6 Tips for Marketing Your Mobile Game

It wasn’t that long ago that developers had to spend painstaking amounts of time and money to develop a mobile game. You’d have to code absolutely everything, including the common elements like basic buttons and navigation menus. Fortunately, with the advent of game engines like Unity and Unreal, that’s no longer the case; it’s easier than ever to build a game from a framework.

But this means that today’s developers have a new challenge to focus on: How do you successfully market that game?

Marketing is just as critical a part of the mobile game industry, helping developers and publishers alike attract new players, generate revenue, and enjoy success amid a sea of competition. Here are some tips to help you along.

1. Understand Your Audience

You can’t just target “gamers” as a whole; they come in all kinds of types, from casual and social gamers to role-playing and strategy and more. A game that’s supposedly for everyone is really for nobody at all.

So just like with any marketing strategy, you need to understand the audience you’re trying to target. Here’s how you do that:

2. Leverage App Store Optimization

You can take extra measures to boost your game’s visibility in the app stores, making it easier for people browsing to find it. Simply put, it’s SEO for the app store:

Of course, following the usual best practices doesn’t automatically lead to better results. You’ll also need to conduct live A/B tests to get the feedback that tells you whether or not your approach is working.

3. Add Captivating Visuals

Speaking of visuals, you’ll want to expand that creativity into your social media ads, video ads, and the game itself. Imagery can have a profound effect on your campaign:

4. Test and Soft Launch

When your game reaches beta status, you can send it to testers, bloggers, and journalists to give it a try, and then incorporate their feedback into your updates. Likewise, at the soft launch stage, keep the game announcement to a smaller market so that you can monitor performance and fix any bugs that are found.

It’s also a good idea to test audience activity, including how willing they are to make an in-game purchase. Tests should be ongoing, in fact, so that you can always bring something beneficial with each update.

5. Advertise on Social Media

Why promote your game on social media instead of a website or a blog? Simply put, people are always scrolling for new content, and they don’t often have time to search through your whole FAQ to find what they’re looking for. Instead, sharing video gameplay on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms can get your point across instantly.

6. Work with a Publisher

As controversial as this tip might seem, signing a contract with a publisher may well be your best marketing move. Gaming publishers are usually themselves successful developers who want to increase their reach with their audiences, and they do so through the marketing channels they’ve established.

Working with a publisher can also give you resources you couldn’t get otherwise, in terms of both finances and assets. They’ll also help your game reach more people than most can do on their own. But one thing to keep in mind is that the publisher typically wants about half the income.

Key Takeaways

Developing a mobile game is no longer the most difficult part of the process; making sure that potential players find it is. More than the usual marketing measures, that means app store optimization, paid advertising, community management, and even influencer marketing techniques. Use them correctly, and your game will be the next big hit!