Developing a consistent and useful content campaign is time-consuming, but it’s a non-negotiable for today’s marketers that want to amp up search results and engage potential customers with thoughtful blogs, webinars and whitepapers.
To make the most of this hard work, marketers can “double-dip” by leveraging the content development process for another element of the marketing mix: PR. Continue reading How to Leverage Content Marketing for PR
Interviewing for a job is difficult. The interview process at TriplePoint goes beyond the cookie-cutter question sets you’re used to being asked. Beyond the skills required for a PR career, like superior writing and the ability to make decisions quickly, the ideal candidate for an intern or entry-level position must build a combination of rapport, confidence and trust during the interview process. My goal when interviewing candidates is to determine if I could rely on you to speak professionally in a client meeting, trust you with a project if I get sick, and eventually add you to a variety of client accounts.
Instead of feeling anxious about an interview, think of it as an opportunity to meet new people that have the same interests you do. Your goal should be to inspire your potential employers. For us, interviewing a candidate means we have half an hour to learn everything possible about someone we’re most likely meeting for the first time. Let this interview be a highlight of our day! I’ve included a couple of tips to make this happen, below.
Before joining TriplePoint I worked briefly for a growth stage fund at a venture capital firm, specializing in mobile, ecommerce, adtech, and cloud technologies. It’s not hard to imagine that my favorite part of the job was sitting in on the pitches entrepreneurs made to attract funding for their companies. When I moved over to the public relations side of the tech scene, I experienced a complete role reversal. Now I am the one presenting pitches, in the form of a tailored email or occasional call to a journalist. From this process, I’ve learned a bit about what makes an effective — and cringe-worthy — pitch. While I’m still always learning new ways to pitch, I’ve developed a few tips for pitching someone, whether you’re looking for investment support or media coverage:
Continue reading Pitchcraft: What PR and Venture Capital have Taught Me About Pitching
The mobile market is still growing fast; in 2014 the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the world’s population. With over 1 million apps available on both the iTunes App Store and Google Play, the competition facing mobile developers is fiercer than ever before. With so many app options, the sheer volume of marketing has grown to a cacophony… so where does this leave mobile app PR? The market has shifted substantially over the past year, and PR pros must adapt rapidly. Formerly bulletproof techniques have become less reliable, while new PR strategies are evolving in their place. All this upheaval is thanks to three little characters: F2P.
Continue reading Slide to Survive: Flourishing in the Cutthroat Mobile Industry
Much in the same way that bloggers rose a decade ago to disrupt the media landscape by giving readers immediate access to information over their print brethren, YouTubers have arrived in a similar fashion to give a new, younger audience a fresh perspective on the games they love. Though YouTubers have been around for the better part of a decade, it is only in the last year that this surge of user-generated content has come to the attention of game publishers and developers as they scramble to understand how to work with these personalities. Like the bloggers of yesteryear, this influx of influential talent has led PR professionals and their marketing colleagues to learn more about this next generation of game changers but which camp are YouTubers in? Should they be approached like editors? Do they have the same ethical guidelines as journalists? Are they supposed to behave like reporters in the first place?
In the last month, this notion that YouTubers should adhere to similar ethical standards as editors—i.e. not accepting money for content—has been argued both for and against by many in the industry. Lumping all YouTubers into one batch, though, is a step in the wrong direction toward understanding this novel segment. With journalism, all reporters are held to a universal standard, but this is not the case with YouTubers as there are couple different types of personalities to contend with. Instead, when evaluating a YouTuber, it should be done on a case-by-case basis as each one has their own set of rules; some aim toward being pure entertainers, much like a daytime TV talk show host, while others portray themselves as unbiased and critical, much like journalists, in their assessments of games and yet they still do what they do for entertainment purposes.
On the pure entertainment side of the spectrum, look at popular personality PewDiePie. He doesn’t present himself to be a critical voice in the games industry; his videos are mostly comprised of himself and friends enjoying themselves while playing an assortment of games. By no means is PewDiePie proposing that you should buy X game or stay away from Y genre, he just wants to entertain—and he does, to the tune of two million views per video on average.
Is it unethical for an entertainer to accept a branded deal for content creation specifically? If the entertainer posits themselves as just that—an entertainer, much the same way as, let’s say, a comedian does—then it is this author’s opinion that it shouldn’t be an issue who sponsors the entertainer so long as it is clearly disclosed to the viewer the same way it has been done in television for decades.
On the other side of the coin, you have personalities like Total Biscuit who certainly come with their fair share of opinion and whose audience is craving this sort of critical feedback to base their purchasing decisions on.
Could one who proposes themselves as a critical voice in the YouTube community accept promotion for content creation? While accepting payment to create a positive sounding video could be considered a conflict of interest much the same way an editor would never accept money for a positive review, a YouTuber of this variety may still accept branded deals in the guise of voice acting, using sponsored products, and other promotional considerations outside of specifically creating positive videos about games they wouldn’t otherwise play. Branded deals for a critical YouTuber could be viewed the same as an outlet taking ad money from a publisher to keep their site running. While editors can argue that they themselves do not sell ads and that there is a clear separation between editorial and sales, this distinction isn’t transparent when it comes to YouTubers. Again though, any sort of paid promotion should be clearly disclosed to viewers and readers so the audience is aware of the situation.
Simply put, YouTubers are indeed a different beast and should be held to the ethical standards of disclosure, especially when there is money changing hands. Furthermore, these actions should be made clear by both parties involved. This is where the similarities between journalistic ethics and YouTubers end, though. No matter how critical a YouTuber may be, they are still in the business of entertainment and though some critical YouTubers will not accept money for content creation—and personally I feel this is a great thing if one is positing themselves as a serious critic—a YouTuber may still opt to take branded deals, something a journalist simply cannot do.
It is necessary for an audience to determine the validity of a YouTuber’s content and for a PR pro to keep these things in mind when researching who to reach out to regarding a game or product. If a personality has a reputation for not properly disclosing when they take payment for content creation then they’re not a good target for your game as people will question the integrity of the YouTuber’s words in their videos, much the same way a journalist would be questioned if they were caught taking money to write positive articles. Clear disclosure is the ultimate ethic that all of us in the business of brand awareness, whether it be paid or not, should abide by.
The first online pseudonym I ever took for myself was “FreeK.” Yes, with the capital K at the end, and everything. My thin justification for that ‘edgy’ spelling was that if you wanted to, you could pronounce it “free-kay” like someone saying “freaky” with an accent. Don’t judge me too harshly; it was 1993, and I was 13 years old. Having discovered that Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was a magical technology where geographically disparate strangers could speak with relative anonymity, I was tasked with picking a username — much in the same way that the modern Internet denizen must select their Twitter handle. 13-year-old me had fewer concerns about the lasting impact of his nom de pépier, but admittedly that didn’t stop 30-year-old me from still being a smartass about it.
PR professionals are trusted to be caretakers of incredibly valuable brands. When we interact on behalf of a client, it’s understood that what we say and do reflects back on that client – for all intents and purposes, our words are coming out of their mouths, so we need to act responsibly. Just as often, though, we’re simply interacting as ourselves, whether it’s to swap jokes with industry contemporaries, share interesting news, or simply shout our fascinating thoughts into the ether. I’m speaking, of course, about Twitter, that marvelous social media equalizer that gives each of us the same 140 characters to act as cleverly or callously as we please.
The basics of how to behave on one’s personal Twitter account should, by now, be common knowledge in the professional world (even if one still sees occasional evidence that they’re not). I am not here to harangue anyone about the blurred lines between personal and professional personas; anybody in PR ought to understand that you need to be professional in both — especially in an industry driven by public interaction and relationships — maintaining one’s own brand takes just as much care as a client’s. My point of curiosity, instead, is this: if our online profiles are our brands, how do we come by our branding? In short, why do we pick the Twitter names that we do?
Based on my own anecdotal research, roughly 95% of us go the simple route, picking a handle that is directly derived from our real names. It’s a basic concept, of course — if we’re to establish ourselves as thought leaders, social butterflies, and other highly visible personalities, naturally we want our names out there, attached to our thoughts, standing behind our two cents whenever we chip them in. As with the rest of the world, including the likes of @tim_cook, @andersoncooper, and even @barackobama, most of my colleagues, contemporaries, and clients have Twitter handles that are simply their names (underscores or abbreviations notwithstanding). Simple, straightforward, memorable, and no explanation needed.
There are plenty of reasons not to go this route. Frequently, this is simply because one’s real-name handle is already taken. The Internet is a crowded place, and few want the stigma of imitation or “being late to the party” associated with a username like “@BobJones2.” Whatever the reason, however, picking a non-given name reflects a much more personal and conscious decision, much more in line with a brand. You’ve got just 15 characters to encapsulate some facet of yourself — so what will you pick? A favorite literary character? A frequent hobby? What is the element of your character that is so dominant that you have chosen to name yourself after it?
After doing a bit of digging, I discovered that, like myself, most of my colleagues with non-tradtional Twitter names (i.e. not their actual names) have a personal story behind their choices, typically one rooted in old real-world nicknames: names their friends and family gave them in school, or frequent pun-based alterations of their names that others have made. Branding by focus group, if you will. Like any brand, however, the double-edged sword is that once a brand becomes recognizable, you’re more or less compelled to keep using it.
My current Twitter name isn’t anything explicitly profane or offensive; I don’t profess a love of illegal drugs or antisocial behavior. It’s nothing bad, per se, but it’s questionable from a maturity standpoint. It’s irreverent at best, and that’s how I like to hope it’s interpreted — but, like so many others’, it’s “mine” now, and it’s been around long enough that several friends would blink if I were to drop it.
Could I rebrand myself if I needed to? Almost certainly. But the tongue-in-cheek nature of my brand is one I try to support with wry messaging, and I find it makes a more memorable first impression than a simple @MyName selection. Besides, I’ve checked on the Twitter names with my actual name on them, and there’s at least 7 of them. So far, I’m the only one using my particular Twitternym, so I’ve got that market segment locked up.
If you liked this post, you can follow me on Twitter (just not at @JesseHenning ’cause that’s not me).
On Tuesday we helped our friends at DoubleDutch put on a panel discussing what’s next in marketing technology and how startups can capitalize on the skyrocketing CMO tech budget. The event was called “The Battle for the Marketing Cloud,” and it was a hit! CEOs from DoubleDutch (social events platform), KISSmetrics (data analytics), Traackr (influencer marketing) and Genius.com (marketing automation) spoke to a packed house of startup founders with insightful moderator Mike Maples, one of the valley’s top notch VC’s and managing partner at FLOODGATE.
Reflecting on the discussion, I’d like to share my top takeaways from the event:
1) The “shift” in budget from the CIO to the CMO is not really a shift.
Since Gartner predicted that the CMO’s tech budget will eclipse the CIO’s by 2017, there has been a lot of hullabaloo about these two positions competing for cash. In reality, that’s not the case. CIO’s aren’t losing money for tech to their colleagues in marketing; CMOs are just rapidly gaining budget because new digital tools are making it easier for them to prove ROI on their spends. A classic marketing problem used to be, “I know half of my advertising budget is working, I just don’t know which half.” Trackable, data-driven tools are increasing transparency into what channels and messages work. Hence, the boom in enterprise marketing-focused startups. (Credit: Mike Maples, @m2jr).
2) Cloud software is democratizing the marketing vendor space.
Cloud software is making it easier for startups to quickly deploy solutions, and therefore, it’s very easy for in-house marketers to try many different tools and evaluate them. While this helps create an even playing field to edge out software incumbents like SAP and Oracle, it also means that your solution could be booted as quickly as it was installed. The bottom line: you can get in relatively simply, but your product must be rock solid to keep its place in a CMO’s tech mix. (Credit: Lawrence Coburn, @lawrencecoburn)
3) Complex marketing sales require buy-in from the CIO.
Even though the cloud makes it easier to sell to the CMO, marketing software sales that span a large enterprise usually require buy-in from the IT department as well. In the case of data analytics platform KISSmetrics, penetrating an organization usually starts with a lower level developer or marketing manager. Then, as the product gains advocates, the KISSmetrics sales team can move up the food chain, eventually working with both the CIO and the CMO to develop the most productive, long-term customer relationships. (Credit: Hiten Shah, @hnshah)
4) Integrating point-based marketing solutions is the next big opportunity.
Because the cloud has created a boom in point-based solutions that focus on solving one marketing problem elegantly, marketers are usually dealing with a number of tools that don’t talk to each other. The next wave of truly “disruptive” solutions will integrate data from all tools – social, automation, email, events and more – into one easy-to-understand platform. This new solution would empower marketers to understand how their channels work together with powerful data visualization. (Credit: Pierre-Loic Assayag, @pierreloic and Sam Weber, @SamWeber).
5) The best companies don’t compete.
Mike Maples had so many insights about what makes a startup remarkable, it was hard to choose just one to highlight. However, my top takeaway from Mike is that the best companies don’t compete at all. They are not trying to be the best in their category; they create categories. In this position, a company should develop a provocative point of view that repels those “villains” who you would rather not have as customers and attracts others that share your spirit. For example, Salesforce ran with the “no software” perspective that drove away slow-moving traditional sales departments and excited those looking for a less clunky CRM service.
In Mike’s opinion, capitalism isn’t about competition, it’s quite literally about gaining capital, and those who are the only force in their particular market segment usually win this battle. (Credit: Mike Maples, @m2jr)
A big thank you to DoubleDutch for sponsoring the event and to Mike Maples, Lawrence Coburn, Hiten Shah, Pierre-Loic Assayag and Sam Weber for participating. You can continue the discussion by downloading the DoubleDutch event app here or tweeting me @DianaHSmith.
The summer of 2007, I volunteered as a marketing intern at my hometown radio station. My job was to attend local movie premieres (the kindof events you can win tickets for if you’re the fifth caller to the station), check tickets, and hand out swag. I’d even get to watch the film afterward. While watching the best of 2007’s summer movies was a good way to escape the heat, it didn’t pay my college tuition, so I took a part-time job waitressing at a steakhouse.
After a summer in the hot kitchens and a few years working with journalists, it occurred to me that a few months with wood-polished tables and Surf ‘n’ Turf specials prepared me as much for media relations as my more formal training. Beyond learning a few tricks for getting grease stains out of Oxford shirts, my time at the steakhouse allowed me to work with a variety of different people in an environment where each request was time-sensitive. The relationships between customers, restaurant management, and chefs are not unlike those of a journalist, PR staff, and a brand.
Continue reading What Working at a Steakhouse Taught Me about Media Relations
Two weeks ago we debuted part one of our Six Principles of Influence, and How to Use Them, and today’s post will focus on the remaining three principles: Reciprocity, Commitment/Consistency, and Liking/Rapport.
4. Reciprocity
Reciprocity, or the Law of Reciprocity as it is known, states that people want to give back to others who have given to them. Like consensus, this dates back to hunter-gatherer times, where the hunters would go out to get food while the other tribe members stayed and watched over the village and tended to other needs. Reciprocity developed here because the village knew that they would be getting meat and food when the hunters returned, which they needed to survive. On the flip side, the hunter who brought the food needed to know that if they returned frail or hurt there would someone in the village to take care of them and nurse them back to health.
Reciprocity started out mainly as a symbiotic relationship and has stayed ingrained in our consciousness and subconsciousness ever since. Reciprocity can be seen at play with holiday cards, a tradition that many people take part in each year. If the Smith family sends you a card, you will feel indebted to them and want to send them a card back, even if you don’t like the Smith Family! With the law of reciprocity in play, we often find ourselves in situations like this with gifts, favors, and help, because people want to give back to those who have given to them. They are compelled to give back in order to remove the feeling of indebtedness they have from the original action or deed. Continue reading The Six Principles of Influence, and How to Use Them: Part 2
Back in the end of June, I had the opportunity to attend a massive marketing event in Atlanta. Titled “Conversion and Compliance 3.0,” the event was held over two days, bringing in a range of speakers who covered a number of different marketing and communication topics.
One such speaker was Dr. Robert Cialdini, who is internationally known for his best-selling book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. In it, Cialdini breaks down what he describes as the six core principles of influence. They include Scarcity, Authority, Consensus, Reciprocity, Commitment/Consistency and Liking/Social Proof.
All of these principles are incredibly powerful and can be utilized in many different daily environments. This post delves into the first three, giving an in-depth look at what each principle is and how they can be used.
1. Scarcity
Scarcity is based around the idea that we want more of something the less there is of it. Scarcity can apply to physical items, such as a popular menu item that is being discontinued, or an offer that is only available for a limited time. Think back to every infomercial you have ever seen on TV, “order in the next 20 minutes and receive double the offer for no extra cost!” This is scarcity in action: if you don’t act soon you’ll be stuck with only one of the thing that you don’t really need, and thus your life will be worse.
Applying Scarcity to your life can be done best in relation to time. Your time is finite, and thus incredibly valuable. However, if you are always giving it out to people, they will not respect it and you will be worse off for it. If your time is scarce, people will value the interactions they have with you even more because they will subconsciously know that those interactions are not something they have whenever they please. A few months back, Apple CEO Tim Cook took part in a charity auction for a coffee meeting with him. The initial offering valued his time at $50,000, but the auction ended up closing for $610,000. How could one person’s time ever be worth that much? Scarcity.
2. Authority
Authority is important for people because authority builds credibility and trust. If you’ve ever had someone break into your car or steal something from your home, you call the police because they are the “authorities,” someone who you can trust to help with your problem and help you obtain a desired solution, whether that is getting the stolen goods back or finding the perpetrators.
Authority extends far beyond law enforcement, and can be seen in many different business settings. Think of Best Buy, who has brilliantly branded their computer tech and service department as the “Geek Squad.” When everyday people don’t know what is wrong with their computers, they go to the Geek Squad because they have a link to geeks being an authority in fixing all things technical.
You may be an authority figure in a given field; however you must tread carefully when peddling your wares. Telling others you run the hottest new startup in Silicon Valley will not showcase you as an authority figure, but instead will make others look at you with disdain as someone who is pompous and egotistical. What is better is to have others validate your authority for you. If I tell someone that my friend John is an incredibly smart guy who runs Silicon Valley’s hottest startup, this will seem much for credible to the listener. Whether or not this is true doesn’t necessarily matter; subconsciously, my building up John’s company is perceived as true, because it is coming from a second party who the person knows and who seems to have no reason to lie.
With Authority comes great power, so it is important to not abuse the power given to you by authority.
3. Consensus
Consensus refers to the idea that people look to others around them, who are like them, to see what they should be doing in a given situation. This is ingrained biologically from our hunter-gatherer times, where if one member of a given community didn’t follow the pack and acted differently from others (whether in hunting, traveling, or mating) they were not as likely to survive. In a behavioral sense, consensus makes it easier to fit into an unfamiliar situation. If you’ve never been to an opera, you’re going to look at other members of the audience for cues when to clap, when to stand, and when to stay quiet, because it is easier for you to follow the crowd rather than test out new behaviors on your own.
A big part of consensus also revolves around relating to others: if we have like behavior or find something in common with another person we are more open and receptive to them and are more likely to find them friendly.
Where this applies in an influence sense is that consensus can be used to elicit specific behaviors from those you interact with. As a Doctor, you could use consensus to help guide people towards particular procedures that are beneficial but which the patients may be hesitant about: “Most patients who are like you with X ailment choose to go through with this procedure, and most of them have a quick and easy recovery.” In this case, the patient is more likely to be convinced to have the surgery because others like them have done it before. This is consensus in action.
Ready for more? Check out The Six Principle of Influence, and How to Use Them: Part 2.
Over the past year, we’ve been hearing from developers who want PR support not for the launch of their game, but for their Kickstarter projects. Promoting a Kickstarter project bears some similarity to a traditional product PR campaign; however, there are some major differences that will influence the way you approach a PR effort. Like any game, product, or service, it must be of high quality and there must be a demand for it in order for PR to be effective. If you’ve got that covered, then the next step is getting the word out in the right way; here are some tips and best practices we’ve learned through experience and observation.
1) Ask Not for Money
A common complaint we’ve heard from members of the press is that writing about Kickstarter projects puts them in an awkward position, or worse, a conflict of interests. The reporter’s job is to inform their readers, not to help a struggling artist raise money. If one goal accomplishes the other, so be it, but in your outreach to press, you must avoid asking for help or assistance in reaching your fundraising goal. Your objective should be to show and tell about the amazing game you’re developing, not to put the pressure you feel to reach a fundraising goal on other people.
2) Early Access for Media
One of the greatest advantages any game developer has in terms of PR is being new and unannounced. Once you’re live on Kickstarter, you’re not quite as new anymore. So treat your Kickstarter launch as a proper launch and offer a select handful of press some early access to the info, assets, and/or game preview you plan to share when your Kickstarter goes live.
3) Target Wisely
Some journalists have tweeted or written about “Kickstarter fatigue” and not wanting to hear about or write about any more Kickstarters. Avoid these people. Before you contact someone, read their work to make sure they are interested in the type of game you’re making, and that they’ve shown interest in promising Kickstarter projects before.
4) Update Often
We’ve seen a direct correlation between Kickstarter project updates, and the flow of donations, so keep your community informed with lively and regular updates and your chances of success and building a fanbase will increase. You should prepare a schedule of updates before you go live so you can drip-feed them over the course of the campaign. Hasty or hollow updates can actually deter backers.
5) Tap into Nostalgia or Unmet Demand
The projects that fare the best on Kickstarter, for the most part, all have something in common. Some tap into a nostalgia we all have for a long-forgotten game franchise or defunct IP from our childhoods and the collective desire to bring it back. Some play into a sense of unmet demand for a game or product that people clearly want to have but no big company has yet devoted the resources to produce. Others instill a sense of confidence in their backers because the team behind it has an incredible pedigree and a track record of success. Most successful games on Kickstarter will tick one of these three boxes. Note that the successful “nostalgia” projects typically also offer something new and innovative, not just a revival of something old.
6) Get Ready Before Launch
You need to have a working game to show before you launch the Kickstarter. Don’t let Kickstarter be the debut of your concept — you should have a working prototype or more. John Rhee, an indie developer who recently ran a successful Kickstarter for his game Liege, wisely advised, “Your development progress should be inverse to your studio pedigree. Only established studios can expect to get funded off a concept. If you don’t have recognizable IPs under your belt, you’ll need to be well into development and have a lot to show.”
7) Time Your Project Deliberately
Think carefully about the launch, middle and end of your project. Be ready to wow people at launch, but sustain the flow of info and updates over the course of the campaign. Prepare for the “middle dip”, knowing support for projects tends to slump around the halfway mark. Know where your final 48, 24 and 8 hours will land. Like any other online business, purchases tend to increase on Sunday evenings. You’d be wise to end your campaign near standard paydays, when people have more disposable income handy. Likewise, avoid launching during major holidays, particularly shopping holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving (Black Friday).
8) Leverage Kickstarter for PR
Use Kickstarter as the powerful marketing tool it can be. Around 50% of your backers will originate from within Kickstarter, as opposed to referrals from external sites. Pay close attention to your project blurb and how it appears on Kickstarter and in search results. Also, look for opportunities to cross-promote your project with other Kickstarter projects. Many successful Kickstarters got a huge bump in backers from working with fellow projects in similar genres. You’re reaching an ideal demographic of existing backers who’ve already linked their accounts to Kickstarter and have shown interest in similar projects.
Just like the App Store, Kickstarter is a crowded marketplace full of many different products for sale. Both marketplaces share a common problem: discovery. It’s hard for users to find the content they want, and the platform owners struggle to surface the right content for the right people. Until this problem is solved, you must take it upon yourself to promote your Kickstarter and use PR to your advantage. Follow these tips and you will improve your chances of success on Kickstarter.
Management theorist Peter Drucker wrote many tips on how executives should obtain knowledge. Here’s one tip from his book The Effective Executive:
“The first thing to know is whether you are a reader or a listener. Far too few people even know that there are readers and listeners and that people are rarely both. Even fewer know which of the two they themselves are.”
President Kennedy was a reader, President Johnson a listener. Drucker contends the passage of administrations was fraught with problems since the aides who managed the transition — trained to convey information in written form — didn’t get through to the listening-oriented Johnson.
Consider your coworkers. It’s probably good to know which type they are. If you convey to someone multiple times “I emailed you” or “I told you,” perhaps it’s time to flip the method. You’ll likely have to conform to what works best for them.
But what works best for you in gathering knowledge? How should you choose what to read or listen to? Listeners are at a disadvantage. Continue reading Lend Me Your Ears: A Guide to Selecting Podcasts
E3 2013 was arguably the biggest gaming event in the last five years. The dawn of a new generation of consoles brought with it a bevy of games to every publisher’s booth. With big competition for media attention, you need to be seizing every opportunity you can to stand out and get your game the attention it deserves. Here are a few tips I’ve found useful to help make every moment your finest at E3, based on working at the show the last few years and on the successes of working with the indie horror game Outlast this year.
Have faith. Make promises. When you truly believe in the game you’re representing, you exude confidence. When you’re confident, you start making promises — promises you can keep — such as, “Outlast will scare the s*** out of you.” A lofty statement like that will almost always lead to skepticism, and the natural reaction will be for a journalist to find out for themselves if you’re spewing PR rainbows or the de facto truth. Promises, when kept, have a domino effect. After someone has a positive experience with your demo, your claim can be amplified as they discuss their experience with friends and coworkers, driving more traffic and attention to your booth. By the end of the week, some publications had sent their entire staff to experience the Outlast demo!
I totally screamed bloody murder playing #Outlast at #e3 If you’re here check it out at the @PlayStation booth! — Andrea Rene (@andrearene) June 12, 2013
I could not wait for the Outlast demo to be over. That’s a compliment. #e3 — Ludwig Kietzmann (@LudwigK) June 13, 2013
Come armed with different stories. A good game will shine on its own – but that doesn’t matter unless the right people see it. Help this happen by painting a bigger picture around the game. Come prepared to suggest and discuss larger stories that will amplify the experience. Consider having discussions about the background of the development team, media or pop culture that influenced the developers, interesting research conducted by the team to offer a realistic or factually accurate experience, etc — many attendees have very little insight into the research that goes into creating a game. Sharing these stories offers an interesting perspective about the developer’s creative process. Some examples of stories we helped to tell this year include:
**The fainting actually happened! An attendee fainted while playing Outlast, and after making sure they were okay, we told one person who told another, who told another, until the story began to spread all throughout the show.
Be aware. Capture reactions as they happen… And share them! If you’re not speaking with someone in any given second, there’s probably someone you should be speaking to. During half-seconds, your eyes and ears should be peeled to what’s happening inside and outside of your booth. New opportunities may present themselves that you want your game to be a part of. For example, one of the bigger stories at this year’s E3 was the concentration of high-quality indie games appearing on next-gen consoles. Email editors you see talking about this or use Twitter to make sure your game is a part of the conversation!
What are people saying about your game after they play? How are people reacting? Capture these using tools like Vine for reactions or Tweet out quotes, tagging the appropriate person. Keeping promises is easy when you’re creating content to prove it.
Timely reminders and follow-ups. Did you speak to a journalist about a story idea that piqued their interest while at the show? No matter how interesting it is, words are easily lost in the hustle and bustle of this hectic show every year. Send a follow-up thanking people for coming by and playing if you haven’t already and rekindle the discussion of any story ideas shared during your E3 meeting the week following E3, or sooner, depending on deadlines.
Can a room full of experienced VC’s learn some new tricks about digital marketing, from the perspective of video game PR? That was my hope today as I represented TriplePoint during the 7th annual TiE CON in Boston.
It’s a conference that brings together both established and startup entrepreneurs in Technology, Life Sciences, Education, and Cleantech. I lead a boot camp with help from two other marketers, on the topic of New Marketing for the Socially Digital Age. The panel touched upon everything from Facebook and YouTube to email blasts, lead-generation, and timing for advertising campaigns.
Continue reading New Marketing for the Socially Digital Age – TiE CON East 2013
Geoffrey Moore was ahead of his time when he wrote Crossing the Chasm.
After reading his analysis on bridging “the Chasm” between early adopters and the mainstream market, I realized that this was an essential idea that’s been overlooked by many young startups. Some companies don’t know where to begin with their marketing efforts, and slowly dissipate into the black hole of Silicon Valley. Others find themselves on the right track, but hit a bottleneck when they arrive at the chasm, unsure of their next step. With new seeds of innovations constantly sprouting throughout the world, Moore’s approach on crossing the chasm is very relevant today.
At its core, the book analyzes how to approach the various psychographic (personality) profiles from the Technology Adoption Cycle, primarily the minority of hardcore, geeky enthusiasts versus the mainstream majority. Moore states that very few companies distinguish the visionary early adopters from the pragmatic second wave of users who follow. This leads startups to fall straight into the chasm rather than crossing it safely. Unlike visionaries, who see potential in a startup’s prospects and want to see it grow, pragmatists want to see how the company will bring personal value to them.
What Moore suggests is to take more surgical approach to each market segment. Rather than placing all the eggs in to one basket, Moore describes entering the mainstream market like the D-Day invasion. If a startup is able to methodically capture the audience from one small part of the overall market, its success can then travel vertically to other segments. From one niche market to another, it’s an opportunity that can allow a company to dominate the mainstream (with a little patience and a lot of luck).
Apple is a great example of crossing the chasm successfully. After launching the iPod, the company constantly reengineered its product to meet the needs of each market segment, making each version better, simpler, and more powerful. Warby Parker, a startup once focused on providing the best online shopping experience for eyewear, now has physical showrooms across the U.S. that cater to a different market of traditional shoppers.
But where does PR come into all of this? As an agency, we define and reinforce key messages about a startup’s product or service, with slightly different messages to suit each segment of the press. As a startup comes to the edge of the chasm, proper PR can build a compelling message to target niche markets, helping usher the startup towards the mainstream as smoothly as possible. Word of mouth remains one of the most powerful tools in commerce; approaching the right people with the right message is the backbone of the best PR agencies.
And yet… I can’t help but notice another issue that today’s startups face. Another chasm is growing between innovators and early adopters, one step “earlier” in the lifecycle. With so many buzzed-about startups entering the market on a monthly, rather than annual basis, it’s become more difficult to garner the attention of visionaries and VCs. After all, a startup can’t concern itself with mainstream success if it can’t win over the early adopter first. Perhaps, in the future, Moore will address this issue in a new book, and share his advice for this new obstacle. In the mean time, I highly recommend Crossing the Chasm as a foundation for any young tech company’s marketing strategy.
Image Credit to IllustrationSource and WikiMedia
