A few weeks ago, we concluded our five part series on the engagement based Player Lifecycle. It was a complex topic with lots of nuance, and we hope the guides we put together for each phase of the Lifecycle were helpful.
We thought it would be good to take a moment and recap everything we went over in an abridged version. We absolutely encourage you to click into each article for much more detailed advice, but this high level overview of every phase at once should be a handy asset to glimpse at when needed - and you can bookmark it here on our blog here for quick reference.
The Player Lifecycle in CRM refers to the stages of engagement a player goes through in your game. Here they all are broken down, as well as some quick cadence suggestions:
New Player
- Definition: This is someone who just installed your game and is spending some time getting to know it. They’re tapping around, trying different features, learning the basics.
- Cadence: A push notification a couple hours after install with a reward attached, followed by an email four hours later. From there, see the link below!
For a more detailed New Player strategy, click here.
Core Player
- Definition: Your most active players. They are coming back every or nearly every day, playing, tapping notifications, using rewards, engaging. Getting this right is crucial, so it’s okay to spend the majority of your effort here. Keep these players happy!
- Cadence: Two push notifications and one email, with rewards attached, every day.
More on the importance of Core here.
Risk Player
- Definition: This is where it gets nuanced, and definitions are important to understand. A Risk Player is still playing your game and will show up as active, but they are less active than your Core Players. Maybe they are playing every 5 to 7 days as opposed to every 2 to 3. They are an important group to keep an eye on.
- Cadence: The cadence of messaging for this group changes based on level of Risk, from Low Risk to High Risk.
For a more close breakdown of each of the Risk categories, click here.
Lapsed Player
- Definition: A lapsed player is someone who has gone for some period of time without launching the game at all. At Teak, we believe the period of time to be considered “lapsed” should be one week.
- Cadence: Try only sending one push notification every other day, and an email once a week. Instead of thinking about the volume of notifications you should be sending, focus instead on front loading bigger rewards.
More on lapsed cadence and rewards.
Dormant Player
- Definition: Players who have been gone for over a month. These players are much harder to reach, so be strategic with your messaging.
- Cadence: No more than one message a week for this phase of the Lifecycle. And when you do send that weekly push or email, the reward on it should be substantial.
Need more context? Read our full breakdown on Dormant Players.
Resurrected Player
- Definition: A Resurrected Player who comes back into the game after being Dormant. Your goal is to ease them back into daily messaging and get them used to hearing from you again.
- Cadence: There is a 3 day schedule for resurrected players that has a lot of nuance.
More on keeping Resurrected Players around.
Let’s be honest: we could talk about the Player Lifecycle on and on! It’s at the heart of not only everything you do, but also everything we want to help you do.
We hope this overview and article series has been a good place for you to start mapping this all out for yourself and your team. We’d love to get more specific on certain parts of it in the future - let us know where we could elaborate even further!
Until next time,
Teak Team