News Gamer E-Marketing Plan

Question: Discuss about the News Gamer E-Marketing Plan. Answer: Introduction The gaming industry has grown rapidly with every games developer seeking to have a solid market segment that keeps growing. Finding a niche and a firm customer base is important for a gaming company to stay afloat. Vision The vision that our company possesses is to be able, in the short term and in the long term, to provide entertainment and fun through our games that portray the possibilities that underlie current events, and in a comic manner. We thus provide or customers with timely interactive games that are easily accessible on mobile devices and in particular smart phones and tablets. News Gamer is a company that is comprised of efficient software developers given our solid experience in game making. We will therefore create timely games quickly. So as to attract market visibility fast, we shall leverage a multi-prolonged approach that entails the use of email marketing, social media, and optimization strategies to acquire market share. From the great experience expected for our customers, our company can also to some extent rely on word of mouth marketing. Objectives We have put down specific objectives that will guide our business activities. One of our goals is to get four consulting game development projects by the end of 12 months. We also expect to generate over $400,000 by end of first year; and by end of the second year, increase sales by 100%. The projection is as shown in the following bar graph, figure 1. Our objective in the long run is to be the leading game developer in terms of quality, uniqueness, audience, and revenue. Figure 1 SWOT analysis The following is an analysis of News Gamers business SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) based on subsequent analysis, survey results, general observations of the gaming industry, and external references. Strengths Our News Gamer Company is founded in Australia and that forms the basis of the first strength we have as a mobile games developer. We have access to the support provided by the government to the gaming industry which is in form of market access and funding. The second strong point that we have is that the level of English proficiency in Australia, which makes for our base market, and in majority of countries worldwide is relatively high. Most of our games come in English language. In 2016, Australia was ranked No.15 in ease of doing business by the World Bank (The World Bank 2016). That ease comes as our third strength as it boosts our business. The fourth advantage that we have over many mobile games developers is that our customers, and intended customers, are ICT and internet users who have high literacy. Opportunities One of the chance that we have at our disposal as News Gamer is the ability to get more WFH tasks from anchor companies from across the globe. The second opportunity is that of enlarging demand for games due to the multiple screens per user in Australia. As the trend of free-to-play-games grows, the demand for more games content will subsequently increase and so will the platform for in-game marketing (Nieborg 2016). The third opportunity is the countrys business friendly policies which will encourage more investment by our gaming company into our business. With the rapid growth of Wireless Fidelity growth, such as 4G to 5G, and accessibility, downloading and online-playing of mobile video game gets even better (Kadir, et al 2015); that honing is our fourth opportunity to grow business and increase sales. Weaknesses One of the weaknesses is the imbalance in game talent pool. According to Millington and John, there are many game artists and few game programmers, and it slows down the growth of video games industry (2016). Second is inadequate access to international game markets. Thirdly, monetization is at times a problem despite the high usage of credit cards. A majority of game players use prepaid options when playing the games on their mobile phones; it is usually difficult to monetize this group. Threats The first threat is that most gamers have a preference for games with western titles. Secondly, the gaming industry may in future lack support from the official games association due to market flooding, and it would pose problems to News Gamer and other games developers. Thirdly, there is a global lack of adequate game publishers and distribution channels to publish the games; this makes it a very expensive affair. Fourth, with accelerating technological advancements, games made for current technology might prove useless in the near future. Customer The first category of News Gamers target customers are teens, and young adults below 45 years. This group mainly prefers free mobile games; thus, to them it is wise to offer trimmed back versions of a game and they will get to have partial experience of the game without paying up front (Chess, Nathaniel, and Joyya 46). We will also disable some features in the games but still have advertisements display at strategic locations within the game. The second category of our customers is organizations that want to reach the youth and young adults through advertisements. Organizations purchase custom mobile game development services with the intention of promoting their products and brand (Hofacker, et al 33). This group will use paid mobile games which have a broader range of features. The price will be between $1.99 and $4.99 to avoid price resistance from customers. Company Our company has been in existence for a considerable period of time and our online presence has been quite good. We will however need to create websites for our individual games, and the websites will have links to our other games. Moreover our games will need to be compatible with mobile downloads. Competitors In the gaming industry, there is much competition from developers internationally; these are companies that are doing well such as Microsoft, Gameloft, etc., (Cabras, et al 2016). That is why we felt the need to find a niche to be able to stand completion and stay relevant. We, thus, base the content of our games on current events, political and social. Change As change inevitable, our company will be ready to embrace it as it comes and adjust accordingly. With time new governments will come to power and, hence, gaming policies may change. Currently the political environment is considerate of the gaming industry. Technology will keep advancing and our company must be ready to prepare games that are compatible with the technology of a time. Marketing strategy Every mobile games developer should be aware of the marketing environment of these games; which keeps evolving as technology, software and hardware, and population grows (Jin 9). To meet the target audience, there are effective steps that should be implemented by a game owner, and which News Gamer will be sure to implement. One of the steps will be to give the mobile app a home on the web to make it searchable on search engines, to provide more information on the game, and for ease of access. The second move will be to ask players for feedback and reviews so as to gain better insight on how the game is fairing. As a third move, we will create forums for customers to discuss our mobile games. Fourthly, we will get social with our own games especially through social media platforms. Fifth, as a games developer, we shall get to partner with leading mobile games owners or developers. Partnership with other developers helps with learning the app launching process, and expanding the network of potential customers (Reichheld 2001). Finally, previews of our mobile games will get shared in form of videos across different video sharing platforms such as, Daily Motion, YouTube, etc. Our emphasis will be on creativity so as to bring out humor from a current event. It will also be on efficient service and speed to the market because of the nature of our games. The games will need to hit the market as early as possible before the said events get overtaken by incoming trends. Our main goal is to establish a reputation for games that poke fun at ridiculous and humorous actions by famous people. Every game will have a link to our website where users can get more information and subscribe to our email list, and also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Gantt chart e-Marketing Activities Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Beta testing: Choose An Email Service Provider X X Pre-launch: Pull Together A Pre-Launch Page X X Pre-launch: Add An Email Subscription Form To App X Pre-launch: Experiment With Other List-Building Tactics X X Create First Email Campaign X X Launch Your App With Email X Budjet Following is figure 2, a marketing expense budget for our year 1 e-marketing activities and it has been broken down by months. Figure 2: The following budget, figure 3, is our marketing expenses budget for the next three years. Figure 3: Below, figure 4, is our sales forecast for the first three years. The sales will be generated through game downloads, game sponsorships, and custom games for sponsorships. Figure 4: We also have the monthly sales forecast for year one as shown in figure 5 that follows. Figure 5: Then there is the phased return on investment as shown in the following figure 6. Figure 6: References Cabras, Ignazio, et al. "Exploring survival rates of companies in the UK video-games industry: an empirical study." Technological Forecasting and Social Change (2016). Chess, Shira, Nathaniel J. Evans, and Joyya JaDawn Baines. "What Does a Gamer Look Like? Video Games, Advertising, and Diversity." Television New Media 18.1 (2017): 37-57. Hofacker, Charles F., et al. "Gamification and mobile marketing effectiveness." Journal of Interactive Marketing 34 (2016): 25-36. Jin, Dal Yong. "The Emergence of Asian Mobile Games: Definitions, Industries, and Trajectories." Mobile Gaming in Asia: Politics, Culture and Emerging Technologies (2017): 3-20. Kadir, Evizal Abdul, et al. "Big Data Network Architecture and Monitoring Use Wireless 5G Technology." Int. J. Advance Soft Compu. Appl 7.1 (2015). Millington, Ian, and John Funge. Artificial intelligence for games. CRC Press, 2016. Nieborg, David B. "2 Freetoplay Games and App Advertising." Explorations in Critical Studies of Advertising (2016). Reichheld, Frederick F. Loyalty rules!: how today's leaders build lasting relationships. Harvard Business Press, 2001. Shankar, Venkatesh, and Barry L. Bayus. "Network effects and competition: An empirical analysis of the home video game industry." Strategic Management Journal 24.4 (2003): 375-384. The World Bank. Ease of doing business index (1=most business-friendly regulations). The World Bank (2016). Retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BUS.EASE.XQ