Hands up who has more than one game uploaded on Apple App Store or Google Play Store. If this is your case, it is obvious that you want to promote all of them in the same time. Is that right? Well, the solution for your problem is cross – promotion. Here is what you have to do.
What Is Cross – Promotion?
Wait! You don’t know what cross – promotion is? Think about the term for a second. It means that you have a collection of apps and you use each app to promote the other ones. Is it clear enough?
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What Are The Benefits?
If you want to know the advantages of cross – promotion let’s start by saying that it is a free method to increase your user base. Besides that, this technique is not intrusive so you will avoid any risks to annoy your customers. The reason why this strategy works is the simple philosophy that if a user likes one of your games then there are big chances to convince him to download your other creations.
What Do You Need To Cross – Promote?
So, if it doesn’t require money, what you need to start cross – promotion right away? First of all you need some time to study your options and to find the right way to apply your plan. Next you need a successful game portfolio. Why to build a portfolio? Well, we go back at the beginning of the article and we highlight that you can’t promote one game using other games if you don’t have them. Therefore you need several games, preferably from the same category and to create a similar presentation in the app store so that all players will recognize your brand when they see one of your apps. It doesn’t matter if you are an indie developer or you represent a big game studio, these rules are the same. Make sure that your app icons describe your products and use the same theme to allow users to identify your games. Other than that make sure that each app has its unique style and don’t copy them just to have more games on the market.
How To Cross – Promote Your New Game?
Now that we answered all of your questions let’s move on to the interesting stuff because we want to present you our step – by – step guide on how to use cross – promotion for your games in a smart way.
1. Find The Right Game
You need to start with the most popular of your games. Which one do you think it has better chances to impress users and to invite them to install more games? Next, create a list with your other games and go to the next stage.
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2. Pick The Right Placement For Better UX
This part is essential because finding the right place to present your other apps will dictate the success of your strategy. This activity should not interfere with your monetization efforts. You need to understand that it is more important to increase your revenue when you have the chance so it is crucial to test various options when it comes to deciding the right placement for your other creations.
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3. Begin Branding Your Portfolio
As we said earlier, it is important to make your brand known by your players. It is recommended to make them understand that you provide the same quality with all of your work. This way, users will realize that they will always find on your page great games and they will trust your apps.
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4. Use Trailers Of Your Other Games
If you don’t know what is the best way to present other games we can tell you that short trailers will do the job to conquer the interest of your current users. Engage them with the most interesting moments of your other games and let them discover other elements when they will download them.
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5. Add “More Games” Button
After creating those clips, design a button to fit your game style with the text “More games” and add it where you decided when you completed the step 2. Make sure that you won’t lose their attention for the current game and they will still continue to play it along with your other apps.
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6. E – Mail Existing Game Users
If you have a great database with your users’ email addresses then use it. Send them interesting messages that will make them open the app store the next second after they read it. If you don’t know the best practices of email marketing it is good to know that you have an entire article to help you with that.
7. Use In – App Messages
If you already use in – app messages for communicating with your gamers then there is no reason not to send them invitations to check your other games, promising them more exciting adventure with many amazing characters.
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8. Offer Incentives
A good solution would be to offer your players some virtual coins or other bonuses to encourage them to install your games. The condition is to make sure that they really like the game and they don’t do that just for the incentives. Remember that you need to attract valuable users in order to increase your retention rate.
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9. Run Retargeting Campaigns
If there is a special list of users you want to attract with your games then a retargeting campaign is the right answer. We wrote before about the benefits of this method and we described the best options for using this technique with the main channels that provide this type of solutions, Facebook and Google.
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FINAL THOUGHTS
This is it. If you followed our tutorial on how to add cross – promotion to your other strategies for acquiring more users then you are on the right path to save your budget and to spread the word about your games. Because this technique is not seen as a real marketing campaign, your players will appreciate your attempt to present them your other creations. Make your brand known and convince them to return to your portfolio whenever they want to spend interesting moments on their mobile devices.