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A staggering 70% of all indie games fail, and of the 30% that succeed, only 7% make enough money to fund a second project. Sadly, these commercial failures often have more to do with poor marketing strategies than poorly designed games.
Efficient, targeted marketing is critical for commercial success. User lifecycle management is an important part of effectively marketing games.
Key Takeaways:
The user lifecycle describes the path users take to become customers of a brand and how they interact with that brand along the way. User lifecycle management is the process of analyzing and tracking user behavior as users move through each stage of the user lifecycle.
There are many different kinds of games and many different kinds of gamers. If you try to make a game that appeals to every kind of gamer, you aren’t likely to succeed.
Instead, it is better to identify a target market and tailor your game, monetization, and marketing efforts to that specific market. ULM provides insight into the pain points, preferences, and behavior of users that you can use to better target your games and marketing campaigns to users.
The user lifecycle has five stages.
During the reach stage, you use targeted advertising through social media marketing, search engine optimization, and other techniques to make potential users aware of your game. This step is complete when the prospective users you are targeting reach out to your brand to get more information about your company or your game.
In the acquisition stage of user lifecycle management, prospective users are now leads. These potential customers have contacted your company by engaging with your website or social media or by calling, emailing, or participating in a live chat.
Your goal in this stage is to establish an ongoing communication channel with the customer by offering them information, deals, or live support to keep them interested. To be successful in this stage, you must show the customer how your company can meet their needs.
During the conversion stage, prospective users convert to paying customers. Your goal in this stage is to lay the groundwork to turn these new customers into long-term, loyal customers.
Establish trust and goodwill by ensuring that your pricing is clear. This is particularly important for games that offer in-game purchases and other microtransactions.
Provide information about returns and refunds. Make sure the customer knows under what conditions they can obtain a refund, how to ask for that refund, and how long they have to make the request.
Make it easy for customers to make purchases. There should be as few steps as possible between adding an item to the cart and receiving that item.
The retention stage is about turning that first purchase into an ongoing relationship. This stage is where all of your user retention strategies come into play. Your goal here is to keep players playing and purchasing for as long as possible.
The loyalty stage is the most important of the five stages of the user lifecycle. This stage is where you convert users into loyal brand ambassadors.
Because brand ambassadors tend to recruit their friends, family, and social media followers to your game, each one can be worth hundreds of dollars in word-of-mouth advertising. Loyal customers also have the highest lifetime value because they tend to make more purchases over long periods than other types of customers.
The goal of the analysis phase of user lifecycle management is to utilize data and metrics to gain insights from each lifecycle stage and then use those insights to create better experiences for future users. It is important to analyze the user lifecycle as a whole, rather than to focus on specific stages.
When analyzing the reach stage, start by identifying when, how, and why prospective users are finding your company. Analyze how well your marketing campaigns are performing.
You also want to gauge what your company’s reputation is and make note of what your competitors are doing to attract potential customers. Metrics you should track at this stage include impressions, website visits, and branded searches.
To evaluate the acquisition stage, review the tools and information you are offering to prospective users. Examples of tools to evaluate include your blog, websites, and social media pages.
Make sure your content is enticing to your target market and that all of your sites are easy to navigate. Metrics to track include leads and inquiries.
Interpreting your conversion stage performance involves determining what is and is not converting prospects into customers. Identify any barriers that prevent users from making a purchase. Metrics to examine include lead conversion rates and opportunity-to-close rates.
When analyzing the retention stage of user lifecycle management, you want to find out how your customers feel about their purchases. Metrics to examine include retention rates and repeat purchase rates.
Evaluating the loyalty stage is about determining whether you are doing everything you can to convert users into loyal customers. Metrics to track include net promoter scores and customer satisfaction scores.
Sonamine offers a variety of services that can enhance your user lifecycle management. We can help you turn prospects into buyers, buyers into repeat buyers, and repeat buyers into loyal customers through our engagement, monetization, and retention services. Contact us to get started.
For a limited time until December 2024, Sonamine is offering a 60 day money back guarantee to OneSignal customers. Come experience the ease and simplicity of the First Time Spender Nudge package and watch your conversions soar.
For a limited time until December 2024, Sonamine is offering a 60 day money back guarantee to OneSignal customers. Come experience the ease and simplicity of the First Time Spender Nudge package and watch your conversions soar.
