• by Jessica Rovello , May 1, 2008

A 42-year-old mother of three children logs on to Goodhousekeeping.com, collects a few recipes, reads up on the latest product reviews and spends over 23 minutes playing Mahjongg. She returns the next day, the next, and the next to do the same thing.

It's no secret that the role of gaming in the media plan is something that many marketers are beginning to clearly understand. Games are no longer a marketing afterthought, but rather an integrated part of an entire campaign.

According to the Casual Games Association, casual games are most popular with women over the age of 35, and the industry is a $2.25 billion a year market growing by 20% annually. Advergames, games created to advertise a specific product, service or organization, are one of the largest segments of this growth, expected to generate $312.2 million by 2009, up from $83.6 million in 2004, reports the Yankee Group, a Boston-based research firm.

So now that you know how important games are to your brand, what are the next steps you need to take to start adding them into your marketing mix? Here are some key questions that every marketing executive should to know the answers to.

Is it better to develop a single game or a gaming center with multiple games in one location on your site? Making the decision between one game or an entire gaming center depends on your marketing goals and what you are trying to accomplish. If you are launching a campaign to promote a single product, service, event, etc., then one game may be enough to deliver the message.

However, if your objective is to drive continuous traffic and increase ad inventory to help monetize your site, a dedicated gaming center with multiple games may be more effective. In addition to multiple games, gaming centers often include other community features such as leaderboards, chat, loyalty points and awards to build loyalty and repeat traffic. And the advertising can equal big bucks. The Casual Games Association reported that in 2006 advertising made up about 40% of the total online revenue from casual games.

What type of game should you develop? Deciding on the type of game that should be developed can be one of the most challenging aspects when using games to help promote your brand. The first question you should ask yourself: Who is my target audience and what would they want to play? If you are selling toys to 10-year-old boys, a Mahjongg- or Solitaire-inspired game is probably not the best option. A sports-inspired game may make more sense there because ten-year-old boys tend to prefer more action-oriented games.

Audience analysis is one of the most important tasks when determining what type of game should be developed.

Are custom advergames or rebranded games better for your campaign? Often times this decision comes down to budget and timing. Custom advergames have much more flexibility to be representative of your brand and give you the ability to create unique and enjoyable concepts. However, the trade-offs can be increased cost and longer development time.

When speed to market and lower costs are of primary importance, you may want to consider rebranding (often times called "reskinning") a game that has already been created. Although rebranded games are sometimes not as unique in concept, they are generally cheaper, can be completed relatively quickly, and can still be fairly customized.

What kind of community elements should you incorporate? "If you build it, they will come" is not a comprehensive philosophy to follow online. The same theory applies to gaming. Today's online citizens expect, and in some cases demand, that the communities and content sites they interact with include tools that allow them to share content, games and other features with their friends. From our partnership experience, game partners have found that loyalty and community elements can increase visit times from between ten to 15 additional minutes. Here are a few important tools that you should consider including as part of your community building gaming strategy:

1) Send to a Friend - Give your site visitors the ability to challenge or invite friends to play along with you. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 90% of players who receive a challenge from a friend play the game and respond back with their score. This is a great way to drive even more traffic to a site.

2) Personalization - Let visitors create a customized avatar and profile for use both inside the game and throughout your web site. By integrating community elements outside of the games, players can create a unique personality that can carry over to other elements of the site. Allow the storage of things such as best game scores, site preferences and personal information.

3) Leaderboards and Points - To encourage competition and game play, use leaderboards and point tracking systems to display game score leaders.

4) Prizes - Who doesn't love prizes? To reward repeat game play and encourage continuous play of select games, incorporate prize or sweepstakes entry redemption with game play points

As you evaluate what game or games are appropriate for your brand, don't forget to keep in mind the importance of fresh content. Whether you have just one game or a full gaming center, you need to give people reasons to come back and continue to engage with your brand. Keeping things fresh is of the utmost importance.