How and for how much to promote the game in South Korea after the release?

In the previous article, we talked about the specifics of the distribution sites and the preparation of the game for release in South Korea. In this article, we will focus in more detail on the promotion of the game after the release, consider approaches, examples and, of course, the cost.

Most local publishers for new games invest in marketing after the release. Pre-registrations work great for sequels when the player knows what to expect. Therefore, a marketing strategy can be built on the principle of pumping up expectations.

For new games, the promotion strategy usually looks like this: developers take 2-3 days after the release in order to make sure that there are no critical problems in the product, and start bringing the game to the top through push campaigns. To do this, they purchase installations from large web resources through advertising networks.

The main goal is to get up to 600,000 installations in several injections (usually three consecutive campaigns) within 3-4 weeks to get into the Top 5 free and stay in it for a month, accumulating users from the top.

With the start of the campaign after the release, it is important not to delay. The fact is that the cost of getting to the top in the first 30 days on Google Play is lower, since the first month rule applies in the app store, in which new releases are promoted with fewer installations in the top for free.

The Korean publisher Burning Rabbit insists that the first campaign should focus on the figure of 190 thousand downloads with a conversion to an active audience of about 4%. The next steps of the push campaign will help to increase the DAU, increase the visibility of the game in the store and increase organic traffic.

The three most popular networks for push campaigns in South Korea:

1. Appang
2. Cash Slide
3. AD Latte

The head of the marketing group at Eidetic Marketing, Michael Ji, notes: “In Korea, the hardcore games market is clearly distinguished, for which special platforms have been formed, where you do not have to compete with the casual games segment. To get into the Top 5 on the specialized platform of hardcore games T-store (mobile content portal under the control of the mobile operator SK Telecom), only 20,000 installations will be required, where the cost of one download will cost $ 0.20.”

Games designed for a wider audience are recommended to be released on Google Play. An adequate cost for installation in South Korea is $0.25-0.28. Managers of the largest Korean grids speak English fluently, so ignorance of hangul will not be a problem for the purchase of traffic.

It is noteworthy that advertising networks do not sell high-quality traffic in our understanding. When buying users using the CPI model from local advertising networks, you should understand that these are just installations with a low conversion to players. In order to get high-quality new users in Korea, it is customary to use special services to promote the product through coupon promotions.

In order to hold an action with coupons, the game must have a special function for entering the code and a service for creating and verifying codes. The code received by the coupon can give a discount, but most often a free package of currency or unique goods in the store.

An example of the implementation of a coupon promotion in the Age of Lords: Legends and Rebels game from Erepublik Labs:

In Age of Lords coupons are not so difficult to findAuthorization of the coupon in the game looks simple

The launch of a promotional campaign usually looks like this:

1. The developer or agency reserves a slot for the promotion in one of the special services, aggregators of coupons for games (the service gives a minimum guarantee for the number of activated coupons, usually not less than 5 thousand. Often the base of the service is from 500 thousand to 1 million users).
2. The developer sends a list of coupon codes to the service.
3. After preparing promo banners, the service places them in all channels and begins promotion.

If the user is interested in the coupon, he chooses it. A number of services send a unique coupon code via SMS, others – after the user has selected a coupon – immediately display it on the screen of the informer application.

Important: the developer does not pay for the distribution of coupons, but only the number of coupons that users have requested. On average, one activated coupon is $3. The services can guide you on the maximum and minimum volume of activations for their resource, but they will promote the coupon until it reaches the minimum volume of activations that the service guarantees.

An example of a coupon promotion in the Korean game Paladog and Heroes:

This is how the coupon placement in the Game Booking service looks like.The user received an SMS with a promo code, as well as brief information about the game.

In this message, for example, a link has been added to a page dedicated to the game on the social portal cafe.naver.com . On these screenshots, the coupon is activated by the user.

The most popular coupon promotion services include:

1. Game Shuttle
2. Mobi
3. Booking Top10
4. Game Booking

As noted by local publishers, the function of promo codes / coupons in games is mandatory. The task of the developer is to make it as convenient and easy to use as possible, since it not only allows you to promote the game, but also trains the user to pay, shows the advantages of making purchases.

Korean game developers are trying to place the function with coupons in the most frequently used non-gaming parts of the application, for example, in the tab with game chats.

Next, push notifications are sent to users about the start of promotions. So coupons become not only a tool for attracting a new audience, but also a tool for training the user.

According to statistics, the quality of the audience that came from the coupon campaign is very high. The conversion rate to active users is about 40%. Below are the results of user conversion from coupon promotions for different genres of games for the 2015 campaigns:

Columns: genre – average number of downloads -maximum number of downloads – conversion from organic
What else can be done to maintain the game?

Don’t forget about PR. In Korea, it works not only at the release stage, but also during the entire life cycle of the product. Unlike other countries, PR campaigns in Korea are a managed channel. You can always count on a specific number of publications when ordering a campaign.

The diagram below shows the results of the campaign for the game Moonlight Blade from the Chinese publisher Tencent, released in Korea in the 4th quarter of 2015.

As for prices, then, according to the managing director of Eidetic Marketing Ashley S. Jung, 47 articles can cost you $ 3 thousand.

Another important channel for attracting users is the community of players. In Korea, Naver cafe is used to create and manage a community. In form, the service resembles a forum with landing pages. To create a profile in Naver, you will need the phone number of the local operator, since the verification code is sent only to Korean mobile operators.

A few examples of the gaming community in Naver:

1. Raven
2. Summoners War
3. HIT

The developers also use the Naver platform to support users, solve problems and maintain Wikipedia on the game. The service of registering and maintaining a community through an agency will cost about $ 3 thousand per month.

And in conclusion, a tip from local partners to promote games in Korea: it doesn’t matter if you launched a pre-registration campaign or not – after the release, you definitely need to implement a coupon promotion and start working with the community of players on the Naver platform.