DOING THINGS THAT DON’T SCALECounter intuitive marketing for startups...
Who Am I?Developer, MeteorJS/NodeJS
Founder at Development Studio Almog Design
Developer / EntrepreneurAlmog Koren
Formerly founder of Scoreoid(funded startup)
Speak at events & meet-upsCasual Connect, Mobile Summit, ect..
Active in the community / Community Evangelist
Scoreoid
5,000+ Game Developers
Millions of players
Team of 3 / 5
$175K in Funding
01
02
03
04
Lesson's learned
Scoreoid - Customers
$75K in unding
Lesson's learned
Scoreoid – Teir 1 Games
$75K in unding
Lesson's learned
Super Hexagon Featured iOS, Android
and part of the indie bundle
LIGA WorldTapOfficial Spanish
Liga de Fútbol game
Color SheepFeatured Android game by industry professionals
Trinket Studios
Scoreoid – DevelopersLesson's learned
Our client wanted to create a worldwide online leaderboard for their app. The Scoreoid API was the best solution out there. It was super easy to implement and seamlessly worked across all of our target platforms within the Unity framework. Andrew Thompson, emberlab
I’ve been searching for a proper solution for my leaderboards without the need of servers or a database, Scoreoid was an instant hit and its no-API approach made it compatible with any platform! Kenney Indie Game Developer
Scoreoid is great! It has saved me countless hours of coding and given me the ability to focus more on creating a great game without having to worry about how I’m going to handle all the “other stuff” Scoreoid Rocks! Mark Hemingway Indie Game Developer
http://paulgraham.com/ds.htmlPaul Graham’s Essay
After closing down Scoreoid now having some free time, I enrolled startup class. Part of the reading was Paul’s Graham’s do things that don’t scale.
I realized what I did for Scoreoid in the being was exactly this, and it really works….
The Goal For This Talk?
Guest ContentWriting guest content not only works but really helps you get your message across and bring in new users (signups). While it does take a lot of time and does not bring a big amount of users (don’t expect double digits signups but single digits) over timeit makes a big difference.
Guest Content - Take Aways• Always follow up on comments
• Always follow up with the website / author
• Send a thank you note to the website / author
• Track everything - Google Analytics is your best friend
One on OneIt’s manual labor intensive but it works. I would each day look at the top 20 and lower (you want the mid tier first, as your not yet recognizable and just starting out) on the Android Play store I would contact each game developer and send them a personal message, I would also try to play each game and it 100% personalized. This is the most important thing.
One on One
One on OneThe message I sent out
One on OneI also did this for meet ups, uaergroups and anywhere that had game
developers
One on OneIf I developer did you use Scoreoid after a one on one message I would then post about it on our social networks and interview that developer.
One on One - Take Away• By playing each game or most of the games I was able to give really
feedback and make my email / message personalized
• Making your email / message personalized is the most important thing
• Don’t send out mass emails and marking emails this does not work, fact..
• If they use your service make sure to follow up and get their feedback
Community SDK’sI went to GitHub and other game developer communities looking for developers that have developed SDK’s and components. They just asked then to develop some for Scoreoid. It was hard to find developers for this but after 2 components other developers were doing this on their own without any contact from us. It grew by itself.
Videos, VideosFor each feature release we upload short videos showing what were working on, don’t expect viral videos or double digit signups but this works and over time we received an increase in both social media and signups.
Community Partners On our main website we created a community partners section were we promoted in our partners in return they listed us and their site and promoted out services. We were small noting more then a startup but over time were able to build this into a great tool with partners from Microsoft to ATT&T increasing signups and our exposure.
Doing More We also did developer interviews, spoke at events and anything we can think of. We did not look for crazy signup numbers or exposure but just going other there and doing the small stuff.
• Don’t worry about exposure or how long something might take
• Focus on little steps, doing things that are small
• It’s hard work no way to avoid that so go other there and just do it
• Ads when your starting out and bootstrapping is a waste
The Promotion
marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networking services and other technologies to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives… Wikipedia
The Ultimate Gaming Backend-as-a-Service for Game Developers!
Video clips, images
Games, email
Incentive based
Trendy based
Viral?
VIRAL = YOUR MARKET REACH
The Ultimate Gaming Backend-as-a-Service for Game Developers!
Market
Segments
Incentive size
Networking potential
Initial impact
Time frame
Viral Reach?
Social Media
Adding a like button isn't going to get you users
Doing social media isn't marketing it’s part of
marketing
Sharing and posting is not social media
Remember your network isn't scalable
Goals:• Increase Scoreoid brand awareness and awareness
within the game developers community.
• Increase social traffic and website traffic.
• Increase referrals and SEO?
• Testing the waters out.
• Can it go viral or pick up traction?
The Promotion
The Ultimate Gaming Backend-as-a-Service for Game Developers!
Outline:• Gather 6 game designers, sound artists and
developers from the community.
• Provide assets via landing page and “PayWithATweet”.
• Low budget and organic marketing.
The Promotion
8,159Unique Views
10,000Visits
1 MILLIONImpressions (Twitter)
Over 5,500Tweets
Over 6,000Social Referral
13,831Page Views
First 24 to 36 Hours
18,231Unique Views
23,000Visits
1 MILLION+Impressions (Twitter)
Over 6,500Tweets
Over 10,000Social Referral
39,836Page Views
Within A Week
The Ultimate Gaming Backend-as-a-Service for Game Developers!
Brand Awareness
Brand Awareness
The Ultimate Gaming Backend-as-a-Service for Game Developers!
Brand Awareness
The Ultimate Gaming Backend-as-a-Service for Game Developers!
Brand Awareness
The Ultimate Gaming Backend-as-a-Service for Game Developers!
Brand Awareness
Follow up after initial
spike
Target influencers more
Incentive based is key
Update hash tags
constantly
Brand awareness is key
Be more prepared to measure
Direct follow up was missed
Closing and wrapping up
What We Learned
Social engagement
Brand awareness Segment WHAT
TO DOSocial research
Find a good incentive Be genuine
Post, Post, PostSocial mechanics
Use a designer
Your Promotion?
What can you give away or provide that has value?
What does your target market need or would want?
What can I show to my target market that would
interest them?
What platforms can I use?
Brainstorm with everyone THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
Ideas
Examples
Dropbox Michigan RaceDropbox share for free space
Examples
Dropbox invite friends for free spaceCopy Tweet for extra storage
Examples
Twitter promotion (in 2009) - "Tweet Seats" sold domestic tickets through its Twitter account for just nine bucks a pop, selling 1,000 tickets in just three minutes. 33,000 followers to its Twitter account.
Grasshopper, The New Dork - bit.ly/bCFPNJ
Dollar Shave Club - bit.ly/x1RILs
Examples
- More than 1.3 million views since March 2010 (Startup, USA ).
- 2 million views within the first 48 hours, today 5 million. Used video to raise $1 million USD and gain 12,000 new subscriptions within the first two days of debut.
Will It Blend? - bit.ly/efO3A
The Blair Witch Project - bit.ly/GWXa
Examples
- 530,000 subscribers and over 220 million views
- budget of just over $500,000, gross almost $250 million at the box office
Focus Point
Rewards Engagement
Good segmentation
Wrap Up: Focus
Wrap Up: Tools that can help
Almog Design @IsAlmog Almog Design
Website: www.almogdesign.netBlog: https://medium.com/@IsAlmog E-Mail: [email protected]
Contact
THANK YOU
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