Netmera Gaming Product Diaries #3:
Activate, engage and retain more users with personalized communication tailored for each gamer’s needs
The place of mobile games in our lives has reached an undeniable point, especially after the pandemic. With the time we spend at home, especially with many new users turning to mobile games, this industry has become the biggest industry of the entertainment industry, leaving even music and cinema behind. And the role of mobile games in this development is huge.
In our previous articles, I have talked about game marketing trends, how you can monetize your game, and how you can take advantage of Netmera’s marketing tools to do so. Today I will explain how you can interact with your users after creating your games; how to attract new players, how to retain existing ones, and win back outgoing players.
Optimizing the starting experience of new players
The first experience your game offers is the most effective factor in player retention after the first day. There are several ways to optimize your players’ experience to make it seamless and enjoyable. It’s important to test different approaches and make changes to find the method that works best for your game.
Mobile game players have a much more diverse audience compared to many other industries. Therefore, when designing your games, be sure of which audience you want to appeal to and offer special gaming experiences in line with the expectations of your users. To be able to do that, you need to know who your players are and what they want from your game.
Also, take note that your aim as a product owner is to drive installs and generate revenue but users are less likely to install if your app isn’t properly displayed in the App Store or on the web in the first place. Optimizing these steps can generate more users and ensure that you are getting the most out of your campaign efforts.
Understanding who your players are
Understanding your audience is the first step in any marketing strategy, as well as the first step in a mobile game marketing strategy. It’s easier to set a channel and voice for your marketing messages when you have a clear picture of your target audience.
The very basis of any marketing strategy is identifying and understanding your target audience. The same goes for marketing a mobile game.
You can’t simply target mobile gamers as a whole because that’s a very large and diverse group of people. One has to be much more specific than that.
Naturally, the target audience depends on the game genre, specific game features, and markets the game is available in.
Start narrowing down gamers according to their location, age, and gender, i.e., player demographics. For example, the main target audience could be 18-24-year-old female gamers from Japan. You can choose several such groups to target.
Segmentation
This takes us to segmentation. As I mentioned in earlier articles, one of the basic principles of marketing, showing the right offer to the right person, at the right place and time is also valid for mobile games.
Almost all of the offers, content, or promotions in successful mobile games are prepared for different segments. The content of the offers that will be seen by a player who has just started the game and the offers that the player will see for 30 days should be different. That’s why your marketing strategy should be supported by a strong segmentation infrastructure.
Take note that Netmera’s powerful segmentation tools help you identify, define, and target your players with various attributes, including traits, behaviors, in-game preferences, and more. You can create unified player profiles for a more direct, consistent, and individualized communication.
Delivering right content to the right player
Once you have segmented users by measuring the behavior, demographic information and habits of the users, now you can deliver messages players want to receive.
Whether it is a push notification, in-app banner, or an email, personalized messages help you create better customer experience, increase engagement and player loyalty. This also easily differentiates you from competitors.
The important thing here is to set up the right communication strategy, taking into account what is targeted with which campaign. With Netmera, you can turn every click on your mobile services into a personalized interaction through targeted push messages. As you increase the personal experience, you will make your users feel more special, making them more engaged with your service and be more active, and thus significantly increase conversion rates.
Push notification and in-app messages
Push notification and in-app messaging is a great channel to connect with your customers, understand their preferences, and increase conversions. Combining these two effective channels to reach your users allows you to deliver a more engaging and purposeful player experience.
Netmera helps you improve user experience with personalized push notifications, in-game actions, widgets, banners and more tailored for each gamer’s needs. With automated messages and push scheduling, you can inform users on level updates, new quests, important milestones, and the time they spend on your game.
For example, you can notify a player through push notifications that an unfinished challenge needs to be completed in a limited-time in return for a bundle, and show what the player has won with an in-app message.
Players want to feel special and take advantage of limited-time special offers. If you are offering a bundle that the player is already interested in with a discount until a certain day, the player will want to take advantage of this opportunity before that day. Therefore, the conversion rate of the push notification will be high.
Engage your players by providing the best gaming experience on any platform and device. Mobile games can be played on Android, iOS or tablet and phone. Make sure your games are optimized to allow flexibility in terms of compatible devices and the way people interact with their friends.
Don’t forget returning players
Offer daily rewards to returning players to increase retention rates. Daily and weekly rewards for returning players can be powerful mechanisms to build long-term loyalty and encourage more intense player engagement.
For example, you can get your players to unlock various in-game assets only when they re-engage with the game on a daily basis. The value of the gift to reward the player for logging in for 7 consecutive days will increase day by day, which will encourage players to play the game often. The offer shown in the player’s initial experience encourages the player to re-engage at a crucial moment for retention.
Customer feedback
Ignoring feedback from people playing your game is a big mistake you can make. Players will clearly tell you both the current bugs in the game and the innovations you can make. All you have to do for this is to analyze the comments in the app store well. At this point, you can even take your relationship with the players to the next level and contact your best players to find out what they think about your game.
You can also simply ask what your players think about your game or their general experience via customer surveys. Netmera offers various options for you to create effective customer surveys through its easy-to-use widget design tools. Netmera’s Widget Design Tool is designed with an easy-to-use interface that gives you full control of your widget elements. You can quickly and easily create feedback pop-ups that you can embed on your app in a few simple steps to better understand what your users want.
I hope I have been able to help you increase your ability to understand and communicate with your players. Next, I will talk about how you can rule all the metrics about your game with analytics and reporting.
Stay tuned!
