Leverage Marketing Games to Elevate Your Brand Awareness
Imagine if you could create a game that not only captures people’s imagination and gets them to play for hours, but promotes your brand as well.
The concept of using marketing games is not known to many people, even some in the advertising industry.
Marketing games that involve brands, or branded games, are a wonderful way for companies to engage their audience to buy the products or services they are selling.
Below are some ways you can leverage marketing games to achieve your advertising goals and boost brand awareness.
Grab People’s Attention
If you run a business in a competitive industry, standing out is a serious challenge. Making standard videos or social media posts about your business may not be giving you enough of a leg-up on the competition.
Rather than trying the same strategies in new ways, you can think entirely outside the box. Starting an online promotion that involves a branded video game may give your company the leg up it needs over others in your sector.
Encourage Engagement
Ask any brand manager or advertiser about the main metric for companies when they are assessing the performance of their online marketing campaigns. Nearly all of them will point to engagement as a key metric.
If you wish to have your followers or potential customers better engage with your business, branded games can go a long way. Rather than pushing your branding in an inorganic fashion, using a game makes everything seem very natural and realistic.
Appeal to a Younger Audience
High schools and college students are the target market for many businesses in the United States. Rather than going on Facebook or Twitter to try and lure people within that age group, you can appeal to their appreciation for video gaming and esports.
People of a younger age should have no problems finding the online game you create. They can start playing from their browser, allowing them to immediately dive into the world you have created with the game.
These younger people are not only more likely to engage with your brand through a game, but they may tell others about the branded game as well. Even if you do experience some hostility from customers unhappy at your decision to create a branded game, a vast majority will be on your side.
Any company that markets a majority of its goods to customers who are between 16 and 30 years old should pay attention to how branded video games can elevate their advertising goals.
Show Off New Products
Many American brands have started leveraging games as a way to promote new products and services. Perhaps there is an animated video that explains how a new product can benefit the consumer. Rather than doing so using standard videos that a person watches, they can integrate gaming elements into that presentation.
Perhaps the person watching the video has to go through various levels before they gain full access to the footage and information about a new product. While customers won’t always be fans of jumping over hoops to access content, branded games are usually an exception.
Establish an Identity
Using branded games as a part of your digital advertising campaign is the ideal way to establish a closer relationship with customers. People learn a lot more about a brand and its offerings if they are playing a branded mini-game.
Even though you can be flexible in determining the way your game looks and feels, your game should have elements in common with your company’s color scheme, logo, existing product lineup, and other factors.
Deliver Instant Gratification
When researchers try to understand why people have such a significant desire to play video games, they often point to the instant gratification they deliver. A person has to do little more than stare at their phone for a few minutes, press a few buttons, and they can feel heavily involved in gameplay.
Imagine that your customers arrive at your website and notice an ad for a branded game they might enjoy. If they are bored with the game within a few minutes, you have not missed out on anything. Those customers who do continue for 30 minutes or longer will begin to form a connection with your brand.
Educate Customers
Aside from instant gratification, video games can also educate people in a very positive way. Nearly everyone loves playing video games, as they are a great way to escape from real life for a few minutes at a time.
Even if escapism is the reason people are on your website and watching your YouTube videos, you can still educate them through your game. Present facts about your company and/or industry during the game, use different parts of the gameplay to explain how your products function and how they can help people.
Leverage Branded Gaming Today
Branded games are among the fastest-growing sub-genres within the gaming sector. Companies large and small in all industries are understanding how a branded game can attract more customers to your site, make your brand seem more hip and stylish, and drive customer engagement.
Any business owner who wants to ensure the long-term success of their operation will leverage branded gaming videos to do so. Such games have the potential to be a real game-changer for clients in various industries.
Whether you run a local sports website or sell clothing at a shop in a small city, using branded video games can help elevate your reputation and boost name recognition.
