Marketing department for the Minecraft platform: our case study

Even if you’ve never played a computer game, you’ve definitely heard of Minecraft.
It’s a whole universe where millions of players build, compete, and explore every day.

We were approached by a startup (we won’t disclose the name due to NDA) that has created a platform for PvP (one-on-one) tournaments in Minecraft with real cash payouts. Its main goal is to turn a hobby into an exciting experience with a guarantee of honesty, transparent rules, and real excitement.

The first stage of our cooperation was the development of a marketing strategy. We helped with this stage:

• Create steps for launching the project in international markets (UK, Germany, France).
• Create a plan for building a trusted systemic brand.
• Find the answer to how to build an adult gaming community (18+) with a willingness to invest in tournaments.
• Build a marketing system that can work to achieve the strategic goals of the project.

And most importantly, we found and presented the client with an answer on how and what exactly to do to achieve the planned financial performance. The key stages we went through in the process of building a comprehensive marketing strategy:

What’s next?

We moved on to action! The peculiarity of Solve Marketing is our work format. We work in the format of a remote marketing department, which distinguishes us from other types of agencies. This was described in detail inthis article. 

Therefore, after completing the strategy, we continued to work on the project as a remote marketing department.

For each project, we build our own personal development and interaction plan. We are working on this project in the following areas:

🟡 brand book, brand packaging;

🟡 content creation;

🟡 launch, testing and analysis of advertising;

🟡 with strategic tasks, support for growth in all channels.

SMM: from zero to trust

A new brand on the market means zero recognition and a wary audience, because there is a lot of fraud on the Internet, especially in the PVP tournament segment.

That is why we have built our work with social media from a strategy where content forms a verification system: we speak the language of the player, respond to their emotions, and answer objections before they arise.

Our focus:

●   Full page layout: design, profile header, links, hashtags.

●   Creation and constant updating of the content strategy.

●   UGC focus: show players in action, create visual brand socialisation.

●   Reactivity: commenting on trends, adapting content to new gaming insights.

●   Video and Shorts: focus on short video content — it drives traffic from TikTok and Instagram Reels.

●   Content is not only about the product but also about the player.

●   Active posting on Discord (a platform for communication during tournaments).

●   Work with the technical specifications to create the necessary video content within the platform.

Visual design of content for the English-speaking audience:

Insight: At the launch stage, social networks function as a calling card — they build trust, introduce the team and the idea, and form a first impression for investors and potential customers. However, without a clear system of supporting content with paid traffic, it remains only an ancillary tool. Sales appear where there is a comprehensive strategy: segmentation, funnel, attraction channels, and competent integration of communications.

Marketing: launch and growth

The peculiarity of the gaming market is that it is insanely wide, but it also has many segments, which are also divided into additional segments. In the process of developing our marketing strategy (you can read more about this service here), we immersed ourselves in the behavioural habits of 18+ players who are ready to deposit, compete, and come back again and again.

Our focus:

• We built a funnel with basic landing pages, creatives, and hypotheses.
• We launched advertising on Meta and Google, adapting messages and creatives for each channel: on Meta, we used a gamer’s vibe and fair play, and on Google, direct answers to queries.
• We implemented analytics: we linked pixels, events, and site analytics so that every click would give us data.
• We formed hypotheses: honesty, guaranteed payments, unique format — what will work better?
• We set up retargeting for those who had already visited the website or watched the video.
• We collected the first leads and started building a database of email contacts.

Some of the creatives:

💡 Insight: for niche projects, it is important to build a test strategy, i.e. immediately design a system for testing the options to be tested. And there are two extremes here: hoping that the first creative and the first advertising campaign will send the project to the moon. The other is to find a great option and stop testing.

Insight: for niche projects, it is important to build a testing strategy, i.e. to immediately design a system for testing the options that need to be checked. There are two extremes here: hoping that the first creative and the first advertising campaign will send the project to the moon. And the second — finding a great option and stopping testing.

Design: visual code that builds trust in the first game

When we started working, the project did not yet have an established identity. And this became a space for us to create a new one — a safe, adult game design for this game world.

The first thing we did was to outline the emotional vector. We needed the brand to be not only recognisable, but also to evoke a certain feeling:

  🟢 reliability (but without a formal style);
  🟪 competitiveness (but without aggression);
  🟦 playfulness (but adult, not infantile).

We created a visual style that strikes a balance between the Minecraft game environment and the feel of a platform you can trust with your money.

We designed:

+   The logo, which consists of the brand name, so we can’t show it due to the NDA.

+   A brand book with a visual style system: fonts, objects, colours.

+   Design for social media: templates for stories and avatars for 4 platforms.

The design had to be easy to use but visually coherent. That’s why we created templates that the client’s team could edit on their own without losing the style.

Email, video, and visuals

To make the project exist in one visual code, we created: 

●   emails for email campaigns;

●   videos for landing pages, social media, and advertising.

📩 Email marketing for the gaming community

Email marketing is still alive, especially in European countries. Especially if email is used by players as a way to verify their accounts, restore access, and receive a discount offer.

Email is often the first thing a user sees after registration. We have created triggered email templates for key scenarios:

  – welcome;
  – deposit confirmation;
  – reminder if the player is inactive;
  – referral invitations;
  – special offers.

Each email is:

●   a compact, mobile-friendly design (since 70% of opens are made from a phone);

●   gaming language without templates: the tone is friendly, without formalities, with slang and phrases that sound like they come from the gaming community.

Each email is a part of the gaming atmosphere:

Insight: Email marketing is not dead — spam without a strategy is dead. In just one of our projects, email newsletters as a sales channel bring in over $100K in revenue every month. This result consists of three components: the mailing list consists of active users; the list is well segmented; each segment receives a relevant offer.

Video: internal production of game moments

The gameplay, interesting moments, the excitement of victory that is almost in your pocket — these moments need to be filmed and then played out on camera. It’s almost like a film, but instead of live actors, we use Minecraft character figures.

After that, we wrote out the structure and edited the promotional video.

Systematic marketing for your business

This case is a story of how a startup team received a full-fledged marketing strategy and its turnkey implementation.

We were involved in all marketing processes necessary for the development of the project:

●   Content that resonates with the audience.

● Advertising that does not just drive traffic but brings players.

●   Design that inspires trust before the first click.

●   Communication that works — in email, video, social media, Discord;

●   Constant adaptation, analytics, insights.

Even in complex and non-standard topics, we, Solve Marketing, will be happy to become part of the team and take responsibility for the marketing function of your business.

🎯 Want to see what your marketing looks like when it’s designed systematically? Leave a request for a consultation and we’ll tell you where to start.