In our recent post, we covered social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Here is the second part of our marketing tricks that will expose your business to hundreds of thousands of gamers. Reddit, Quora, email lists, SEO and Google AdWords – a list of useful tactics for all of them is at your fingertips. Harness their power and promote your game store with the least effort!

Reddit

If you think of this community-based website, you may as well think of nearly 234 mln monthly visitors coming to the “front page of the internet”, as it’s also referred to. That could translate into a tremendous exposure to your gaming business. But before you jump into marketing opportunities on Reddit, be aware of Redditors’ big disdain for self-promotion and spamming. Most of all, if you opt for marketing with Reddit, note that this channel works at best with a long-term strategy in mind. Otherwise, if you may want to take advantage of paid Reddit options.

20. Build your Reddit history

While you might be easily encouraged by the community’s potential to drop a sneaky link to your gaming business, don’t go this way unless you wish to harm your business’s reputation. First, you need to invest time in building a credible Reddit profile with a decent posting history. For this reason, use 1-10 ratio, that is one branded post/link to your website per 10 comments aimed at helping/ providing a real value to the community. In the meantime, remember about linking to various sources to avoid getting banned.
It’s also a good idea to be active in different subreddits, engage with their communities and contribute content with links to various websites. This leads to gathering “karma” points and thus gaining more reliability among Reddit users. Only then can you start promoting your business without being banned and excluded from the community.

21. Promote deals and contests

In some aspects, Reddit is no different than Facebook or Twitter where you can easily draw people to one-off promotions or contests. Once you’re done with creating a posting history, look for relevant subreddits where you notify your audience of a sale taking place in your store. Are you going to incent people with giveaway games to come to your store? Then there’s no better place to share that information than in subreddits like /r/deals where gamers like to hang out.

22. Choose paid ads on Reddit

Reddit ads are not only affordable and easy to create but they also put your posts above the organic posts of selected subreddits. Targeting options include interests (e.g. gaming) and subreddits. To get closer to your target group, dig deeper to find subreddits that match your niche – try RedditList for this purpose.

Word of caution

Reddit may be a tough nut to crack for a novice. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, this is a particular place with strong dislike towards self-promotion and spammers. Unless you want to devote much time and energy to building your credibility there, choose paid Reddit ads. But don’t treat Reddit only as an advertising ecosystem with paid promotion tools. Far from it, consider it as a social sphere where you can start a conversation with gamers. Overall, it’s a challenging environment but worth trying out!

Quora

Quora, a soaring in popularity question-and-answer website with over 700,000 monthly visitors, is worth keeping your eye on. It focuses bloggers, journalists, industry insiders and, most importantly, gaming community across multiple channels. Rife with game-related queries, Quora can get your business in front of the masses. And here’s how you can take advantage of it:

23. Complete your Quora profile

Your online presence gives a solid boost to your brand’s visibility, not only in search engines. There’s no point in getting exposure to your game store if your profile lacks basic information about your business. An ideal place to About me section where you should provide all necessary information including your areas of expertise, interests, and others. Make sure you link to your Facebook and Twitter profiles as well!

24. Do market research

If you’re curious about gamers’ buying habits, gaming styles or you simply want to hear what’s currently top of their mind – there’s no place like Quora. You can pick topics that can be useful for your business strategy and get instant answers in no time. Perhaps, you want to tweak your next marketing campaign so that it increases your return on investment?
Quora lends itself to positioning yourself as an expert in the video games realm. Just search for in-game-related questions like “Which route should I take to complete stage 7 in [X game]?” and share your knowledge.

25. Monitor your competition

Quora serves as an excellent tool for researching your competitors. Follow video game-related topics and stay focused on your competitors’ mentions. In general, you want to know what’s going on in the industry, both on a broad and small scale, and that includes your competitors, partners and bigger players like developers as well.

Email list

Are emails not on your list of marketing tactics? Pretty unwise, to say the least, as they are a high-impact and low-cost way of marketing your gaming business. The question then should not be whether to weave emails into your marketing routine but how to make the most of them in the short run. Here are ideas that will help you grow your email list from scratch.

26. Offer value and help with newsletters

Emails with some kind of benefit to users can be a smart way of expanding your email list. That’s a reason to incorporate coupons, discounts, giveaways etc. in your newsletters – anything goes as far as it offers value to gamers. To give you an example, you can notify customers of upcoming competition where they can be rewarded with compelling prizes.

27. Leverage Facebook to build your list

Use your Facebook page to promote subscription to a newsletter or think of other benefits for users that would require submitting an email address. Your Timeline is the best place to do so. By adding a call-to-action button “Sign in” to the top of your Facebook page, you’re ready to collect emails. The CTA button could be further linked to a landing page with newsletter subscription requiring users’ email address for access. To keep more users coming in, add social sharing buttons on your newsletter landing pages.

28. Encourage in-mail social sharing

Do you send your emails containing current promotions, discounts, giveaways or contests to your fan base? That’s awesome! But do your fans have the chance to pass them onto their networks? If not, include social sharing buttons and “Email to a friend button” to get access to fresh networks. Perhaps, some of your followers’ friends are avid gamers looking for discounted games? Don’t let them miss that opportunity!

29. Add a sign-up link in your email signatures

Every inch of your email space should be used to maximise conversion, that is, to turn a random user into a customer. To achieve this, place a link to a newsletter subscription in all your email signatures. This way, all your outgoing emails will prompt people to stay engaged with your gaming business.

30. Place opt-ins in your existing forms

The already existing forms on your website, such as contact forms or registration forms can urge visitors, those from outside social media, to sign up for your mailing list. Then, including an opt-in checkbox on such forms can be a great source of emails from visitors who already show interest in your offering.

SEO

If you’re missing out on clicks, if your website doesn’t come up on the first search engine page, you’re probably absent from your potential customers’ minds. Hence you suffer poor sales. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ensures being top of the search page and should be the main priority for your gaming business. But what if you’re a complete stranger to the secrets of SEO? Don’t worry – here’s a handful of easy-to-implement SEO tactics:

31. Look for linking opportunities

The more high-quality websites links to your business, the better your position in search engine is. In the course of creating buzz around your business, be on the lookout for websites that could provide links to your website. Initially, colleagues, friends – your close networks can be helpful. As you go through this stage, look for forums aimed at suppliers and gamers (e.g. games-forum.com) that could mention your game store in conversations. You could also ask your suppliers or first customers for a link. Above all, keep in mind that search engines treat links as an evidence of your store’s credibility and importance!

32. Establish strong social media presence

Strong social media presence is a sign of influence and credibility. That’s why search engines treat social media with due respect. Who is a better advocate of your brand than the community around you? Your networks on social media can do word-of-mouth marketing for you. Your current customers provide recommendations for your gaming business to their friends – that’s how SEO gets affected positively.

33. Optimize your website for mobile

You know how big part mobile devices play in gamers’ lives, right? If your online campaigns are to succeed, make sure your website and landing pages display on mobile perfectly. Otherwise, Google won’t allow for your mobile ads to rank high.

Google Adwords

Do you want to back up your marketing efforts with paid marketing tactics? Here’s Google to do the work for you. In case you didn’t know, Google Adwords is a keyword-based advertising based on cost-per-click which allows you to run ads for your digital game business. The whole trick is that you only pay when people click on your ad and visit your website.
But why exactly should your business show up on Google ads? First, you can expand your reach substantially. Second, Google Adwords produce fast and transparent results. Third, you’re in a full control of your ad budget. And last, but not least, your competition is taking advantage of them so…. why shouldn’t you do the same? Take a look at these game-changing tricks and bring new visitors to your website.

34. Use gamer-oriented keywords

Keywords relevant to your gaming business are essential to make Google ads work. Instead of choosing general keywords like “video games online”, replace them with more detailed phrases, such as “cheap games” or “cheap bestsellers” and “game release price”. This way, your ad will display to more targeted audience. Isn’t it great?

35. Reach targeted audience

If you have a specific audience in mind like, say, people at the age of 12-18, based in the US, using their mobile phones and viewing gaming content on YouTube, you can easily reach them with Google Ads. All Google campaigns can be customised and narrowed to a given group. Targeting allows you to focus on people at different ages, people from various geographic locations, people using different devices and people on different websites owned by Google, such as YouTube and Gmail. What’s your target audience then?

36. Focus on your USP

Don’t assume your audience knows what you know. Tell them clearly who you are and what your game store offers. In other words, be super-clear and to the point about your brand’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP), the benefits hidden behind the words in your ad. Primarily, you need to convince gamers to buy from you. Are games in your store more affordable? Are they delivered faster than anywhere else? Is your store more dependable? Is your product offering larger than in other stores? Make this information public in your ads.
Make sure you include a clear call-to-action in your add too. People tend to click on a given ad if they are being asked to do so. For example, you could put it this way: “Order best-selling games now” or “visit [name of your store] to get the deal of the day”.

37. Include a promo

Special offers and discounted prices mean more eyeballs for businesses. “15% off on games of your choice” or “Buy one game, get another free” – such offers may result in increased traffic to your website. Even if users don’t click on your ad, they still interacted with your business. The may save the offer for later and get back when they’re ready to buy. In Google AdWords, ad extensions are a good place to put your best offering in front of your audience.

38. Leverage Google Display Network

You have a choice as to where your Google ads will show. They can be visible either on Google’s search results page (search network) or display on Google partner websites, such as YouTube, Gmail and many others (display network). As you know, the enormous part of gaming audience hangs out on YouTube.

39. Follow your customers with retargeting

You must have seen it. Ad retargeting, I mean. This form of advertising enables businesses to display targeted ads to users who have already visited your website. Past visitors will come across your ads while looking at thematically related websites. As a result, they may be enticed to come back and shop with you.
For example, you may want to retarget those visitors who saw the “Deal” section of your store. Create a remarketing campaign around deal and promos to lure customers back.

In a nutshell

Promoting your game store is a fundamental part of building the audience for your products. Implementing these low-cost tricks into your everyday business routine can dramatically increase your following and thus grow sales. First and foremost, marketing that focuses on free methods should be a starting point for building your online visibility. Only then can you pump the traffic up with paid options. So don’t think twice and get round to marketing your online business. All it takes is your goodwill, determination and a bit of time!