How to achieve the best cooperation with KOLs for overseas game promotion?

Marketing promotion is an essential part of overseas promotion planning, publishing and operating games. Developers are constantly evaluating and optimizing various discovery channels to improve promotion effects and revenue.

Over the past few decades, gamers have experienced several iterations of network equipment and hardware devices and have been baptized by various types of high-quality gaming experiences, becoming more discerning. From the perspective of increased complexity, mobile gaming is no different from all other industries. Although this industry is still growing at a high rate of 13% every year due to the influence of emerging markets, as more and more people enter the market, how to increase the discovery rate remains an important task for developers.

Mobile game marketing strategies

In the past, marketing game development was completely irrelevant, but now marketing is more important than ever. Before release, developers will assess user interest in the game's theme by testing ads and analyzing click-through rates. We will consider and apply various types of media to increase the number of new users, while launching targeted advertising and using game updates and LiveOps to ensure continuous user activity. If the game's discovery rate can be accelerated and profitability maintained, it will have a big impact on the game's revenue prospects.

It is undeniable that the product itself needs to have strong retention and monetization potential. A first-class marketing strategy cannot save a mediocre game, but a mediocre marketing strategy will have a negative impact on top games.

Currently, collaborating with influencers on platforms such as YouTube is becoming an increasingly mainstream practice. Videos that directly demonstrate gameplay have been shown to be incredibly effective in capturing user attention, and these influencers have the ability to contribute to building gaming communities.

It has become a consensus among more and more marketers that cooperation with KOLs can bring obvious benefits. Last year, mobile game developers invested more than 250 million US dollars in marketing and reached audiences outside the typical target groups through advertising networks and DSPs. The works of influencers can be seen for a long time, and the content is usually kept and watched on their video channels.

If the entire industry can have a deep understanding of KOL marketing, and can use big data to process decisions related to KOL marketing and optimize overall marketing investment, it will have a huge impact on industry and product development.

Let KOL’s influence serve game developers

How do developers measure the effectiveness of KOL videos? Typically, YouTube creators will include a link in their videos directing viewers to the promoted game, and this link is used to track installs and revenue from the user groups that click on it. But not every user will click on this tracking link, they may directly enter the game name in the search bar of the app store, and so on. But tracking links provided a good start for measuring performance, and to overcome the limitations of tracking links, developers began to make inferences about users who could not be tracked.

By analyzing activity data and industry information sources, we have established more sophisticated models for benchmarks and estimates, taking our ability to measure influencers to a higher level. To ensure the relevance and broad applicability of the research data, we studied KOL gaming videos used for marketing and games at different stages of their life cycle, and studied people’s behavior after watching the videos. We compared the measured data with the information provided by various developers and found that on average 50% of users would download the game within 4 hours of watching the video. The number of users attracted by KOL videos far exceeded the number of users previously tracked through links.

The impact and limitations of viral transmission

Many game developers are implementing a portfolio strategy: by managing multiple titles, they are able to diversify their revenue and accelerate cross-promotion between different products. Targeting the same audience, it ensures that a lost user can be incorporated into another game under its own brand, thereby ensuring that players remain in its own product system.

When formulating a KOL marketing strategy, we must take into account the factor of "download fatigue". Releasing a mobile game is only half the battle. Successful operation is the real challenge. Cooperation with KOLs is not something that can be achieved overnight, but rather a long-term production and operation process.

How KOLs work

Expert videos are not equivalent to advertisements when conducting app installation advertising. By choosing the right delivery goals, bidding strategies, and ad creatives, you can achieve great results. Working with influencers is a different concept, which involves developing a strategy, identifying the right creators, building relationships, negotiating contracts, and producing finished videos.

There are clear differences between the two types of marketing campaigns, and performance evaluators will find that KOL marketing is slightly less profitable when comparing the return on advertising spending. But given the harder-to-measure but important value KOLs can add to your game and even your company, without any support from KOLs, the risks of your project may exceed your expectations.

If you still can't decide whether to work with a well-known KOL, you can try working with smaller influencers on YouTube. This group of creators has fewer subscribers, only 10,000 to 200,000 fans, with lower costs and corresponding lower risks, and there is hope to build a player community from scratch. If developers are just starting to learn how to deal with KOLs, or if you want to hedge your risks, then working with small Vs is a good start.

Start engaging with KOLs in the early stages of game development. This way they can provide early feedback, feel proud to be a part of the beta test, and be a voice for your game within their community. The more KOLs understand about the game development process and frameworks, the more they can seize opportunities and drive the popularity of their video channels to new heights. This will play a key role in game promotion.

Related reading:

1. Which industries are suitable for Google promotion and how to open an account?

2. Where is Google advertising promotion displayed and in what form?

3. How effective is Google’s advertising promotion?

4. How does Google Ads charge, promotion prices, advertising costs!

5. Google advertising promotion, how to position Google display ads?

6. Google advertising promotion: How to improve keyword rankings?

author: Xinruishe Media

source: Xinruishe Media