HOW TO DIVIDE YOUR TIME

It is not easy to take care of the Marketing and Communication side when you are an independent video game development studio. Indeed, we are more likely to believe that you need to focus on creating good content and that players and customers will start to appear as if by magic. This is not the case. So, many independent developers will advise you to spend at least 30% of your time on the marketing side of your video game. By this we mean that it’s important to communicate well about your game, to have your page on Steam as soon as possible.

DEFINE YOUR OBJECTIVES

The first step in building a communication strategy is to know why you’re doing it. This may seem obvious, but clearly defining a goal in your strategy helps you set a course and avoid getting bogged down in time-consuming and costly actions. Having a clear, precise and simple plan will allow you to be effective while making good use of your precious time.

Here are a few examples of goals to set for yourself:

  • Make your studio known
  • Publicize your project under development
  • Make your games known for an outing
  • Promote your game during a promotional campaign
  • Encouraging people to discover your game
  • Get more subscribers to your newsletter

Marketing experts recommend using the “S.M.R.R.T.” method to set your goals. These should be :

    • Specific – with a clear statement of the expected result: “Get more reviews on my Steam page”
    • Measurable – quantify its objective: “Get 5 new evaluations”.
    • Reachable – define readily available means to reach them: “Identify people who might leave opinions about a game”.
    • Realistic – take into account the constraints: “I need to reach more players and get my audience to leave their opinion”.
    • Time— set a deadline to achieve the goal: “I give myself five months to get five more reviews.”

TARGET IDENTIFICATION

The identification of a target for your communication is obtained logically, following the objectives you have set yourself. Do you want more tests of your game, covers of your news, to appear in the show of a streamer ? Aim rather at a professional target.

Do you want to increase purchases of your game, promote sales, consolidate a community around your game or prepare for a consumer show to present it? Aim at a gamer target or a general public target.

Then determine more precisely the characteristics of your target. In the jargon, we talk about personas. Is your professional target a specialist journalist or a generalist? An actor or actress in the video game industry? An influencer? Does he or she have a preference for any particular genre? A community you are targeting? You will see that once you have determined these points, the message to be addressed and the information to be given will present itself!

Define your general public target in relation to the genre of your game, its universe, its story. Do you wish to address novice and/or casual players in the field or experienced and/or seasoned players? Do you want to offer them an experience that will test their gaming skills or simply take them on a journey through your world?

All parameters are good to take, you can for example focus your target in relation to your locality, your nationality. Don’t neglect the local in favor of the international, one is just as important as the other.
In an industry where Anglophony prevails, writing and speaking in English to reach a maximum of players is very good, but do not neglect the players/influencers closest to you. It will be all the easier to establish a strong bond by speaking to a French-speaking community in French, you will have more leeway to make the essence of your game, its message, its scope, etc. understood.

DETERMINE THE CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION

Blogs, press, dev diary, social networks, newsletters, trade shows, posters, flyers… Today, there are many ways to communicate, and all the more possibilities to reach your target. Depending on your target, you will have to consider different media.

  • A local and very limited target will be more easily reached via street displays, trade shows, flyers, “physical” communication.
  • A more distant, wider and international target will be reachable via social networks, blog news, dev diaries, forums etc. In short, digitally oriented communication.

A professional target group will see your communication more easily via e-mails and newsletters, press releases, large exhibitions (always have your business card and a small flyer with you at the event !).

Print” or physical communication is the one that requires the most investment on these points (elaboration of a model, printing, delivery costs, postage, etc.), but it is also the one that makes the most impression. Today, digital communication is replacing physical communication in terms of quantity, but this does not mean that the latter is less important.

From now on, “print” or physical communication is similar to “premium” communication: it allows you to durably mark an event and remind you of your existence through a medium considered qualitative, palpable, in addition to a more regular (because more ephemeral) communication on the web.

This translates into flyers and business cards to be distributed during your trade shows, posters to mark your presence on your test stands, physical press kits to be presented during your professional meetings, etc.
Determining your communication channels will allow you to have a precise idea of the cost of designing certain media and to take into account the manufacturing lead times in your planning (more about this later).

DEFINE A BUDGET

Now you’re starting to get ideas in your head about how to promote your studio or your game, but you have to talk about the subject that’s annoying. Money.

Defining your budget will give you a concrete idea of how much room you have to communicate. Make a list of the communication actions you plan to take and put the costs on it:

Human: does your action require calling in a professional or creating a dedicated team? (Community manager, web editor, designer, etc.).
The tools: software for image editing, design, video editing, planning publications on social networks, subscription to a mailing tool, etc.
Logistics: printing of flyers/posters, delivery costs, shipping costs, purchase of advertising space, travel to a trade fair
Indirect costs or hidden costs: the time spent by you or one of your team members to manage the communication.

Then evaluate your return on investment at the end of the campaign. In communication, it is sometimes difficult to measure the effectiveness of its action. Unless there is a direct action on the sales of your game, communication can be measured on criteria other than money income.

On the Internet, you can measure the number of clicks on pages on your site or subscriptions to your newsletter. On Steam, those who have added your game to their wishlist or left an evaluation. On social networks, you will measure the engagement rate of your audience. On an event, you will be able to evaluate the number of people who came to your booth, those who tested your game, those who stayed more than 5-10 minutes, etc. In press relations, you will evaluate the media coverage (how many media have talked about you? Positive? Negative?). Based on these results, you will determine the next actions to be prioritized and the new objectives to be set.

BUILDING A SCHEDULE

Establishing a communication plan allows you to define your com’ periods in relation to events, studio activity or project progress.

There’s no need to set specific dates if some data remains unclear, such as a release date. However, it is necessary to mark certain steps or events with communication actions (going from alpha to beta, launching tests, attending shows, setting a release date, obtaining a grant, sales, commercial operations…).

The video game is certainly a work, but also a product. It lives from the moment you launch the project and continues to exist after its release. As such, its life is punctuated by events that deserve to be marked through communication (birth of the project, release anniversary, promotional campaigns, etc.).

To start developing your communication planning, you can mark different dates that you know of, which can be benchmarks to visualize when you will need to be present to your audience, or which can be opportunities to prepare campaigns: