This document discusses marketing strategies for online gaming companies. It covers traditional and social gaming landscapes, the importance of marketing for online games, how marketing influences game sales more than quality, and how SEO is as much about marketing as technical details. Specific strategies discussed include using creative thinking in design, public relations and social media outreach, social media engagement, video marketing, and running competitions to engage gamers.

1. SEO in the gaming industry
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2. MMO competitors landscape
• Traditional Video games. Unlikely to go off the
scenes because consumers want to see the
physical value of what they are purchasing
• Social Gaming (Google+ and Facebook integrated
games) single player games predominantly that
embed the social experience. They are picking up a
wide market share which is expected to grow in
the upcoming years
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3. Is marketing important for online gaming?
Two examples speak on their own:
• Lively, a sort of Second Life launched in 2008. Although
the myriad of Crusoe that worked on the game after 6
months the game was shut down.
Google failed because they adopted the same marketing
model used for the Search engine: no investment to
promote the products.
• Dante’s Inferno, a campaign failed because of the wrong
message has been conveyed to market online to gamers.
The campaign failed because the idea to get people to
“commit acts of lust”, take a picture and put the pictures up
on social media was a shame.
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4. 0 marketing / wrong marketing = 0 sales
• Marketing influences game sales 3,5 times more
than game quality or game review
• Whatsoever the industry you are working
on, every new products need to be marketed.
The online gaming industry is not different.
• 15-20% of the revenue should be spent on
marketing.
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5. SEO isn't just fixing technical details
}
Technical
SEO
Creative PR
Social
Thinking &
Media
& Design Outreach
On Page
SEO
SEO it’s also marketing. Blending creativity with quality link building and
social media signal is a win win combination to deliver dramatic uplift in
search engine ranking positions and customers across the board.
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6. If a tree falls and nobody is there, who cares?
• Search engines have become incredibly
sophisticated, but they still can't “read” a
Technical web page the same way a human does.
SEO
• By adjusting technical SEO aspects, a site
facilitates the reading process while helping
On Page users to locate pages within the SERPs.
SEO
• On Page SEO supplies a demand facilitating
engines to figure out what each page is
about, and users to have a clear
understanding at first sight.
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7. Marketing rule number one: creativity
• Marketers are challenged to
stimulate the audience towards Creative
(often complex) products that are Thinking
not required at that time. & Design
• How can the message go through?
With creativity.
• Although creativity implicitly carries higher
probability of failure, if the proposition is different
enough it will attract far more attention.
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8. Online creativity has specific boundaries
• Working on the digital doesn’t allow
all sort of implementations Creative
• Online tools and existing platforms Thinking
dictate the rules of do’s & don'ts & Design
• A way to overcome the limit is
integrating online with offline
For instance why not providing games with “interactive”
quests solvable via mobile to collect points to spend online?
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9. Gamers are “informavorers”
• Gamers are “subjects” with a voracious
information appetite, who like competitions, and
they are generally very detail-oriented.
• Acquire knowledge both on the niche and the
product before start the conversation.
• Update straight away gamers with PR
&
the most recent industry or product
Outreach
changes.
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10. Shooting in the field doesn’t work!
• The right message need to be delivered to the right person. It’s
vital to reach out and build online relationships.
• ALPHA INFLUENCER: known as “core gamer” with leading social
behaviors, they blend passion and the willingness to share their
passions with anyone who will listen.
• SOCIAL MAINSTREAM: or mass-market gamers.
Gaming is just one of their many interests
however they are decreeing the trend. PR
&
• HEAVY GAMER: For this group it’s all about Outreach
gaming, all of the time.
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11. Brands can’t ignore social media anymore
• Social media are here to stay offering
numerous advantages:
Some are tangible like “likes”, retweet
and +1, some others are not like
Social
customer support. Media
• Social media has proved to be a great
source of traffic.
• Social media and SEO should not
work as separate silos.
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12. Social media to engage the conversation
• Platforms such as Google+, Pinterest
and their older brethren should be a
means to opening dialogue with fans
and followers
Social
• They offer a great way to create a Media
feedback loop to feed future game
development
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13. The marketing mix: once upon a time …
… there were the TV. Now it is (pretty much) all digital!
• Online gaming companies can use:
PR, videos, websites, virals, affiliate, communities,
merchandise, competitions, etc
• The power of different elements of the marketing mix
changes over time according with what you are marketing
and with the nature of your creativity.
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14. Video: the critical mass prefer videos
• Trailers, video to demonstrate advanced features
can encourage users playing to grab that “badge”.
In marketing terms videos are inexpensive as a
person (cast), a message and the stage (screen
recording, office location) is company needs
In addition videos can be part of a combined
answer, for example to follow up a social media
message.
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15. Pinterest: pictures paints thousand of words
• It’s the third most popular search engine in US.
• It offers real SEO value as all the links are “follow”
• Other users can be invited to contribute to your
boards stimulating the online conversation
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16. People like competing each other
• Launching a new game is the hardest bit. Useless
to say that even the best game without players will
face a failure.
• With contests the critical mass can be stimulated;
gamers will get involved via word of mouth.
• When the product is up and running, competition
can still be used. After all MMOs connect users
around the world that compete on daily basis.
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17. Thank You
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