to marketing is to know your audience. Once you have identified who is likely to play your and how you can sell them on it your marketing strategy will be one step closer to success. It is always a good idea to take into considerations games that are similar to yours. Think about the kind of people that will play them, what complaints did they have about those other games and how can you improve upon them. How can these people be reached and what types of things do they like must be taken into consideration when planning your marketing strategy? To this day social media still remains an important part of marketing. Almost all companies use at least one social media platform to promote their business. Social media can be vital for building valuable connections and gathering a larger following gaining more customers and clients as a result. Your studio or company or will be given a voice that will make advertising all the more easier.  (Wakefield 2019)

When you start a project any project at all it is always essential to think about what you are trying to accomplish this is called setting marketing objectives. Marketing objectives can best be described as clearly defined goals that guide the effort of the project that you are striving to create. When trying to decide on the right marketing objective there are 2 rules to take into consideration. The first one is that less is more, the fewer objectives your marketing campaign the more effective it can be. The second is that both long- and short-term goals are both important cause it not only helps with building a brand gaining profit from any resent products. Great examples of marketing objectives include increasing brand awareness, the more people know about your product the more likely it can make good sales there for increasing awareness is a good goal to your marketing guide, for this objective in particular can be measured in the number of impressions made by your product.(Pecánek, 2020) Retain current customers, once you have found an audience to sell your brand to it is important to maintain that audience as much as possible. Loyal customers are key for your products in order to keep that loyalty you must invest in them. Many would argue this is just as important if not more important that getting new customers. Probably the most common marketing objective is increasing sales, there are many different methods of doing so. The two most common methods are increasing conversation rates or increasing transition options.  (Boada, N, 2020)

When selling a product, it is important to know who it is that you are selling it to. Knowing your target audience and how to reach them is one of the most important parts of digital marketing. In order to reach out to them you must know who they are, what their interests are, where they hang out and which social media they use. The definition of a target audience can refer to people or prospects that will have a particular interest in the product that you are selling, they will more often than not share characteristics like age gender and profession. But they will also fit into different groups that don’t belong in the same category. This is why it is important to analysis your audience, the most crucial part of analyzing any intended target crowd is creating a target persona. As part of my own game project, I have created three target personas of my own each one varies from being experienced gamers to having very little exposure to games. This is important because it will help expand the project to a wider variety of people and introduce the concept of gaming to new people. (Dario 2017)

Probably One of the most important parts of core marketing strategies is websites especially in this day and age. As websites the most notable places where people go to seek out information this makes them a vital place to advertise products. I will go over 3 important web marketing techniques. The first is AIDA which represents four basic marketing terms Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. This particular technique explains how advertising and marketing can communicate and involve customers within a brand. In order to do this advertising messages, need to accomplish a number of tasks that move customers through a series of steps that that will get them interested in a product. (Connick, W, 2019) The 2^nd techniques is content marketing. This marketing approach focuses on the creation and distribution of relevant to help bring in a wide and clearly defined audience. Content Marketing is highly popular technique used by many marketers and prominent organizations across the world. Benefits to content marketing include increase sales, cost savings and customer loyalty. (Content Marketing Institute 2021) The Final technique is display media advertising, this is the method of attracting an audience from a particular web site or social media platform. They do this by using text based, image or video advertisement to get peoples attention. This will encourage the user to click on them and take a certain kind of action like making a purchase. (Whatley, T 2019)

Marketing by means email is one of the best ways to keep your fans up to date. While not necessarily the best way for gathering new fans, keeping your current updated on current products is a sure way to maintain them. An important method of email marketing is subject line writing. Any email is worthless if it is never opened, Subject lines are what draw readers in. There for it is never a good idea to leave the subject line to chance. There are many different styles in which subject lines can be written in these include informal, personal, and urgent. (How to Be an Email Subject Line Superhero 2019). It is not simply enough to send a good email the timing of said email must be spot on. Research shows that most people check their emails regularly from the start of the week. Therefor the best time to send emails is during work hours between 9-5 this is suggested to be the highest opening rate. (How to Be an Email Subject Line Superhero 2019)

Mobile Marketing has a very simple definition it refers any type of marketing that is done by means of a mobile phone, whether it be web pages, app displays or push notifications. Probably the most common method of this kind of marketing is text advertisement. Much like the name suggests this method involves sharing promotions via text messages. There are many benefits to text marketing, it is estimated that sales prospects that use text messages have 40% higher conversion rate than those who do not use text messages. It is also suggested that a huge minority of people prefer text messaging than face to face communication. (SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services) Push notifications are another popular method. If you create an app and are trying to get users interested push notifications are the way to go. When incorporating a push notification strategy make sure you incorporate at least one of the following. Value to the user, visual interest and personalizing the notification. (MarTech. (2018).

To say that social media marketing is a massive part of any marketing campaign. All kinds of social media platforms can be used in many different ways as a form for marketing different content, these include engaging with customers, raising profile’s, and providing information on customer information. Choosing the right social media platform is one of the most important techniques. As a digital marketer it is important to know how you can understand user behavior on social media this is where media demographics come in. These are varying audiences that regularly use specific platforms. Any marketer who understands these demographics will be able to cultivate social media strategies for marketing. (DMI, S. (2018) Using hashtags has always been a huge advantage when it comes to advertising on social media. They are a great way of labeling social media content thus making them easier to discover. They also allow media user to locate content that relates their own personal interests. Hashtags often propel to reach more people thus they will be discovered by users across the world. (Jimit Bagadiya (2017) One last technique is viral marketing. Viral marketing helps to generates interest in brands or products by quickly spreading messages through out different people. The process is a fast way of spreading news and products and they make sharing all the more easier. However, it is important to remember that this type of campaign often fall into the hands of the users and therefor can sometimes be misinterpreted. (Fraile, A. (2022).

A greatly popular and effective form of marketing within the gaming industry is affiliate marketing. This can take the form lets play’s, reviews, and live streams. It normally revolves around getting other people to advertise your products. One of the best examples of this kind of marketing would a use of You Tube, part of affiliate marketing is to find marketers that will be able to advertise your products you tubers could be one such example. They would be able to help your game get more recognition by reviews or perhaps doing lets plays of the game itself in order to get more people interested. Assuming that your product is of good quality and you have selected the right partners you can gather a wide audience. (Patel, N. (2015)

 References

Wakefield, B. (2019). The Indie Guide To Marketing. [online] GamesIndustry.biz. Available at: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-04-25-the-indie-guide-to-marketing [Accessed 2022].

Pecánek, M. (2020). Marketing Objectives: How to Set Them Right (with Examples). [online] SEO Blog by Ahrefs. Available at: https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketing-objectives/#:~:text=We%E2%80%99ll%20go%20throu... [Accessed 10 Feb. 2022].

Boada, N. (2022). 10 Examples of Marketing Objectives. [online] www.cyberclick.net. Available at: https://www.cyberclick.net/numericalblogen/marketing-objectives-definition-10-ex... [Accessed 16 Feb. 2022].

Dario (2017). A Complete Guide To Target Audience Analysis For Content Marketers. [online] We Build Links You’ll Be Proud Of - Point Visible. Available at: https://www.pointvisible.com/blog/complete-guide-target-audience-analysis-conten... [Accessed 26 Feb. 2022].

Connick, W. (2019). What AIDA Means in Sales. [online] The Balance Careers. Available at: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-aida-2917366 [Accessed 02 Mar. 2022].

Content Marketing Institute (2021). What is Content Marketing? [online] Content Marketing Institute. Available at: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/ [Accessed 2 Mar. 2022].

Whatley, T. (2019). What Are Display Ads? The Complete Guide. [online] Acquisio Blog. Available at: https://www.acquisio.com/blog/agency/what-are-display-ads-5-steps-to-effective-v... [Accessed 2 Mar. 2022]..

SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free. (2018). Text Message Advertising - Tips & Successful Advertising Strategies. [online] Available at: https://simpletexting.com/text-message-advertising/.   [16^th of March 2022]

MarTech. (2018). How to maximize value from push notifications. [online] Available at: https://martech.org/how-to-maximize-value-from-push-notifications/ [Accessed 16 Mar. 2022].

DMI, S. (2018). social-media-demographics-guide-for-digital-marketers. [online] Digital Marketing Institute. Available at: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/social-media-demographics-guide-for-digital-marketers.

Jimit Bagadiya (2017). How To Use Hashtags Effectively In Social Media Marketing? [online] Socialpilot.co. Available at: https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/how-to-use-hashtags-effectively-in-social-media-marketing.

Fraile, A. (2022). What Is Viral Marketing? Examples and Advantages. [online] www.cyberclick.net. Available at: https://www.cyberclick.net/numericalblogen/what-is-viral-marketing-advantages-and-examples.

Patel, N. (2015). Affiliate Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide. [online] Neil Patel. Available at: https://neilpatel.com/what-is-affiliate-marketing/.

Campaign Monitor. (1BC). How to Be an Email Subject Line Superhero: Best Practices Guide (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/email-subject-lines-superhero/ [Accessed 26 Apr. 2022].

Campaign Monitor. (1BC). How to Be an Email Subject Line Superhero: Best Practices Guide (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/email-subject-lines-superhero/ [Accessed 26 Apr. 2022].