2. Who is speaking ?
• Julien Wera
• Past : Gala Networks Europe, PopCap Games
International
• ICO Partners : Consulting agency specialised in
online games in Europe
3. Marketing
• Significant budget and not
getting any smaller
• Risky investment
• Important difference
between indies and large
publishers
4. Marketing
50% of global marketing budget
is wasted.
(Or : Most of the marketing campaigns should be at least twice
as effective)
5. How?
• Under negotiated (often not negotiated at all)
• Under optimized
• Wrongly targeted
• Using unadapted creatives
• Not tracked
• Etc.
6. Disclaimer
• The following slides do not aim at presenting
new revolutionary ways to do marketing, but
at reminding the basic and obvious rules of
efficient marketing that « everybody » seems
to know, but very few actually follow.
7. How to avoid the waste ?
Mistakes happen during all 3 main phases :
• Preparation
• Execution
• Analysis & Optimization
(And the first mistake is to forget one or two of
these phases at all)
8. Preparation : Know Your Way
• Study markets and
publics
• Think global, act local
• Don’t trust any « gut
feelings »
9. Execution : It’s all about the people
Wrong recruitment
can lead to dire
consequences
10. Execution : It’s all about the people
• Hire/Choose your partners wisely
• Get local expertise
• Establish good and close relationships with
your network of partners
• Beware of the conflicts of interest when you
outsource
11. Execution : Make sure your campaign is…
• Negociated : Always negociate
• Targeted : Publics and geography
• Adapted : To your company, your audiences,
etc.
• Tested : To avoid technical issues
• Monitored : For ongoing optimization
12. Analyse & Optimize
• Track everything you
can
• Crunch the data.
Learn. Improve.
• Don’t wait until it’s
too late to make
changes
13. The Road Trip Analogy
• Get a map : Know
where you’re going
and how
• Choose the right
driver
• Don’t sleep during
the trip
14. Get a second opinion
Even if the driver seems to know
where he’s going, it doesn’t hurt to
check the GPS.
Use friends, colleagues, people from
the industry, or external consultants.
Past : Free-to-Play MMO publisher… Plants vs. Zombies, Bejeweled…
Working with independants as well as larger publishers…
Part of what we do is marketing support…
Very important budget, up to 10 million dollars and above…
It’s either effective or lost…
Large part of the publisher’s added value…
Just an estimate (hopefully). Most of the time, the bigger the budget is, the most it is wasted.
The larger the company is, the less effective campaigns are
Especially unprofessional in gaming space (Passion)
Many possible reasons…
Most of the time, the failure of marketing campaigns is a consequence of people who do not care enough
How to avoid it ?
Before going forward I would like to thank the people at Destructoid for this very useful image…
Note : Stating the obvious. Obvious mistakes for simple solutions.
Do your homework : Don’t go without knowing where you’re heading and who you’re heading for.
Think global, act local : Doesn’t mean that you shoud use the same strategy worldwide, but that you should market your game worldide using locally-tailored campaigns. Hire local, natives, or get external local help.
Passion is good, but without reason often leads to mistakes
Most of errors in marketing plans come from human origins. Nobody is perfect, but we should tend towards perfection.
Don’t forget that these particular employees/partners will be spending your money
Local networks and close human relationships can get prices down
Small world, conflicts of interest often arise.The main interest to be protected should always be the client’s.
Negociation can be painful on your relationship with the media, but is more effective in the long run
« Micro-Target » (Eurogamer example)
Adapted creatives, media, publics
Test your creatives before going live
Monitor, analyse and optimize
The boring part. After telling that human relationships and networking are important, I’m just telling that you should have people spend days and week looking at incomprehensible spreadsheets. Well… Yes.
Use the tools at their full capacity. Don’t limit yourself to the sale of a game, all data is useful.
Ongoing optimization often has to be agreed with the media partners beforehand.
If you’re not sure, don’t hesitate to ask someone to have a second look at your media plan. Whether it’s checked by a friend, or a hired professional, it can be worth the security.