How To Start An Online Casino Game Business
You've stumbled upon the idea to build a game marketing website and now you're ready to take the next steps.
There's a lot to think about when building a business, so we put together a guide on how to get started, launch, grow and run your game marketing website.
We also provide you with real-life case studies and examples of founders running successful game marketing website (and how muchπ° they're making today).
π‘ Introduction To Createing A Game Marketing Website
Is Createing A Game Marketing Website Right For You?
There are many factors to consider when createing a game marketing website.
We put together the main pros and cons for you here:
Pros of createing a game marketing website
β’ Flexibility
You can put as much time into the business as you'd like. If you like the work and have some initial experience, you can start small and manage all aspects of the business on your own.
β’ Ability to start your business from home
It's not necessary to have a physical storefront or office space to get your business started. You can do everything from the comfort of your own home, at least in the beginning!
β’ Rewarding work
Starting a game marketing website can be really rewarding work. After all, you are solving an immediate issue for your customer and you're working on something you truly care about.
β’ Scalable
With businesses and processes changing daily, there will always be demand for new features, products and services for your business. Additionally, there are several different business models and pricing tiers you can implement that will allow you to reach all types of customers.
β’ Traffic to your website
A game marketing website gives people a reason to visit your website and to keep coming back to you!
β’ No overhead costs
To get your game marketing website started, there are no costs associated with overhead, storage, packaging, etc. This will save you a lot of time and money!
β’ High customer retention rates
Once a customer invests in your product, they've invested their time and energy to utilize your product/service which is highly valuable to them. Typically, your product or service becomes indispensable to your customer.
β’ High margins
The gross margins for your game marketing website are typically around 83%, which is considerably high and allows you to grow your business and manage costs easily.
β’ Control of workload
With createing a game marketing website, you have the unique ability to choose how little or how much you want to work. You also have the freedom to decide which projects you want to work on, and can turn down the ones that do not interest you.
β’ Unlimited income potential
With createing a game marketing website there is no cap as to how much income you can make. The stronger your business skills and the more energy/time you put into your career, the more you'll make.
β’ You are your own boss!
With createing a game marketing website, you are the one to make decisions for almost all of the operations. Calling the shots can be empowering and liberating!
β’ Predictable income stream
Your businesses income stream tends to be predictable based on the number of customers you have signed up. This makes financial planning and outlooks much more seamless!
β’ Higher likelihood of getting referrals
This business is all about referrals, which can be a a very impactful way to attract and retain customers. It's critical that you have a great referral program in place that incentivizes your customers to tell their friends about your product.
β’ Simple business model
A game marketing website has the advantage of a simple business model, which makes launching and building the business more seamless.
β’ Greater Income Potential
With this business, the sky is the limit in regards to your income potential.
β’ You get to do something you truly love
With starting a game marketing website, you get to put your energy into something you are truly passionate about! You'll find yourself devoting as much time and energy as possible into the business to make it successful.
β’ You can work from anywhere!
Not only can you start your game marketing website from home, you can also run your business from anywhere in the world. This is the entrepreneur dream.
β’ Strong Demand & Relatively Recession Proof
The demand for game marketing website is increasing year over year and the business is known to be relatively recession proof.
β’ Various different ways to make money
With starting a game marketing website, there is not just one business model to choose from. This field is amazing in that there are various different ways to make money. Although this may complicate things, it's great to have different options and sources of revenue.
β’ Make money while you sleep
The advantage of starting a game marketing website is that you have the ability to have passive income and make money while you sleep. This is the dream for many entrepreneurs.
β’ Results and revenue happen quickly!
Unlike other businesses, it can be relatively quick to start seeing results and revenue. As long as you follow all the steps to validate your idea before launch, you are likely to see quick results and ROI.
Cons of createing a game marketing website
β’ Crowded Space
Competition is high when it comes to your game marketing website, so it's important that you spend a good amount of time analyzing the market and understanding where the demand lies.
β’ Motivation of employees
If you plan to have a sales/content team on board, finding creative ways to motivate them can be a challenge. It's important that you're able to offer great incentives and a good work environment for your employees.
β’ Longer Sales Process
A game marketing website can be a big time and money investment for your customer, so it's important you plan and predict a longer conversion funnel and stay in communication with potential customers.
β’ Security Issues
With any Saas business, data loss and security issues may arise throughout your process of building your product. It's critical that you understand exactly what you're responsible for and how to avoid potential issues down the road.
β’ Isolation
Often times, as a game marketing website, you typically work alone and do not have much face-to-face interaction with other team members.
β’ Taxes
As a game marketing website, you typically pay self-employment taxes which can be quite high. It's important to understand what you will be paying in taxes each year so you can determine if the work you're taking on is worth it.
β’ No safety net
Typically, as a game marketing website, you do not receive a consistent pay-check and instead earn money based on your transactions each month. During the slow periods, you typically take away less since the job is based on commission. It's important to budget accordingly for the slow times.
β’ Stressful work
This line of work can be stressful for both you and your clients. This type of transaction is a significant financial decision for your client, so expectations are very high for you. Although this career path can be very rewarding, it also comes with its challenges and stressful moments.
β’ You may need to charge sales tax
If you are selling your products in various states, you may be required to charge sales tax. Although this may not impact your financials specifically, it can be a headache to create a process and procedure for this. To learn more about sales tax, check out this article
β’ Churn
In this business, customers can cancel their membership or subscription for your services - which can make revenue forecasting challenging and unpredictable. It's important to focus on your churn rates and trends so that you can prevent this as much as possible.
β’ Complex development process.
The development process for a game marketing website can be quite complex, which may cause delays and challenges when launching and growing your product.
β’ Complex maintenance
Your game marketing website will require a long-term investment due to the need for updates, bug fixes, and security vulnerabilities. It's important that you (or someone on your team) stays on top of this at all times.
β’ Be prepared to get out of your comfort zone!
Although this is exciting for some entrepreneurs, it can be a big challenge for others! You may find yourself in uncomfortable social and business situations, jumping into tasks and responsibilities you aren't familiar with, and pushing yourself as far as you can go!
β’ You might struggle financially (at first)!
If you bootstrap your business or choose not to pay yourself (or pay yourself less than you were making at your corporate job), this can be financially taxing. It's important to adjust your lifestyle and set a plan for yourself so you don't find yourself in a stressful situation.
β’ Minimal physical activity
A big part of starting a game marketing website is sitting at a desk for the majority of the day starting at your computer. Some may enjoy this, but others may struggle with sitting for the majority of your day without much physical activity.
β’ The job can be demanding
This is one of the major disadvantages starting a game marketing website. It's important to understand that you may need to make yourself available on a 24/7 basis.
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Search Interest
Let's take a look at the search trends for online casino game over the last year:
How To Name Your Game Marketing Website
It's important to find a catchy name for your game marketing website so that you can stand out in your space.
Here are some general tips to consider when naming your game marketing website
- Avoid hard to spell names: you want something easy to remember and easy to spell for your customers
- Conduct a search to see if others in the space have the same name
- Try not to pick a name that limits growth opportunities for your business (ie. if you decide to expand into other product lines)
- As soon as you have an idea (or ideas) of a few names that you love, register the domain name(s) as soon as possible!
Why is naming your game marketing website so important?
The name of your business will forever play a role in:
- Your customers first impression
- Your businesses identity
- The power behind the type of customer your brand attracts
- If you're memorable or not
It's important to verify that the domain name is available for your game marketing website.
You can search domain availability here:
Find a domain starting at $0.88
powered by Namecheap
Although .com names are the most common and easiest to remember, there are other options if your .com domain name is not available. Depending on your audience, it may not matter as much as you think.
It's also important to thoroughly check if social media handles are available.
As soon as you resonate with a name (or names), secure the domain and SM handles as soon as possible to ensure they don't get taken.
Here's some inspiration for naming your game marketing website:
- Gaming Trading Co check availability
- Teenage Interactive Group check availability
- FavouriteGame check availability
- The Person check availability
- Comfortable Cyberspace Trading Co check availability
- The Next Back check availability
- Crowded Croupier check availability
- Old check availability
- The Easy Gage check availability
- The Fourth check availability
- NextGame check availability
- StyleCasino check availability
- Next Spirited check availability
- Whole Gage Co check availability
- The Viewable Site check availability
- Rough Mettlesome check availability
- Virtual Digital check availability
- The Fastest Interactive check availability
- Outside Online check availability
- Mettlesome Place check availability
- Fastest Web check availability
- Soccer Group check availability
- Tiny Gambling Casino Spot check availability
- The Monte check availability
- Internet Trading Co check availability
- Empty check availability
- Foot Lobby Pro check availability
- Mettlesome Spot check availability
- The Little check availability
- Availahle Site Place check availability
- Sociological Internet check availability
- The Perfect check availability
- The Offline check availability
- IntellectualGame check availability
- Largest Hotel Trading Co check availability
- Web Spot check availability
- Native Sinkhole Pro check availability
- Only Punt Co check availability
- Easier Website check availability
- FifthGame check availability
- Dangerous Punt Spot check availability
- Favorite Spirited check availability
- The Old check availability
- Stadt House check availability
- Electronic Pro check availability
- Brave Spot check availability
- The Virtual check availability
- Tito Casino check availability
- Interactive Pro check availability
- Tiny check availability
- OfflineOnline check availability
- Elegant House Group check availability
- The Next check availability
- Stake Place check availability
- Line Gaming check availability
- LastGame check availability
- The Crowded Trouble check availability
- Famous Bookmaking check availability
- House Trading Co check availability
- Fourth Brave Spot check availability
- Gage Place check availability
- Typical check availability
- Free Interactive Group check availability
- The Editorial Cyberspace check availability
- Polite Online check availability
- Final Brave Trading Co check availability
- The Latest check availability
- The Nearby check availability
- Toledo Casino check availability
- Available Virtual check availability
- The Hour check availability
- Friendly check availability
- Former Trouble check availability
- The Going check availability
- Crowded Cassino check availability
- SumGame check availability
- Difficult Gage check availability
- Giant Lobby Group check availability
- Smaller Mettlesome Spot check availability
- Mosquito Casino check availability
- Tribal check availability
- Fearless Trading Co check availability
- Cassino Group check availability
- Alive Online check availability
- Hotel Co check availability
How To Create A Slogan For Your Game Marketing Website:
Slogans are a critical piece of your marketing and advertising strategy.
The role of your slogan is to help your customer understand the benefits of your product/service - so it's important to find a catchy and effective slogan name.
Often times, your slogan can even be more important than the name of your brand.
Here are 6 tips for creating a catchy slogan for your game marketing website:
1. Keep it short, simple and avoid difficult words
A great rule of thumb is that your slogan should be under 10 words. This will make it easy for your customer to understand and remember.
2. Tell what you do and focus on what makes you different
There are a few different ways you can incorporate what makes your business special in your slogan:
- Explain the target customer you are catering your services towards
- What problem do you solve?
- How do you make other people, clients, or your employer look good?
- Do you make people more successful? How?
3. Be consistent
Chances are, if you're coming up with a slogan, you may already have your business name, logo, mission, branding etc.
It's important to create a slogan that is consistent with all of the above.
4. Ensure the longevity of your slogan
Times are changing quickly, and so are businesses.
When coming up with your slogan, you may want to consider creating something that is timeless and won't just fade with new trends.
5. Consider your audience
When finding a catchy slogan name, you'll want to make sure that this resonates across your entire audience.
It's possible that your slogan could make complete sense to your audience in Europe, but may not resonate with your US audience.
6. Get feedback!
This is one of the easiest ways to know if your slogan will be perceived well, and a step that a lot of brands drop the ball on.
Ask friends, family, strangers, and most importantly, those that are considered to be in your target market.
Here's some inspiration for coming up with a slogan for your game marketing website:
- Games With Man
- Central Heating For Game.
- Don't Live A Little, Live A Game.
- Work Hard, Gamble Harder
- Game, Good.
- Site Of The Lobby
- Whatever You're Into, Get Into Online.
- Viewable Online, Built For You
- Famous Casino, Built For You
- Casino Keeps Them Coming Back
- From Nonpolitical To Governmental
- From Nonpolitical To Policy Making
- New Casino, Let's Start Today!
- Easy, Breezy, Beautiful Casino.
- From Little To Conspicuous
- Casino Wins Again.
- Work Hard, E Mail Harder
- Exceedingly Good Casino.
- Video Is What We Do
- Direct Of The Lobby
- Searchable Lines Are What We Do
- I'm A Secret Online Drinker.
- Safe Online, Better Results
- Don't Leave Your Game At Home.
- Accessible And Regrettable
- Casino Chews 'Em Up And Spits 'Em Out.
- Do You Have The Online Inside?
- Local And Motile
- Rate Of The Mettlesome
- Work Hard, Live Harder
- Just Like Casino Used To Make.
- First And Endorsed
- Think Different, Think Online.
- Casinos With Technology
- Double The Pleasure, Double The Game.
- Available Online - A New You
- First Mettlesome, Little Bet On
- Work Hard, Tie Harder
- It's Nothing But Online
- Let Your Casino Do The Walking.
- Turn Loose The Game.
- Famous Pokers Are What We Do
- Only The Crumbliest Flakiest Online.
- Whole Game, We Are Here
- There's Only One True Casino!
- Online, Fun For The Whole Family.
- The President Buys Game.
- Make It A Game Night.
- Space Of The Gambling Casino
- The Queen Buys Game.
- Editorial Rows Are What We Do
- Aim Of The Web
- Famous Chemin De Fers Are What We Do
- You've Got Questions. We've Got Game.
- Large Casino, Let's Get To Work
- Why Can't Everything Orange Be Online?
- Site Of The Internet
The Software Business Model
Tiered Pricing Model
You may want to consider having different pricing tiers to meet the needs of your customers.
With this model, there are typically 2 or more packages for a specific price that offer a fixed amount of features.
Each package should reflect the needs of the buyer persona - for example, a customer looking for a beginner package may have a very different use case than a customer looking for an enterprise package.
By offering different packages, you're able to target different audiences which will lead to increased conversions and revenue. Additionally, your chances of "upselling" existing customers are much higher as you have establisished trust with your customer and they're left wanting more once their use case evolves.
Per-User Model
Many game marketing website businesses charge a fixed rate per user on the account (either monthly or yearly). This can be especially lucrative if you're targeting larger businesses where the user number will be much higher.
This model is not always preferred as it can be challenging to forecast revenue accurately when the user count within businesses is fluctuating constantly.
Flat Rate Model
If you decide to adopt a flat-rate model, this would mean that you offer only one price for every customer. All customers are treated equally and have access to the same amount of features.
This model is not as common as tiered pricing because it only meets the needs of one buyer persona and can limit growth and you're able to have multiple revenue streams.
Per Feature Model
This model charges customers based on the # of features they need. Customers add features "a-la-carte" which will determine the overall price of the product.
This can be a lucrative model, however, the number of different use-cases customers need can become overwhelming (making the sales process longer) and it can be challenging to find a price structure that works well.
The business model you choose depends entirely on your needs and goals as a company. To find what works well for you, you may want to consider testing several models and conducting market research to see what competition in the space is doing.
The Freemium Model
Offering free trials to your platform is a great way to gain exposure for your business and potentially get new customers!
Finding the right game marketing website is a big deal for most people, so it can be important for customers to try a free version with limited features prior to making a big investment.
Once your customer reaches the limits of their free account, they're much more likely to invest in the premium version so they can gain access to all of the features your product offers.
There are a few different ways you can limit certain aspects of your product:
- Usage quotas: Storage limits or limiting the number of times they can utilize a feature
- Limited features: Only allowing your free user to utilize certain features vs all features - this is also a great way to upsell during the user's experience
- Limited support: Customer support can be time-consuming, by limiting the level of support to free users this is a great incentive for them to upgrade (and will save you a lot of time and money)!
Here's an example of SEO website, Sanity Check offering a free version to their website:
Learn more about starting a game marketing website:
Where to start?
-> Game marketing website plan
-> How to finance a game marketing website?
-> How much does it cost to start a game marketing website?
-> Pros and cons of a game marketing website
Need inspiration?
-> Other game marketing website success stories
-> Examples of established game marketing website
-> Marketing ideas for a game marketing website
Other resources
-> Profitability of a game marketing website
-> Game marketing website tips
π¬ How To Create A Game Marketing Website
How Much Does It Cost To Create A Game Marketing Website
If you are planning to create a game marketing website, the costs are relatively low. This, of course, depends on if you decide to start the business with lean expenses or bringing in a large team and spending more money.
Weβve outlined two common scenarios for βpre-openingβ costs of createing a game marketing website and outline the costs you should expect for each:
- The estimated minimum starting cost = $12
- The estimated maximum starting cost = $33,558
Startup Expenses: Average expenses incurred when starting a game marketing website. | Min Startup Costs: You plan to execute on your own. Youβre able to work from home with minimal costs. | Max Startup Costs: You have started with 1+ other team members. |
---|---|---|
Office Space Expenses | ||
Rent: This refers to the office space you use for your business and give money to the landlord. To minimize costs, you may want to consider starting your business from home or renting an office in a coworking space. | $0 | $5,750 |
Utility Costs For Office Space: Utility costs are the expense for all the services you use in your office, including electricity, gas, fuels, telephone, water, sewerage, etc. | $0 | $1,150 |
WiFi & Internet: Whether you work from home or in an office space, WiFi is essential. Although the cost is minimal in most cases, it should be appropriately budgeted for each month! | $0 | $100 |
Total Office Space Expenses | $0 (min) | $7,000 (max) |
App Creation Costs | ||
App Development: App development is the process of creating software intended to run on a mobile device.In addition to coding, there are other elements to consider:- design- back end development- security- architecture- testingMany businesses hire an expert that has the technical knowledge to design and develop an app.Depending on the scope of your project, the cost can vary. Some business owners learn to code on their own to minimize these costs, and others, hire a developer to work for them part-time or full-time. | $1,000 | $20,000 |
Apple Developer Program: To submit your app to the app store, you will need to enroll in the apple developer program. This costs $99/year. | $99 | $99 |
Total App Creation Costs | $1,099 (min) | $20,099 (max) |
Software Expenses | ||
Design Programs & Software: These programs might include the Adobe family of design tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and others. This is typically a monthly subscription ranging from $10-$50/mo. | $0 | $50 |
Email marketing tool: If you plan to grow your email list and email marketing efforts, you may want to consider investing in an email marketing platform (ie. Klaviyo, MailChimp). We put together a detailed guide on all of the email marketing tools out there + the pricing models for each one here. | $0 | $100 |
IT Support: IT support installs and configures hardware and software and solves any technical issues that may arise.IT support can be used internally or for your customers experiencing issues with your product/service.There are a variety of tools and software you can use to help with any technical issues you or your customers are experiencing. This is a great option for businesses that do not have the means to hire a team of professionals. | $150 | $2,000 |
Accounting & Invoicing Software: It's important to have an accounting system and process in place to manage financials, reporting, planning and tax preparation. Here are the 30 best accounting tools for small businesses. | $0 | $50 |
CRM Software: CRM (customer relationship management) software system is used to track and analyze your companyβs interactions with clients and prospects. Although this is not a necessary tool to have for your business, implementing this, in the beginning, may set your business up for success and save you valuable time. | $12 | $300 |
Project Management Software: You may want to consider using a project management and collaboration tool to organize your day-to-day. This can also be very beneficial if you have a larger team and want to keep track of everyones tasks and productivity. For a full list of project management tools, check out this full list here. | $0 | $25 |
Internal Communication Tool: If you plan to have multiple members on your team, you may want to consider an instant message tool such as Slack or Telegram. The cost is usually billed per month (approx $5/user/month) or there are freemium versions available on many platforms. | $0 | $20 |
Social Media Management Tools: If you plan to do social media marketing for your game marketing website, you should consider investing in a social media automation or publishing tool. This will save you time and allow you to track performance and engagement for your posts. Here is a list of 28 best social media tools for your small business. | $0 | $50 |
File Hosting Service: It's important to make sure the information for your game marketing website is stored and protected should something happen to your computer or hard drive. The cost for this is affordable and depends on how much data you need to store. To learn more about the different options and pricing on the market, check out this article. | $0 | $299 |
Total Software Expenses | $162 (min) | $2,894 (max) |
Advertising & Marketing Costs | ||
Business Cards: A game marketing website involves quite a bit of customer interaction, whether that is attending tradeshows, sales calls or simply having face to face interaction with prospective clients. Business cards are a great way to stay front of mind with your clients. | $0 | $50 |
Customer Research & Surveys: Many game marketing website's conduct industry and consumer research prior to starting their business. Often times, you need to pay for this data or hire a market research firm to help you in this process. | $0 | $300 |
Affiliate Marketing Commission & Fees: If you want to increase revenue for your game marketing website, affiliate marketing is a great way to promote your product to a new audience. When determining affiliate commission rates you will offer, you will want to take into account the price and margin for your product to ensure affiliate marketing is worth it for your business. According to Monitor Backlinks, the average affiliate commission rate should be somewhere between 5% to 30%. To learn more about how to set commission rates, check out this article.. | $0 | $250 |
Influencer Marketing: Partnering with like-minded influencers is one of the most effective ways to grow your social media presence. Many small businesses simply gift a free item in exchange for an influencer post, or pay the influencer directly. | $0 | $750 |
Press: If your business and story is unique enough, press and media attention may come to you, but odds are, you may need to do your own outreach and budget for this. We put together a guide here that discusses different press opportunities (both free and paid). | $0 | $500 |
Google Ads: With Google Ads you have the ability to control how much you spend by simply setting a monthly budget cap. Additionally, with these ads you only pay for results, such as clicks to your website or phone calls! It's okay to start with a small budget at first and make changes accordingly if you see valuable returns. | $0 | $300 |
Facebook & Instagram Ads: With Facebook and Instagram ads, you set your budget and pay for the actions you want (whether that be impressions, conversions, etc).You can learn more about pricing based on your impressions here. | $0 | $350 |
Total Advertising & Marketing Costs | $0 (min) | $2,500 (max) |
Website Costs | ||
Domain Name: Your domain name is the URL and name of your website - this is how internet users find you and your website.Domain names are extremely important and should match your company name and brand. This makes it easier for customers to remember you and return to your website. | $12 | $200 |
Business Email Hosting Service: An email hosting runs a dedicated email server. Once you have your domain name, you can set up email accounts for each user on your team. The most common email hosts are G Suite and Microsoft 365 Suite. The number of email accounts you set up will determine the monthly cost breakdown. | $1 | $15 |
Total Website Costs | $13 (min) | $215 (max) |
Training & Education Expenses | ||
Professional Training: If you plan to have employees for your game marketing website, training can be time consuming and take you away from growing your business. You may want to consider hiring a professional trainer to onboard your team and put together a training manual with all processes and procedures. | $0 | $850 |
Total Training & Education Expenses | $0 (min) | $850 (max) |
Total Starting Costs | $12 (min) | $33,558 (max) |
Raising Money For Your Game Marketing Website
Here are the most common ways to raise money for your game marketing website:
Bootstrapping
You may not need funding for your game marketing website.
In fact, many entrepreneurs take this approach when starting their own business, whether they have a little amount of cash or a substantial amount to get started.
So what exactly does the term "bootstrapping" mean?
This method essentially refers to self-funding your businesswithout external help or capital and reinvesting your earnings back into the business**
Bootstrapping means building your company from the ground up with your own, or your loved ones, personal savings and reinvesting all earnings back into the business
Here are some tips to consider when bootstrapping your business:
- Use your savings as your capital - one of the best ways to bootstrap your business is to collect your savings and use them as startup capital. This will also help you avoid using your personal or business credit cards when getting started.
- Determine exactly how much capital you need and how much capital you have to get your business off the ground. Generally, when bootstrapping your business, you may want to consider starting a business that involves less startup capital.
- Consider starting a business that will generate immediate returns so you can put money back into the business
- Be as lean as possible - this refers to cutting down expenses as much as possible, such as payroll, fancy software tools, unnecessary travel, renting an office, etc
- Consider outsourcing instead of hiring - in the beginning, you may not need to hire someone permanently to help run your business. It tends to be much less expensive to outsource work to a freelancer and hire someone permanently down the road!
Want to learn more about bootstrapping your business? Check out this article
Business Accelerator
Accelerators are organizations that offer a range of support and funding opportunities for startups.
Typically, this means they help enroll startups in programs that offer mentorship, office space, and resources to grow the business.
These programs are typically 3-4 months and involve intense education and mentorship - most importantly, the startups also offered capital and investment in return for equity.
Here are some of the most popular and well-known startup accelerators in the U.S:
Here are some tips on how to get into an accelerator program:
- Have an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) in place
- Make sure you have actual customers and an overview of how your business is doing (revenue, site traffic, growth metrics)
- Build a team
- Crush your interview - this is a critical piece in the process. Know your business and metrics inside out and most importantly, be able to portray what makes it so unique.
Crowdfunding
For your game marketing website, a common way to raise money is through crowdfunding.
So, what does it mean to crowdfund your small business?
Crowdfunding refers to funding a project through many individual investors.
Here are some items to keep in mind when planning your campaign:
- Sell more than just your product. Sell your passion, your vision, and your story.
- Be real. Give your community honest details about your product.
- Treat your audience as your friends (not just potential customers)
- Put together a great presentation - it will attract people quicker.
To launch a successful crowdfunding campaign, you first need to select the type of crowdfunding platform to host your campaign.
Here are the most popular crowdfunding platforms to raise money on:
Kickstarter
Funding platform for creative projects.
- Pricing: Freemium
- Twitter: @kickstarter
- Website: kickstarter.com
Businesses using Kickstarter:
90 successful businesses are using Kickstarter β
Indiegogo
Crowdfunding platform for innovations in tech and design.
- Pricing: Freemium
- Twitter: @Indiegogo
- Website: indiegogo.com
Businesses using Indiegogo:
34 successful businesses are using Indiegogo β
StartEngine
Crowdfunding platform that has helped more than 350 companies raise $175M+ from a community of over 250,000 prospective investors.
- Pricing: Free
- Twitter: @StartEngineLA
- Website: startengine.com
Businesses using StartEngine:
We connected with one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns, Photobooth Supply Co, and asked founder, Brandon Wong to give us some insight on his strategy:
Product first, campaign second
So with all of those positive benefits of the platform figured out, we wanted to make sure we had the product itself in the right place before we launched.
Weβve been working on Salsa for a long time now and wouldnβt have felt comfortable revealing the ability to pay for it until we hit a very important milestone. We had a final prototype.
Doing all of the sourcing and actual production is secondaryβthere was absolutely no way we could have gone public without people being able to see real photos (and touch in person) a functioning prototype.
This meant that we had to do all of the development before we ever saw a cent.
Finding backers in the real world
We launched the product at our annual Booth Summit, which is a convention for photobooth owners to get together and learn from experts in the field. Launching a product in a receptive environment is generally considered to be a good idea. The same was definitely true for us!
We had a crowd of people who had just told us they were dedicated to growing their businessβ¦ and we had the chance to offer them a way to do just that. I really canβt emphasize enough how important it is to make products that matter for people who will care about them.
This opportunity to see the product in real life was an essential component for our launch, but it might not be the same for you. I think it just shows how essential having a great prototype is. People love to touch and feel what theyβre buying, if youβre talking about something physicalβ¦ you should be able to show a prototype before you ask for money.
Building excitement with even the smallest backers.
We knew that we wanted to have a ton of incentives for early backers so that theyβd be rewarded for taking a leap of faith on a new photobooth.
Weβre obviously not making a whole lot of money on that first $1999 tier. But it enabled people to be part of something fun.
Every $1999 backer is always going to be able to say, not just that they got a great deal, but that they were one of the first to get on board. It means a lot more than a discount code expiringβjust look at how frustrated people are on Twitter when a limited stock of rewards is secretly gobbled up.
Kickstarter doesnβt reveal the names of backers, but it humanizes them. And it just adds to the fun of getting your own spot! Even for someone backing now, theyβre able to say that they were an early adopter.
Delivering on our promise
One of the most common critiques of Kickstarter items is that they either never show up or that they take years. I wanted to make sure that our timeline was easy to deliver and also reasonable.
Nobody deserves to wait two years for your product after they pay for it. I felt like we needed to offer a much quicker turnaround than that. We launched on Black Friday 2018 with an estimated delivery of April 2019.
Thatβs under 6 months and much lower than the average Kickstarter! The most important thing is that we will be able to meet that timeline. You canβt go around promising delivery dates and missing them, this isnβt a consumer product.
Anytime youβre working with the events industry you have to be very transparent and up front about timelines. A bride who books a photobooth needs it to show up on her wedding day. Itβs non-negotiable!
VC Funding
VC funding is a traditional and long process, but an effective way to raise money for your business.
The term "VC funding" refers to venture capital firms investing in businesses in exchange for equity.
The VC's (venture capitalists) are an individual or small group investing in your business and typically require substantial ownership of the business, with the hope of seeing a return on their investment.
VC's are typically the best approach for businesses with high startup costs - where it would be very difficult to raise the money on your own or through a loan.
When deciding whether to take this approach, it's important that you have a few things in place first, and know what you're getting yourself into:
Determine if your business is ready
Having an idea is not enough to get VC funding.
Typically, VC's will check to make sure you have these things in place prior to closing any deal:
- An MVP (Minimal Viable Product)
- A founding team with all proper documents in place (articles of organization, business formation)
- A validated idea with actual customers buying your product/service
Get everything in place and build a pitch deck
A VC individual or firm will be expecting a fine-tuned presentation that gives an overview of your business.
Here's what you should consider including in your pitch deck:
- Management team, their previous experience + current roles in the business
- Market challenge and solution
- Company financials - including a P&L statement, cash flow statement, and projections
- Company progress
- Investment amount - how much do you need and why?
Research the right VC to fund your business
Research the types of VC investors out there and what niche they focus on.
Then, put together a list of target VC's you want to approach and your strategy around setting up meetings.
Be sure you have everything in place (as discussed above) before setting up any meeting!
Make sure the terms and expectations are right for your business
Committing to VC funding is a big deal and a decision that should not be made lightly.
Although the money and experience from VC's can help your business quickly grow, you are also giving away a stake in the company, and the money comes with strings attached.
Be sure you do your due diligence in finding the right investor - one that truly believes in the growth and success of your business.
What Skills Do I Need To Succeed In Createing A Game Marketing Website?
As a game marketing website, there are several essential skills and characteristics that are important to identify prior to starting your business.
Letβs look at these skills in more detail so you can identify what you need to succeed in your day-to-day business operations:
Resarch and Writing Skills
Research and writing skills are critical when createing a game marketing website. Here's what this looks like:
- Basic computer & technology skills (Microsoft office or Google sheets/docs knowledge, data input, and proficiency in typing)
- Creativity & originality in your work and approach
- Great communication skills and ability to meet deadlines
- Understanding of SEO
Other skills that businesses find valuable include digital marketing skills, basic web design, and accounting abilities. Some employers may also look for a game marketing website that has a bachelor's degree or formal education.
Additionally, you may want to consider putting together a portfolio of past work and experience. This includes samples of writing/research pieces, from school projects to internship work to career experience.
Coding Skills
Here are some critical skills you will need to start your game marketing website:
- Language acquisition: Common languages include Java, Ruby, Python, HTML)
- Creative thinking: Ability to develop innovative solutions and think outside the box
- Analytical skills: Ability to troubleshoot issues quickly and efficiently
- Attention to detail: Precise and detailed in the approach so that little to no errors arise
- Calm & Collective: Critical that you are able to stay patient when challenges arise
- Communication skills: The ability to explain your approach in a clear and concise way that all team members can understand.
To see more skills and qualities people look for in a game marketing website, check out this article.
Design Skills
Whether you are the one designing the product or the decision-maker for the product, an eye for design is critical when createing a game marketing website. Here's what this looks like:
- Creative Thinking - the ability to develop or design different products or ideas
- Visualization - being able to imagine or visualize how the product will look
- Articulation - the ability to communicate what the design will look like and how it will be executed
- Detail-oriented - paying close attention to all of the small pieces when designing or working on a project
- Some technical skills - knowledge of the design software you are using to create the product or build prototypes.
Other skills that may be valuable to have when createing a game marketing website include digital marketing skills, branding experience, and basic business knowledge.
Business Savvy Skills
When createing a game marketing website, there are a few fundamental business skills you will want to learn in order to be successful:
- Leadership and training skills: A great team starts with YOU. Make sure you have all company policies and training procedures in place prior to hiring your team
- Decisive and self-confident: Over the course of your career, you will need decisions that could impact your business significantly. It's important you are able to think clearly and rationally about these decisions.
- Ability to understand the financials: You don't need to be an accountant, but it is important that you are able to clearly understand and define metrics such as expenses, revenue, profit, margins, COGS, etc.
- Strategic Thinking: Setting clear goals and benchmarks, identifying opportunities, risks. Ability to effectively communicate these insights to your team.
These are a few of many business savvy skills you should have (or work on) when createing a game marketing website.
For a full list, check out this article here.
*Negotiation Skills
The ability to negotiate on behalf of your client will be an essential part of your every day job.
This is one of the most important qualities you can have when starting a game marketing website, so it's important you practice and perfect these skills.
Here's what this looks like:
- Ability to analyze all parts of the deal: your biggest power is to understand and analyze all parts of the deal for your client, choose when to walk away, and know to what lengths you can negotiate a deal.
- Building rapport: This is key in the game marketing website. You are much likely to reach an agreement and favorable terms if you spend just a few moments getting to know each other before talking about the deal at stake.
- Be diplomatic: Being in control of any situation presented and showing intention with your words are key qualities for someone in this line of work. This includes asking good questions and listening actively.
Becoming a good negotiator does not happen overnight, but as long as you are persistent with practicing these skills and putting them into action, you will see growth day by day!
Customer Service Skills
Friendly communication with customers and the ability to address service issues is a critical part of the job.
Here are some customer service skills you may want to consider prior to createing a game marketing website:
- Professionalism: The way you act, present yourself, and respond to situations all leave an impression on your customer. It's important to stay professional at all times when handling customer requests or issues.
- Problem-solving: When issues arise, it's important that you are able to think quick on your feet and address the situation with a calm and clear solution
- Friendly-manner: This is an obvious one, but customers truly appreciate someone that can respond in a quick, efficient, and friendly manner.
- Proficient in writing: These skills include the ability to write well-crafted emails, service tickets, and any other programs used by the business (ie. chat functions, SMS texting)
Advice For Createing A Game Marketing Website
We've interviewed thousands of successful founders at Starter Story and asked what advice they would give to entrepreneurs who are just getting started.
Here's the best advice we discovered for createing a game marketing website:
Arjun Patel, founder of onlinecasinoguide.in ($10K/month):
SEO and Affiliation take time. But with dedication and patience, it will eventually work.
Read the full interview β
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Write a Business Plan
Writing a business plan from the start is critical for the success of your game marketing website.
Why?
Because this allows you to roadmap exactly what you do, what your overall structure will look like, and where you want to be in the future.
For many entrepreneurs, writing out the business plan helps validate their idea and decide whether or not they should move forward with starting the business.
You may want to consider expanding upon these sections in your business plan:
- Executive Summary: Brief outline of your product, the market, and growth opportunities
- Overviews and Objectives: Overview of your business, target customers, and what you need to run your business
- Products and Services: Specifics on the products and services your business will provide
- Market Opportunities: Analysis of customer demographics, buyer habits and if your product is in demand
- Marketing: Outline of your marketing plan and how you plan to differentiate yourself from other customers
- Competitive analysis: Analysis of your competition and the strengths and weaknesses therein
- Operations: Hierarchal structure of the company and what it will take to run the business on the day-to-day
- Leadership Team: Detailing roles and responsibilities of each manager based on their specific skill-set
- Financial Analysis Understanding of all expenses, operating budgets, and projections for the future.
Learn more about how to write a business plan here
Determine Which Business Bank Account You Need
There are hundreds of banks out there, and it can be overwhelming to find one that's right for your business.
Here are some factors you may want to consider:
- Location - Is your bank close enough that you can easily make deposits or get cash?
- Low Fees - Make sure to understand any and all fees associated with setting up and maintaining your bank account. Ask for a list - banks usually try to keep this hidden and in the fine print.
- Online Banking Services - Make sure you can easily navigate through your online portal and you have easy access to everything you need.
- Line of Credit - What do your options look like (even if you don't need this now, you may need this down the road).
- Every bank has something that differentiates them from the rest, so make sure whatever that is applied to your needs and values.
Check out this list of the 13 Best Banks for Small Business in 2020 and what makes them so unique.
Setting Up Your Game Marketing Website (Formation and Legal)
When it comes to setting up your business, you may find yourself in a place where you have to make some financial and legal decisions.
The first thing you'll want to decide on is whether you want to be an LLC, S-Corp, or C-Corp.
These three options are found to be the most common when starting a small business, and all serve to protect your personal assets and also provide you with certain tax benefits.
- LLC: All income and expenses from the business are reported on the LLC personal income tax return.
- S corp: Owners pay themselves salaries + receive dividends from profits.
- C Corp: C Corps are separately taxable entities that file a corporate tax return (Form 1120). No income tax is paid at the corporate level and any tax due is paid at the owners individual expense.
Depending on where you're conducting business, you'll also want to consider securing the proper permits, licenses and liability insurance.
Learn more about securing the right permits and licenses β
Need to start an LLC? Create an LLC in minutes with ZenBusiness.
How Do I Pay Myself As A Small Business Owner?
Most entrepreneurs start a business to do something they love- but at the end of the day, you still have bills to pay (maybe now more than ever).
But it's important to strike the right balance - if you pay yourself too much, you could be putting your business at risk.
There are two common ways to pay yourself as a business owner:
1. Owner's Draw
Many entrepreneurs pay themselves through an owner's draw. This means that you are technically sean as "self-employed" through the eyes of the IRS and are not paid through regular wages.
At the point that you collect money from the draw, taxes typically are not taken out - so make sure you are prepared to pay these taxes once you file your individual return.
As an owner who takes a draw, you can legally take out as much as you want from your equity.
This type of compensation is suited for Sole props, LLCs, and partnerships. If youβre an S corp, you can pay yourself through both a salary and draw if you choose.
2. Salary
If you decide to pay yourself a salary, you will receive a set and recurring amount. This will be taxed by the federal government and the state you reside in.
The reality is that it can be really complicated to set your own salary, so we have some tips for you to consider:
- Take out a reasonable amount that allows you to live comfortably but also sets your business up for success
- Consider the number of hours you are working weekly + the type of duties you are performing.
- Set your salary based on your industry-standard, location, and profits (or projected profits)
- Look at your P&L statement: Deduct your own pay from that amount. This is important so you can first tackle important business expenses, and then pay yourself from the amount leftover.
- Pick a payroll schedule (and stick to it)! In the US, it's most common to pay yourself and employees twice a month.
To learn more about how to pay yourself and what is a reasonable amount, check out this article.
How To Price Your Online Casino Game
One of the most challenging aspects to createing a game marketing website is determining how much to charge for your online casino game.
When businesses under-price their product, this can be extremely detrimental to their bottom line and reputation.
Often times, businesses under-price their products to drive demand and volume, but that last thing you want is for customers to view your product/service as "cheap." Additionally, this can have a big impact on the type of customer you attract, which can be difficult to recover from.
On the other hand, when businesses over-price, this tends to be just as damaging to the business.
When customers buy, it's likely that they will explore the internet and look at other competitors to ensure they're getting the best value + deal. This is why it's so important that you research your competition and understand where you land in the marketplace.
Here are some factors to consider when pricing your product:
Understand your customer
It's important that out of the gates, you identify the type of customer you want to attract and how much they're willing to pay for your service. One great way to do this is by surveying your customers. Here are some important items you'll want to takeaway:
- Customer demographic: Age, gender, location, etc.
- Buying habits of your customer: What they buy + when they buy
- Level of price sensitivity with your customer
All of these segments will help you identify the type of customer you're attracting and how to price your product accordingly.
Understand your costs
When pricing your online casino game, it's critical that you first identify all of your costs and consequently mark up your online casino game so you can factor in a profit.
The actual cost of your online casino game may include things like:
- The actual cost to make the product (ie. raw materials, supplies, manufacturer).
- Shipping + overhead fees
- Rent
- Operating costs to run your business
You may want to consider creating a spreadsheet with every single expense involved in operating/owning your business. This will give you an idea as to what you need to generate in order to at the very least, break-even and will help you price your products to factor in a profit.
Create revenue goals
When determining the price of your online casino game, you'll want to create goals for revenue + how much profit you want your game marketing website to make.
This process is simpler than you may think:
- Think about your breakeven cost (by completing the above step).
- Create a revenue goal based on your break-even cost
- Evaluate the # of items you plan to sell in a given period (make sure this is a realistic number)
- Divide your revenue goal by the number of items you plan to sell
This figure will help determine your estimated price per product in order to meet your revenue goals.
Evaluate your competition
The last piece in determining how to price your online casino game is by simply looking at your competition.
The best way to do this is by finding like-minded businesses that offer product(s) with similar perceived value. Then, you can compare prices of the different businesses and determine where your online casino game fits best in the marketplace.
All of these factors play an equal part in pricing your online casino game, so it's important you evaluate each one individually to come up with an accurate price that will help optimize your business from the start.
Gross Margin Calculator: How to Calculate The Gross Margin For Your Online Casino Game
Our calculator is designed to be simple and easy to use.
The goal is to help you set realistic expectations and understand what is considered a healthy gross margin for your game marketing website.
Calculate your gross margin and profit margin here.
What Type Of Customers Will Buy Your Online Casino Game
It's important to first establish who you will be selling to, whether it's to businesses or consumers.
Typically, in this industry, products are sold to B2C markets (business-to-consumer).
Let's take a look at what this means for your game marketing website:
B2C (or business to consumer) is a transaction where businesses sell their products or services to the consumer directly.
In this market, consumer behavior is the primary driver for your business decisions - so it's important that you truly identify who your customer is, and what their buyer habits are when building your product/service.
The advantage
B2C is that you are able to cast a very wide net when targeting your customers. Your product may interest a large number of consumers or a specific niche.
The disadvantage
B2C is that consumers hold all the power - so if your website is not the most user friendly, or does not rank in the top search results on Google, chances are, your customer is going to shop elsewhere.
When building your game marketing website, it's critical that you hone in on who your target audience is, and why they need your product over your competition.
Here are some items to consider when identifying your buyer persona:
SourceBuilding an MVP (Minimal Viable Product)
When building a game marketing website, it's critical that you first validate your product/service rather than rushing to build it right away.
This could save you months, if not years of building the wrong product/service.
If you're hoping to decrease any sort of risk that comes with launching your game marketing website, designing a prototype can be a great way to de-risk your situation.
The point of your online casino game prototype is that it doesn't have to be perfect.
In the beginning stages, it doesn't matter how rough V1 of your prototype is, it's more important to just get started and you can always refine from there based on feedback from your network and most importantly your customers.
How To Build A MVP
Here are several different ways of building a prototype/MVP:
- Start by building a landing page to see if customers actually need your product and if they are willing to pay for it
- Build a very basic version of your idea and ask for immediate feedback from potential customers
- Present a problem and solution via Facebook/Instagram Ads and see what the response is like
Jan Kovac, founder of Casino Guru dives deep into the process of designing and prototyping their product:
Our product is a website. The process of designing and developing it was very similar to designing and developing any website or an information system. As both I and the other main founder were software developers, this part was pretty straightforward for us. However, we still did some things pretty right and some things pretty wrong.
The funny part about any SEO-based business is that you canβt really make decent planning. Do you plan to improve some parts of your website and grow? Well, good luck with that, almighty G can have completely different plans for you.
What we made right was a decision to create a system that models all the relations and information about online casinos as structured data. As an example: almost every online casino has a list of countries from which it doesnβt allow residents to play. To capture this information we have created a database table casino_restricted_country and fill it with 1 record for every casino and every country that is on its restricted list.
This helped us to separate the information alone from the way how it is displayed on our website to our visitors. As a result, we have been very flexible and agile in changing how our website looks and works. Most of the changes are changes in the software and not in the data. If we would have chosen an HTML-per-page-based system like WordPress we would have been much much less flexible.
On the other hand, creating such a system right required significant analytical skills and expertise and a lot of software development. I consider myself a very experienced software analyst and without this experience, there are many analytical traps you can fall into (like excessive generalization when not needed, etc.).
Despite all the software skills and experience, it took us 10 months of working some afternoons and some weekends from idea to launch. So it wasnβt without a cost, because the delay in launch put us at risk of exhausting our will to continue this project before it started making money.
What we actually made wrong was the first design of our website. It was quite poor in terms of informativeness and it wasnβt very visually appealing neither. Neither I nor the other founder arenβt web designers and didnβt have the right knowledge of what is a real user experience about. Fortunately, this was about to change. And the design flexibility due to the structured data approach saved us when overcoming design changes.
How To Find The Right Developer For Your Game Marketing Website
If you (or others on your team) don't have the necessary coding/design skills to build the product on your own, finding the right developer for your game marketing website is a critical piece to bringing your idea to life.
Prior to hiring someone, you'll want to:
- Have a very clear understanding of what your product (or MVP) will look like
- Understand what the details of the user experience will look like (pages, how users sign up, backend administrative details, billing, reports etc). It may help to draw out the prototype and UX experience on a design platform such as Sketch
- Understand what features you want to implement now and even those in the future
- Understand the costs and time associated with hiring a developer and set a budget (more on that below)
Here are some ways you can find a developer:
Arielle Frank, founder of Clout Collective talks about her experiences and lessons learned when hiring a developer as a non-technical founder:
My first attempt to find a developer was a massive failure. I was basically screaming to be taken advantage of with my lack of technical knowledge and a heart full of hope. I signed an extremely unfavorable contract with a developer based in Morocco who claimed to offer βdiscountedβ development services in exchange for equity in the company. By βdiscountedβ I mean that it would cost only $40K to build the MVP. At the time I had no frame of reference for whether or not this was normal and justified it to myself.
Luckily, after a lot more internet sleuthing, I found my current developer, Adeva. Working with Adeva was the opposite experience of my initial encounter in every way. At $8K, Adevaβs quote for my MVP was literally 1/5th the cost of the original developer! I decided to save money on a front-end designer for V1 by using a template and designing things where I could in Figma.
I was forced to figure out many of the details and features of the platform upfront since Adeva couldnβt give me a quote without detailed user stories.
When building out the prospective features, I tried to focus on the end result and work backward from there.
For example, the end goal was for a content creator to be able to read a review and know whether or not they want to collaborate with a specific brand. I used this goal to inform the questions I collected for the reviews and the best way to display this info. During this phase, I also relied heavily on my beta testers for feedback about which info would be the most useful for them.
Itβs tempting to add a bunch of cool, slick features when youβre building your product, but my brilliant mentor encouraged me to focus on doing one thing extremely well.
π How To Launch Your Game Marketing Website
Build A Website
Building a website is imperative when launching your business, and with the right tools in place, this can be a simple task to check off the list (without having to hire someone).
- Pick a domain name that's easy to remember and easy to type
- Choose a Web Hosting Plan (ie. Shopify, Squarespace)
- Make sure you choose the right theme and design
- Implement the proper page structure (ie. about page, contact page, pricing etc)
To learn more about how to build a stellar website with little stress, we give you all the details on this step-by-step guide.
Web Design
Once you have chosen the domain, web hosting, and platform, it's time to get started with the design phase.
Themes are a great way to produce the fundamental style and identity of your website - this includes everything from your font design to your blog post styles.
One of the best ways to get started is to simply explore the various themes (free or paid depending on what you're looking for) and test them on your site.
If web-design really isn't in the cards for you, you may want to consider outsourcing a web designer to help bring your vision and brand to life.
Launch Strategies For Your Game Marketing Website
There are various different ways you can launch your game marketing website successfully.
Here are a few different strategies to get customers excited about your game marketing website.
- Build hype with a landing page: you can effectively do this through waiting lists, discounts, countdown timer etc
- Create a teaser video: even just a 30 second video is a great way to exposure for your game marketing website, and possibly even go viral
- Reach out to influencers: The right influencer for your product has the ability to reach your audience with just one post, and because of their loyal following, this could lead to a big return for you.
- Get Press: Whether you plan a PR stunt or get exposure through a popular news outlet, this is a great way to attract initial customers
- Launch on popular sites: A great way to get buzz about your game marketing website is to submit your launch to popular startup sites.
Here are a few popular sites to launch on:
Learn more about how to launch your business successfully β here
Jan Kovac, founder of Casino Guru dives deep into the process of launching the business:
At some point, I have decided to quit my SW engineer job and to go full-time on the casino.guru. Our final push took several weeks and at the end of April 2016, the product went live.
Note: this is a design, not an actual website. I havenβt found a website screenshot from the time
To be honest the launch of any product with SEO as the main channel isnβt any spectacular event. You deploy the system with search engine robots allowed in, set up some mandatory tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics, check whether everything works, and continue working on improving your product.
It may take days to weeks until the first real visitor lands on your website and months to years until your product starts getting decent traffic.
That was actually our case as well. To put some numbers on the table, 6 months after our product launch we were still getting only 50 organic visitors/week.
π± How To Grow Your Game Marketing Website
Consider Working With Instagram Influencers
Partnering with like-minded influencers (within your industry) is one of the most effective ways to grow your social media organically.
Industry influencers already have an established and loyal following. With one post, your product immediately establishes a connection with a brand new audience. It's that powerful.
When finding influencers to promote your product, do your research and make sure that their following will actually be interested in your product.
It's easy to be blinded by any influencer with a huge following, but if those followers don't resonate with your product, there may not be any value there... so make sure you do your research!
Evan Marshall, founder of Plain Jane discusses how "micro-influencers" have impacted his business:
Influencer marketing has been huge for us. Our approach is pretty simple. We give out samples of our products and ask people to post about us on social media aka a micro-influencer strategy.
We really like this approach because we get authentic stories and content. We cannot really control the messaging so the product has to speak for itself. We donβt really take product photos at all. Our customers take the photos and we ask to reuse them.
With any influencer strategy, you have to be very sure youβre targeting the right people and engaging with them. You can make sure youβre targeting the right influencers by looking through their posts and then looking through the profiles of their engaged followers.
It takes more time per influencer but the payoff is certainly worth it. Make sure their followers look like your existing customers.
It takes a ton of time and work to grow a social media following this way but itβs worth it. Other accounts have tried to grow themselves through botting or other manipulations. As a CBD company, we didnβt want to give Instagram any reason to shutdown our account so weβve done everything through content and real engagement. Itβs not magic to make this happen. You just have to post consistently and then reply or like every single comment you get. It takes months but it works
Improve your SEO
SEO is not just about driving traffic to your site, it's about driving the RIGHT traffic to your site, and ultimately, converting leads into customers.
One of the most important aspects of SEO is understanding what your customers are searching for, otherwise known as "keyword research."
Here are some tools that can help you choose the right keywords for your game marketing website.
- Google Ads Keyword Planner invaluable for discovering search trends.
- Google Search Console is very helpful once your website is up as it shows you what words/phrases are generating traffic.
- Ahrefs and SEMRush are paid tools that allow you to look at results of your competitor's website.
Publish Great Content
Finding keywords is an important piece of the puzzle, but Google also ranks your site based on the actual content you produce, as this is what your customers are reading and engaging with.
There are various different "forms" of content that you may want to consider diversifying on your sites, such as blog posts, articles, studies, and videos.
So let's discuss what google considers "good content:"
- Length - This will vary depending on the page, however, generally having a sufficient amount of content helps search engines recognize that your site is a good source for a specific topic
- Engagement - The longer people stay on your website to read your content, the higher Google will rank your website. It's important to have informative and "thick" content that keeps people reading
- Avoid Duplicating Content - Google will recognize this and may consider your content to have low value
- Ensure pages load quickly - This will also help with engagement and time spent on your website
- Shareability - Create content that people want to share, and is easy for them to share, especially to their social media accounts (ie. "click to tweet" is a great example of this).
Another element of creating good content is creating consistent content.
If (and hopefully you are) publishing content frequently, it's important to stick to a schedule - this helps build brand trust and easy user experience with your customers.
Planning out your content with a content calendar is key to staying consistent.
Here are a few great content calendar tools that can help you:
Backlinks
Backlinks are an important piece to SEO, as they allow for other websites to link to your content.
Search engines recognize that other sites are essentially "verifying" your content and essentially rank you higher because of this.
Of course, some links are more valuable than others and can affect your site in different ways.
For example, if a highly valuable and credible site like the New York Times links to a page on your website, this could be remarkable from an SEO perspective.
Aside from organically getting mentioned from other sites, there are other ways that you can increase and earn backlinks:
- Create infographics with relevant data that people want to share
- Promote your content on different sites/look into "guest blogging"
- Contact influencers/journalists/bloggers and ask them to mention you!
- Write testimonials for other sites in exchange for a backlink
- Leverage existing business relationships
Learn more about the fundamentals of SEO β here and check out Neil Patel's 3 Powerful SEO Tips below
Build A Blog
One of the most effective ways to build brand awareness and grow your business is through consistently blogging.
We've outlined some useful tips for you to consider when creating content:
Consistency and Quantity
Quality is important, but it should be the standard for any content you publish.
Whatβs more important is consistency and quantity.
Consistency is as simple as committing to publishing and sharing a certain number of posts per week. For me, thatβs three per week right now.
This kind of commitment is key, because one day, a random post will blow up, and you will have never expected it.
Oversaturation
The easiest mind trap is to think "Iβm posting too much", and βI need to give my readers/audience/this platform a breakβ.
This is nonsense.
There is no such thing as oversaturation. Well, there is, but it is just someone elseβs opinion.
For every person that tells you you are posting too much, there is another person that wants even more of your content.
You should ignore peopleβs opinions on how much you post.
Patience & Persistence
Keep posting, keep trying, and keep putting out good content on the regular. Your time will come, and when it does, it will change everything.
The only thing you have control over is your content.
You canβt control how people will react to it. You canβt control pageviews, likes, or shares.
So the only metric you should focus on is how much content you can put out in a week, month, etc.
Where to share your blog content
Mailing List
I know it sounds obvious, but the best places to share your content is on your mailing list. It is guaranteed traffic and it is a great way to get rapid feedback from your most loyal readers.
Send newsletters often. I have done once a week since starting, and Iβm moving to twice a week soon.
Work on increasing your mailing list as well. Look into ways to increase your conversion rate to your mailing list. I added a flyout popup thing to my site and now Iβm collecting ~30 emails per day.
An email newsletter is one of the most powerful assets you can have and it is worth its weight in gold.
Reddit is one of my favorite places to promote content.
It is a very scary place because you will often get banned or heckled, but it can really pay off.
Create social media accounts for your blog, the main ones I use:
Twitter Facebook Instagram LinkedIn
Set up Buffer and share all of your blog posts to all of your accounts. All of these little shares really do add up.
Automate this as much as possible. I automated all of my social media for Starter Story.
Facebook Groups
When I started out, I put together a spreadsheet of relevant Facebook groups for my niche, and I would post to these groups whenever I had a big story I wanted to share.
Grow Your Email List
The more engaged list of emails, the more engaged customers, which ultimately leads to more sales.
One of the best ways to start growing your list is by providing your customer with something free (or discounted) in return.
This could also be anything from:
- Ebook
- Fascinating case study
- Video series
- Free week of the product
- Discount on the product
Learn more about how to grow your email list and improve email marketing β here.
Dylan Jacob, founder of Brumate states their email collection tactic that is proven to work:
We use Spin-a-Sale for this (you spin a wheel for a discount code in exchange for subscribing to our email list). This has been the best email-collecting tool we have found because the customer truly feels like they won a prize rather than just a coupon code.
Even if a customer doesnβt convert right away, if we have their email we have a 19% chance of converting them into a future customer whether that is through future promotions, new releases, or simply just sending an email at the right time for a purchase to finally make sense for them.
We also have a return customer rate of over 14%, so one out of every 6 people we convert will end up buying from us again with an average order value of over $60.00.
Add an exit-intent popup to your online store
A great way to double, or even triple, your email opt-in rate and to grow your list is to add an exit-intent popup to your site, and offering a discount or content upgrade for subscribers.
Here's an example of what that might look like:
One thing that I spent years NOT doing, that I now kick myself about, is adding an "exit intent pop-up" to our site, which lets people enter a sweepstakes to win a Xero Shoes gift certificate.
That one idea has added over 100,000 subscribers to our email list, which is one of our most effective marketing channels.
Improve Your Email Marketing
Different types of emails
Here are the most common types of email campaigns you can send to your customers and their benefits:
- Welcome emails - the perfect way to provide information from the start with a clear CTA. Make sure to tell your customer everything they need to know about your product or service.
- Newsletters - a great way to give customers updates or send out your latest content
- Product launch emails - the quickest (and easiest) way to increase sales is by selling to current customers. Make sure they're the first on the list to know about your new product
- Promotional emails - promote discounts, deals coupons etc. Try and make this feel exclusive and for a limited time only
- Abandoned cart emails - give your customers a reason to complete their purchase!
Here's a great resource for finding curated email designs, for all types of email campaigns!
Abandonded Cart Flow
The abandoned cart workflow is one of the most effective strategies for turning your lead into a customer, and a powerful tool to have if you're an e-commerce business.
Think about all the times that you went on a shopping frenzy only to add items to your cart and then either forget or realize nows not the right time to pull the trigger.
Then, minutes later you receive an email saying "Hurry up! Your cart is waiting - and we want to provide you with 20% off your order."
Maybe that's the special touch (and discount) you needed to pull that trigger.
Implementing this workflow can automatically trigger this for your business every time a customer abandons their cart.
Here's a great example of an abandoned cart email from Brooklinen:
Things they do well:
- Showcase 5-star reviews from other customers
- Offer a small discount + free shipping
- Great design + clear call to actions!
Experiment With Pay Per Click Ads (PPC)
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a performance-based marketing method that allows you to show specific ads for services or products oriented to a very defined target, with the goal that the user visits your website or landing page.
Here are some tips to consider:
- Consider connecting the ad to your corresponding landing page so that the audience receives the necessary information after clicking on the ad.
- Conversion Tracking: When running PPC campaigns, be sure to run the ads with conversion tracking.
- Focus on quality keywords, even if there are few as this will save you time and money. When assessing the performance of a keyword, it's important to track the expense, conversion, and cost per conversion, as well as the ROI.
PPC advertising can be a very important lead generator as long as it's done properly. Your PPC campaign is intended to drive traffic to your website and help the business scale.
Additionally, if the campaign is not having the desired results, you can make the necessary changes immediately to improve them.
Ryan Schortmann, founder of Display Pros talks about their investment in PPC Ads:
My name is Ryan Schortmann and Iβm the founder of Display Pros. We are a custom trade show display booth company offering easy to use portable display βkitsβ for small and medium businesses wanting to get into the trade show game.
It did not take long to come to the realization that to compete at any reasonable level, we were going to need to take the plunge and invest in Pay Per Click ads and display.
From experience, I know that it is important to give Googleβs hivemind some time to settle in before each campaign starts seeing consistent results (this is largely dependent on budget).
A certain amount of PPC budget must be viewed as a βmarketing researchβ expense and then you can look at the analytics data and make informed decisions on where to refine, tweak or plain scrap an idea.
Google Shopping was an entirely new concept for me. You canβt assign keywords to products so at first, I was asking myself βHow the hell do you refine these?β. Then I found some good reading material and courses and learned of some advanced methods that the pros are using. It turns out you can utilize negative keyword lists combined with the priority setting on each shopping campaign to βshapeβ the keywords that are coming in and how much you are spending on them.
To learn more about PPC Ads and Google Shopping, check out this video to learn everything you need to know!
Social Media Advertising
Social Media Advertising is one of the leading ways to get the word out when it comes to game marketing website.
There are various different Social Media platforms available to you. Some may be more critical for your marketing efforts than others, however, it's important to have an understanding of what's out there and available to you.
Let's talk about a few of the main platforms and what makes them unique:
- Facebook Advertising - more than 2 billion monthly users. Facebook is the best for lead generation + capturing email addresses for e-commerce businesses.
- Instagram Advertising - approximately 500 million monthly users and has a higher audience engagement rate than any other platform. Instagram ads are best for linking to a product page or landing page and reaches the 18-29 age group most effectively.
- Twitter Advertising- Small businesses typically use twitter ads to drive brand awareness, but the platform is meant more for organic engagement (and is not as heavily used for paid advertising)
- Pinterest Advertising - 175 million monthly users and most effectively reaches the female audience. Pinterest is great for promoting products without "promoted". The promoted pins have a way of blending right in.
- LinkedIn Advertising - 227 million monthly users and is geared towards the B2B market and generates the highest quality leads. Great platform for recruiters, high-end products and services that will help businesses
It's important to first define your goal/objective so that you don't waste time and money into the wrong platform:
Here are some different questions to ask yourself as it relates to your goals:
- Do I want to simply drive brand awareness?
- Do I want to drive users to my website to gather information?
- Do I want to increase sales and get my customer to take action?
From there, choose the platform that targets your audience best and start experimenting!
Learn more about social media advertising β here.
Founder Andy Hayes talks about mastering FB ads and the pixel:
The biggest bang for your buck will likely be mastering Facebook and itβs platform - which we all know is pay for play, so youβll have to come up with a small amount of budget to start for marketing.
Weβve spent countless hours (and paid numerous coaches) before we cracked the code that works for us on Facebook, but it is working really well for us now.
Some of the most important things to know when it comes to FB Ads:
- Start with retargeting (thatβs showing ads to people who already know you but did not purchase). Master this - and start building information on your Facebook Pixel - before you do anything else
- Once you have that down, try working with the 1% βLookalikeβ audience to prospect for new customers. This may take awhile because your pixel audience is small, so try layering on interests - 1% Lookalike and your largest competitor, for example. Donβt use interest-only targeting until you master this.
- Great photography and videography is key, as is smart copy. Research whatβs out there in your industry and constantly test - what works for one company may not work for other people.
- Make sure you have good offers. For example, we have a $5 trial for our subscription, which converts affordably - if we promoted our subscription with the standard $30 front charge, it wouldnβt be as cost-effective.
Host A Social Media Giveaway
People love free stuff and love competition. Giveaways and contests are a great way to create awareness for your brand, grow your email list, and eventually convert leads into customers.
If your goal is to gather email addresses, make sure the entry criteria is to "enter your email." You can do this by leading customers to your landing page where they can then enter their email to be in the giveaway.
One of the most important aspects of promoting a successful giveaway is having an amazing prize. The better the prize, the more engagement you'll get.
This doesn't necessarily mean choosing an iPad or an expensive/trendy watch, but instead a prize that is actually relevant to your brand/target audience.
Giveaway Example and Tips
Example from TJ Mapes, founder of RIPT Apparel
Our most recent successful giveaway was when we gave away a PS4 + the new Spiderman game. I hosted the giveaway on our site and then let our audience know about it via email/social channels.
Entrants earned different amounts of entries for entering in different ways (tongue twister!), for instance; enter via email, get 10 entries. Follow us on Facebook, get 5 entries. Subscribe on Messenger and get 25 entries.
I also built out a drip sequence in Klaviyo that contained four emails to encourage entrants to take more action, like referring friends and liking us on social.
Email #1: Thanks for entering!
Email #2: Explained how to earn bonus entries:
Email #3: About us
Email #4: Coupon for entering
This last email in the sequence just thanked them again for entering and also included a coupon to a specific (related) collection of designs with an expiration date on it to incentivize purchases.
(this screenshot is actually a flow from when we gave away an xbox, but you get the idea - huge open and click rates π―π―π―)PS4 Giveaway Results:
We ran it for 2 weeks and recorded results in a meticulous spreadsheet to analyze the data. Here are some of the highlights:
- Giveaway page pageviews - 67,355
- Total entrants - 26,137
- Conversion rate - 38.80%
- Total entrants in Klaviyo (not suppressed) - 24,515
- New emails acquired - 16,363
- Emails we already had - 7,521
- % of new emails - 66.75%
- Cost of item - $350
- Instagram visits - 10,618
- Instagram followers gained - 3,496 ( total followers lifted by 6.9% )
- Twitter followers gained - 4,194
ππΌββοΈ How To Run Your Game Marketing Website
How To Retain Customers For Your Game Marketing Website
Retaining customers is one of the most effective ways to grow your game marketing website.
Oftentimes, it's easy to find yourself focusing on generating new customers, vs retaining your current ones.
Look at it this way - you are 60-70% more likely to sell a new product to an existing customer than you are a new customer.
That's not to say that finding new customers and revenue streams is not important, however, the easiest (and most inexpensive) source of new revenue is right there in front of you.
Here are some ways you can retain customers for your game marketing website:
- Responding to comments on social media
- Send discounts (or freebies) to loyal customers
- Provide valuable content, for free
- Write a hand written thank you note
- Provide awesome customer service and build relationships with customers
To find out more tips and tricks on retaining customers, check out this article β here
Jan Kovac, founder of Casino Guru dives deep into the process of attracting and retaining customers:
As I have said, launching an SEO-based product is not a spectacular event, you turn the switch and the best you can do is to go back and continue working on your product. And that is exactly what we did:
- Our strategy from the very beginning was to launch several language localizations, so I was searching on Upwork for people who would translate our website and do other work required for the website to succeed in search engine.
- We have hired the first few people to work on our casino database and other content-related tasks.
- I was learning a lot about SEO and continuously improving our frontend.
But now I know that while all the above was necessary for our success, we would still fail if we wouldnβt radically change our website design. And thatβs where I must admit, we were simply lucky.
I hated working from home because I missed social contact. Therefore I joined one really small coworking space here in Bratislava. And the guy who co-owned the space was by a chance an excellent graphic designer. We were casually discussing our project and he thought, that considering niche, our website should be more colorful.
Eventually, we agreed to give it a chance and try to make a complete redesign. The chemistry between the software engineer with strong structural and analytical thinking and a photoshop wizard with great visual feeling and a lot of UX experience worked really well and within 2 weeks we have designed, a website with the potential to evolve into what casino.guru is today.
Design of bonus section - the one which was the first to get traction
Casino list - the most important page
Then after 3 months of very intensive programming in November 2016, we have finally launched this new frontend and, as it goes with SEO-based projects, continued pushing forward without seeing any instant traffic increase.
The following months I consider the toughest in my whole career. The funding of this whole project consisted of roughly 30k EUR of my savings and two salaries of senior SW engineers. The other co-founder never stopped working full-time and at this point, we knew that I need to get a full-time job as well to pay the salaries of all the people who were already working for us.
So I got a full-time job, worked 8 hours in the job, and continued 3-4 more hours on casino.guru. I was working at least 1 day every weekend. We were pushing all our free time and everything we made (on top of live expenses) into the project without earning a penny for the next few months. It went so far that we had set a deadline, if our website wonβt be making X EUR/month in 6 months from a certain day, we were decided to abandon this project. In the end, at some point, the company owed us 130k EUR in both our salaries and direct expenses.
Ask a lot of questions and listen to the answers rather than preach your opinions. Be always ready to change your opinion if it seems to be wrong, be open-minded.
Fortunately, we never had to face such a decision. After few months our website started to grow on one market and we made our first 13 cents. Some people say that itβs most difficult to earn the first million, I say that the most difficult is to earn the first 13 cents.
With getting more and more traction our revenues grew rapidly month over month and within few months we were break even. If I remember correctly, the break-even month (not counting our salaries) was June 2017. Thatβs when the struggle turned into a growth journey. We still had an insane amount of work ahead of us but we were at least making money. Hiring every new employee or subcontractor made business sense. And after few more years of hard work, improvements, and growth we are where we are.
Diversify Your Product Line
Adding new products to your business is a great way to expand into new markets and grow your business.
It's important to note that adding new products and diversifying may not be in the cards for you right this moment, and that's okay. You can always consider it down the road.
Here are some reasons you may want to considering adding/diversifying your product
- Meeting the needs of your customers
- Establish yourself as a top provider in your industry and stay ahead of the game with competition
- Resistance to downturns/trends fading
- Create new revenue streams
Provide Great Customer Service
Providing exceptional care and creating relationships with clients is a great way to build your reputation and retain customers.
Whether you are an online business or a physical business, it's highly important to communicate with customers and make them feel like they are the priority.
Just remember: customer service represents your brand, values, vision and YOU as a person.
Authenticity
As a brand, you want to deliver an experience that authentic, honest and transparent.
Don't make the mistake of giving your audience less credit than they deserve.
Be Authentic
If you go around chasing every trend and only focused on yourself and money, youβre going to lose very quickly.
There have been many times where we have been tempted to do this but stayed true.
Sure we sacrificed sales, but we kept our integrity, played the long game and people saw and appreciated that, and really began emotionally investing in the brand.
Build a Referral Program
Word of mouth is one of the best ways to get the word out about your business and acquire new customers. Especially when you are starting out, itβs important to build a solid referral program to encourage existing customers to help you find new ones.
A great way to do that is by offering a reward (ie. credit on your service or cash) to customers that refer you to their friends and family.
A fantastic referral program will help with clout, credibility, and establishing yourself in the space.
Word of Mouth
The most tried and true way to grow a game marketing website is through word of mouth - some entrepreneurs would say it's more important than all social media.
Why you should focus on word of mouth:
- Consumers trust word of mouth above all other forms of marketing
- 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising
- 64% of marketing executives indicated that they believe it is the most effective form of marketing
Learn more about word of mouth in our guide: 30 Ways Founders Grow Their Business β
Resources
We put together the best resources on the internet to help you start your game marketing website.
Tools
- Social media tools such as Instagram or Twitter
- Advertising tools such as Google AdSense
- Platform tools such as Google Shopping
- Seo tools such as Ahrefs or Screaming Frog
- Reviews tools such as Google My Business
Books
Web Resources
- How To Start An Online Casino: 5 Steps (With Pictures)
- How To Start An Online Casino Business In 6 Simple Steps
Videos
- How To Start Online Casino Gaming Business ? Startup Ideas
- Make $50,000 Per Month - Start Your Own? (Revealed)
Case Studies
- How I Started A $500K/Month Website About Online Casinos
- From Casino Player To Building A $10K/Month Online Casino Guide Thanks To SEO
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- 4,818 founder case studies
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- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
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- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings