Have you considered using mobile web games in your marketing or advertising? If not, then now might be the perfect time to try something new that could revolutionize your digital strategy and give you a competitive edge.
And before you ask: yes, gamification can work and deliver surprising results. Even in so-called “boring” industries. Consumers simply love playing games, especially on mobile.
Mobile is now the primary channel for customers to engage and interact with brands–on the Web and social media, through apps, and via digital advertising. In fact, about a third of mobile usage involves playing games. The average mobile user plays games primarily on the smartphone, with Facebook at 18% and other social networks at 6%. That’s even ahead of gaming on dedicated consoles like the latest PlayStation and Xbox.
Lego is One Brand That’s Mastered the Art of Engaging Video Game Branding
So if innovative marketing and digital staffing talent can find a way to combine games and social with your advertising message, you can find yourself with a powerful and memorable tool to get your message across. With the emergence of HTML5, online games have never been easier to create, launch and track across multiple platforms.
Although a mobile game, social media competition, or other kind of interactive media is no guarantee of results, games have been shown to generate great marketing results and provide a fun, exciting way for your audience to engage and interact with your brand.
Marvel Puts Its Audience in Mobile Control of Their Favorite Heroes with “Marvel Future Fight”
video from Marvel Entertainment
Here are seven ways innovative digital staffing and cutting edge marketing talent can benefit from trying game development and implementation:
1. Growing consumer engagement: Games can regularly reach average engagement levels of 80% or better. For an organization using a game to promote its brand or product, this brings engagement and interaction simply by using the game format.
2. Complimenting your pull strategy: Marketing has evolved from an outbound, interruptive activity to a more permission-based and customer-led discipline that focuses on drawing in consumers with information, entertainment and value. In response, organizations have invested more in content and inbound marketing  staffing to “pull” their audience in and generate new leads.
A game is another piece of content that is by nature permission-based, engaging, and interesting. Players can then choose whether to opt in with their contact details to rank on a leaderboard, share their experiences online, enter branded competitions and more.
Read the list:Â The Greatest Branded Video Games of All Time
3. Enhancing social media activity: Experiences with an online game are prime content to be shared on social media networks. This is especially valuable to social media staffing,  as a high percentage of users are accessing social media on their mobile devices and online in general. A game that is able to combine interactive entertainment on the go with well-integrated social sharing can put your brand and message in front of players’ friends and networks.
4. Surprising conversion rates: Games are a unique form of interactive marketing content, largely because they’re not even considered as marketing by most consumers. Of course, this only holds true if your game is actually fun and unique to deliver a positive experience; a mediocre game will only be seen as a point of ridicule. The use of leaderboards to facilitate data capture or the use of the game as part of a competition or promotion also helps to generate good conversion rates.
Coors Light Went Old-School with Its Mobile Game Style in “Super Refreshmen”
5. Fun: Games are fun and enjoyable. They don’t feel like marketing or work, so for players they’re a great way to pass the time for free. Creatively integrating your marketing message into a game format can provide consumers with some fun and keep your brand top-of-mind at times when they might otherwise never consider you.  Having your audience associate your brand with enjoyment and excitement is invaluable.
6. Multichannel reach: Online games are multi-platform. With recent advancements in HTML5 technology, talented digital staffing can design games to be viewed and played on desktop, mobile, and tablet. Well designed games can be shared and played responsively from anywhere without the time and expense of creating and distributing games through app downloads or platform-specific formats.
7. Not as expensive as you might think: Just a few short years ago it would have cost a lot to get a customized game created for your business. This would have been designed and coded from scratch and might have taken up to three months or more to be delivered. This time and cost meant that only the largest brands could afford to use games in their marketing. The investment would be too great to stomach for a potentially risky venture.
With HTML5 making development more flexible and manageable, and with the creation of flexible, customizable templates, costs and development time have dropped dramatically. More companies can gain the benefits and advantages from using games in their marketing.
As customers use mobile more to connect with brands, they expect interactive, mobile-friendly and memorable content to engage with. Given that games are a major activity on mobile, creating your own branded games is a logical tactic to consider when promoting your business or product.
Article Source: CMO.com
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