GamesBeat and Facebook recently hosted the Driving Games Growth Summit, an event that attracted the leading industry players in the gaming world.
Among those in attendance was Overgear, renowned for World of Warcraft and Call of Duty games. The summit provided a visionary platform for all who were in attendance. The hot topics in discussion gave Overgear a glimpse of inspiration, and the gaming giant’s CMO, Anatoly Gil, had a lot of insight to share afterward.
According to Anatoly, “These are great marketing insights that gaming companies can exploit to increase their sales.” The CMO took the opportunity to share the marketing tips that have helped propel the company into an industry leader.
Flexibility to Meet Cultural and Geographical Diversifications
Anatoly advises that to meet the needs of international audiences, it is prudent for companies to understand cultural and geographical diversifications before developing their marketing strategies. This will allow them to target their audience with laser precision and thus increase their leads and conversion.
To improve your services at the international stage, “companies must take into consideration how local markets work which in turn inspires better marketing and builds stronger customer relations,” advises Anatoly.
In the same light, various aspects clearly illustrate why this insight is important.
Customer support: Overgear has done well with regard to addressing customer feedback. The company recommends focusing on your target audience’s cultural aspects when communicating with them. For instance, you will realize the British approach customer support staff with a lot of formality and reservations as compared to Italians who are more friendly and personal. Companies must, therefore, tailor personalized customer support services in these regions to improve the overall customer experience.
Customer feedback: Gaming products cannot be perceived in the same way everywhere. Companies will hope to analyze customer’s feedback when looking to improve on these products. However, any such improvement should be regional and not global since the customer’s experience is affected by their culture.
Cultural Insights that Affect Growth into New Markets
Among the topics of discussion during the 3-day Driving Games Growth Summit was how companies could venture into new markets and what challenges are to be overcome. An insight from the experienced gaming giant Overgear directs us to consider cultural diversity when exploring and launching into new local markets. Anatoly goes further to recommend an in-depth research analysis into the following aspects affected by cultural diversity:
The new markets’ paying capacity; this is particularly important with regards to how you’ll price your product in the new markets.
Buying habits and patterns; different markets exhibit different habits and patterns when buying gaming products. Tapping into these buying behaviors will significantly determine your success in the new market.
Size of the market; market sizes vary widely with culture. Certain cultures might embrace your gaming products more easily compared to others, and this insight should help in your marketing strategy.
Local competitors and their strategy; understanding your competition can be the deal-breaker when venturing into local markets. An analysis of your local competitors will give you insights into customer preferences and help you exploit any gaps in their services. Understand their efficiency in order to improve on their inefficiencies and excel customer experience.
Understand customer preferences; gaming companies must be able to hone in on their understanding of customer tastes and preferences. Looking at the different gaming products that Overgear has released over the years, it is certain that they’ve been listening to their customer’s wishes.
“At Overgear, we have been able to successfully adapt our services to local audiences in a number of regions which exhibited bizarre customer behavior. We managed to boost our sales and increase our profit margins with little marketing effort,” adds Anatoly.
Provide Gaming Tutorials to Forster Customer Engagement and Increase Sales
Tutorials that aim to walk the players through the games can help improve customer engagement, especially for difficult and new products. A simple and effortless gaming tutorial can help bolster your conversions and improve your sales.
Investing in the Gaming Community
Gaming companies are encouraged to develop gaming communities to increase customer engagement and improve the gaming experience. According to Overgear, promoting fan art or creating viral content shines more light on your brand. In turn, this will build your image to a wider target, thus expanding your market and increasing conversions.
Develop the Habit of Testing Every Aspect of Your Product
The team at Overgear.com has over the years developed a habit of testing every hypothesis – this has helped them get insights on how to improve their gaming services. There are numerous tools that you can use to test your product before launching it.
One common way involves testing the products in beta versions. Anatoly says, “the secret is to keep it simple and don’t overthink for your customer.” This will help you avoid spending too much time and resources while still getting sales improving insights from it.
Gaming companies must rethink their strategy if they want to upscale their sales. It is time to think ‘culturize’ and not ‘localize’ when it comes to growth in international markets. GamesBeat has planned more Driving Games Growth summits, and we can expect to get more insightful reviews from Overgear to help boost gaming companies’ growth and income.
