video game

Marketing is far more complex today than ever. Yet at the same time, it is easier than ever to find your perfect market for whatever you are selling. The concept of inbound marketing, only possible because of the internet, is that you set up a campaign so people that are looking for what you are offering can find you.

Instead of casting out a wide net and taking whatever you catch, your ideal person will come looking for what you are doing and become a loyal fan. It is much more effective than any other kind of advertising and works wonders for game marketing. Once you have your audience growing then you can monetize with a mobile game ads strategy.

Once they find your game, you can do lots of things to keep them playing like offer bonuses or free play for sharing, etc.

In this article, I will go over several strategies you can use to create a loyal fanbase for your new game.

1 – Identify your ideal player

Try to make an imaginary person who you would think would want to play your game. Give them an avatar. Literally have a vision of what they look like, how old they are, what gender and even where they live.

Fully flesh this person out by giving them a name. Then create a persona for that person. You want to understand who the person is and what is important for them to be able to understand exactly what you need to do to attract them to your game.

This is important because there are many ways to set up a marketing campaign. You have to put things out in the places where the people who are most likely to want to play your game spend their time online. If you try to go for a broad audience then you will likely miss the right people and your game will not get as widely played as you like.

As the steps progress you will see why this is important.

2 – Use the right social media platform

You may be tempted to just sign up for every social media network and try to find your audience. It feels like the right thing to do to make sure you are attracting a big audience.

The right way to go is to find out where your avatar of the idea user is spending their time online. For instance, if you feel the ideal person that will play your game is a middle aged housewife that just wants to pass the time on her phone while standing in line at the supermarket, you aren’t going to find her hanging around on Reddit.

Likewise, if your target user is a teenager who likes to play RPG games, then posting on Facebook is likely to be a waste of time.

Figure out which platform your avatar is using and then focus there. You will have much better luck by going narrow than by going broad.

3 – Create a community

Another way to bring people to your game is to create an online community for the type of person that would most enjoy your game.

Create a Facebook group, subreddit or forum for people to come and congregate. Create topics that will get people talking, sharing information and looking for advice. Then this community will become engaged and happy to be part of something that gets them excited.

You can then promote your game to them as they are exactly the type of people that will want to play it. Be careful, however. This is not a strategy to use them as a way to make money and that’s it. If you treat them like consumers and not valuable members of a community they will tune you out. Especially if you are looking to promote on Reddit.

4 – Listen to your audience

Lastly, when you have your audience growing through your marketing efforts, take the time to listen to their concerns and needs. They will actually help you improve the game and make them want to play more and encourage others to come play as well.

Your job is not done once you’ve grown your audience. Your job now is to keep them happy. Game development is an ongoing process in which you always strive to have the game working at its full potential.

In other words, the game is never finished. Strive to keep improving the user experience and you will have devoted fans forever.