Video games have been around for a few decades now, and the technology has just gotten better. Gaming has been continuously evolving from Nintendo Switch games 2018, developers have been producing games with exciting storylines and high definition graphics, making them all more enjoyable. It is estimated that in 2018, there are around 2.2 billion gamers worldwide. That’s about a third of the world population!
We also have more gaming devices than ever before. Aside from personal computers, gamers can now play games on gaming consoles and smartphones. Mobile gaming is enjoying a growth in the gaming market revenue at 54%, followed by console games at 25%, and PC games at 24%.
The video game industry is so large that almost anyone from any age group is playing a game. This makes it a vast marketing audience if you play your cards right. Today, we’ll be showing you some video game marketing strategies that you could use for your business.
What is Video Game Marketing?
Video game marketing isn’t entirely a new concept. Companies have already used various strategies to market their products using a game or within a game. Back in the 90s and the early 2000s, companies like Chex Mix and Burger King made use of branded games to promote their product. This strategy proved to be effective because, aside from making these games enjoyable, they were able to market their product inside the games.
However, you don’t have to create your branded games to market your products further. Nowadays, there are a lot of strategies that you could use to sell your product within a game or has a connection to it. As video games evolve, so does the variety of video game marketing strategies. Here are some tested and proven strategies you could try out:
Video and Audio Streaming Platforms
Gaming has become so massive that games also have a lot following on any media. Because unlike before, gamers don’t only play video games. They also check in with others in the gaming community to talk about the game. Whether it’s about game walkthroughs or streaming of a tournament, gamers have their eyes and ears on these things.
Twitch
The Amazon-owned Twitch is a popular live streaming service for gamers. Twitch offers a lot of gaming content such as broadcasts of eSports tournaments, gamer’s channels, and gaming channels. The streaming site streams non-gaming content as well. It is estimated that it has about 35 million unique visitors a month.
As of June 2018, the most popular games streamed on Twitch are LoL Pro, Fortnite, Hearthstone, Dota 2, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Overwatch, and CounterStrike: Global Offensive. These games have a combined total of 365 million hours watched on the streaming service.
One of the successful cases in Twitch marketing was used by fast-food chain Wendy’s. In one of the Fortnite’s storyline, players had a quest to hunt cattle and transport beef to freezers located in nearby restaurants. When completed, gamers were rewarded with coins.
When Wendy’s got word of the quest, they designed an avatar that looked like Wendy to play the online game. The company then launched a Twitch stream where their avatar began to break into restaurants to destroy the freezers. During this stream, Wendy’s enjoyed a lot of social media mentions and 1.52 million minutes of streaming from 250,000 viewers.
Aside from these, Wendy’s fans also interacted with the avatar and stream, leading other players to smash freezers as well. This also gained a lot of social media mentions and engagement on the feed thread. Try this strategy out by starting with a Fortnite download and setting up a Twitch stream.
YouTube
YouTube also has a dedicated off-shoot for gamers called YouTube Gaming, which is said to be designed to compete with Twitch. With so much content on YouTube, it is quite challenging to narrow down the live streams or game walkthroughs with the keywords that you’re using. Google has made it easier with YouTube Gaming so that you only search through the gaming content.
While it might seem that YouTube Gaming is a copy of Twitch, it has some features that you can’t find on Twitch. Aside from the on-demand gaming video content, YouTube also allows for rewinds on their live streams. If you missed the live stream, you could find a recording of it on YouTube Gaming at a later time.
Whether it’s a banner on the page or a short video during the stream, YouTube is an excellent place for getting your ads out there. You can even put them on non-gaming streams too.
Podcasts
Especially if you’re on the go, there’s a good chance that you’re glued to your earphones. Gamers also subscribe to some gaming podcasts on platforms like Apple Music or Spotify to get the latest about video games.
While it might seem that it’s not as enjoyable as watching streams on a screen, podcasts could get the word about your product out there. Companies sponsor episodes of these podcasts and get mentioned during the episode.
Gamer Sponsorships
In recent years, striking deals with influencers has become a widespread strategy for marketing products. These influencers are so popular with their community of followers because of their skills. Anything they endorse comes off more natural and has more impact compared to a celebrity endorsing the same thing.
Companies have sponsored high ranking eSports teams and individual gamers to help with their marketing. So if you have means for a sponsorship, seek out these high ranking players because they surely have a following.
Mobile Ads
One of the easiest ways to get your product into games is through mobile ads. With the mobile gaming industry gaining the majority of the gaming revenues right now, you have a captive audience for your ads.
If you’ve tried playing a mobile game or two, you’ll observe that most free to play games run on ads. Some games incentivize their players with game currencies or rewards for every ad they click on. While it would seem that ads annoy users during gameplay, a study found that 70% of gamers would click on mobile ads.
For your mobile ad to become successful, it doesn’t have to be cool and flashy. What Apple Music and Tully have taught us is that the simpler the ad, the better. You don’t have to put in a lot of words or visuals on the ad for it to be effective.
Conclusion
With everything expanding to newer forms of media, you have to be creative with your marketing strategies. Even if you’re starting with a small marketing budget, there are ways to get your product out there effectively. As long as you play these strategies at the right time, you’ll reap the benefits in the long-term.
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