What to Write So People Buy: Selling Your Game Without Feeling Sleazy
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- Опубліковано 29 бер 2020
- In this 2020 GDC Virtual Talk, Chris Zukowski teaches you the basics of Copywriting in a way that doesn't feel sleazy.
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Absolutely awesome talk! :)
Just one small thing. If you survey the people on your emailing (let's say: 1000 people), and a small group of them (for argument's sake 100) respond to your survey and of those 100, 94% of the respondents like daily emails, that does not mean that 94% if all the email recipients liked daily emails. That's called a sample of convenience bc its not a truly random sample of your emailing list, its only the people who were engaged enough to respond to your survey :)
When he plays the bell then says "always have a call to action", I feel like I'm getting conditioned like Pavlov's dogs.
But...
I'm not complaining.
Marketing is easier than most people think. The key is providing urgency. For example, if you are having a fire sale on Steam yell out "THERE'S A FIRE" part and whisper the "sale" part because everybody understands that fire is an urgent circumstance. This technique especially works in crowded theater, if you are in a crowded theater than that means a large number of impressions, and thus a large reach of people who will find out about your fire sale. You'll be attracting attention to your product in no time.
Total FOMO. Fear of missing the door! Great work John!
>"Dont say Hey all"
*Scott The Woz would like to know your location*
Scott can say that because we know him as the guy that always says ,,Hey all" at the beginning of every video.
Only if practically anyone else uses this greeting, it comes off as not personal.
@@sosasees That's actually really great thinking. My initial comment was a joke, but I agree. I pretty much associate the "Hey all" calling with Scott, and it definitely paid off for him.
50:05 this dude's living in 2022
I knew you would say that.
one upside of the Kung Flu seems to be that it finally makes the world realize that we've got technology, and what all it can (and should) be used for =D
@@zukalous Of course you knew, if you're living in 2022 you know since 2 years ago!
The email at the end of the talk, was expecting no less hahah
What do you expect from a marketer talk?
I subbed tho. Didn't do that for any other gdc speaker and I watched A LOT.
I guess the key takeaway is, ALWAYS ADD A CALL TO ACTION!
No questions but a thank you for the overview, and for understanding the resistance many artists have against sleazy marketing - lots of non sleazy practical tips here : the winner being always have a call to action!! 😄
My tip: don't only do the call to action at the end!
Not everyone reads to the end.
Also don't do it at the beginning, that will seem scummy and make people skip the post
I'm at least 5 months away from even having to think about marketing my game and now I'm actually looking forward to it instead of dreading it, this was an Great talk !
Start marketing your game today. Put up an email signup form. Don't delay.
did you release it?
So much good stuff backed in this video. Incredible. Love your enthusiasm, your passion, and what you deliver. You don't hold anything, I love that.
You're now my favorite marketing-specialist ever.
Great talk. Not surprising that email is so effective. The eyes that see your email are by definition the most interested, and they only got there after being filtered through some form of social media. It stands to reason that the people on reddit or discord or twitter are looking for something to be interested in and the email list people are those people once they've found you. It's not so much that email is the better tool, it's that it's a tool for the people who are already interested.
Fantastic talk Chris! This and your Gamasutra blog are so helpful and informative. Thank you for putting your work out there
The part about understanding your audience is gold!
That was a great selection of tips
Thank you, great talk!
Great talk. Love all the copywriting stuff.
Some really nice ideas here! Good talk.
Great talk Chris, excellent advise on marketing. You clearly know what you're talking about...and gifts really!?
Gold, pure gold.
I am a game dev student soon planning to start my own studio, and after watching your video I wanna make a game just to market it. This is amazing knowledge that acquired today, cannot thank you enough for this information.
Also do you have a newsletter for more tips about marketing or maybe your youtube channel? So I can learn more about this stuff in the future when I really need them?
Never mind I didnt watch the full video before commenting, I just loved this talk in the middle so I just commented, sorry. I found your newsletter. ❤️
I wonder if the data in the pie chart at 49:30 is biased. Who is opening that email? Probably the people that liked the email bombardment or the people that was pissed. If they were pissed then they would unsubscribe and then not receive the last email and thus making them not present in the statistics. How many unsubscribed from the mailing list during that week?
He's only concerned with people still reading the messages because those are his target audience. People who stopped reading or unsubscribed aren't going to care how many messages he's sending. Looking at unsubscribes would be interesting, but I think it's part of a wider statistic, not the specific one he's focusing on here.
I didn't mention this in the talk (which I should have) but the unsubscribe rate for that audience that I surveyed was only 1.4%. Ya that low! And as Arryax answered, I am only interested in surveying folks who stuck around.
@@zukalous ok, that makes it more relevant then. From what was presented it could have been only a small percentage that stuck around and of course THEY wanted more, all the others left. It's like many other ratings online, the people that care to leave a review either liked it (5 start) or hated it (1 star) and you don't see the 3 star reviews because they don't care. I'm always questioning data.
obsessed with this guy! he has completely transformed my marketing strategy.
Great talk!
As a marketer looking at getting into marketing games - thx - props man - great work
Pure gold, man
Great presentation. I especially loved the insight into and example for e-mail marketing.
A theory why emails are so effective for marketing... people have to clean their inbox!
Yes, that's possible, that would add a Gamification-Layer, but that is also the reason why I am surprised people like to get Newsletters. I love myself a clean, tidy inbox so I never subscribe to Mailing Lists.
Make the titles click worthy, that's the word you're looking for!
Wooo i honestly thought that type of marketing at 5:30 was the right one. Now im learning!
I'll never look at an asterisk the same way ever again.
I'll never look at an asterisk
Great talk! I would still feel sleazy doing these things though.
You’ll feel a lot less sleazy when it’s part of feeding you and your family
Was GDC online this year
This is an hour-long game-dev targeted version of Alec Baldwin's Glengarry speech. And it's beautiful.
He might as well have said "Coffee is for Call-to-Actioners"
Excuse me sir, do you have a moment to talk about *MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS* ?
29:35 I really dont understand the twitter/email example.
You argued that email is way more potent since it converted 1.5 times better. However this is roughly equal to the sub ratio (email subs are about 1.5 more) so it seems to me that the relative effectiveness is actually about the same.
The most useful bit to me from that section was that I can roughly expect a 10% conversion on my campaigns if I do a good job.
"It turns out people buy very specific genres... they stick to maybe 3 or 4 at the tops"
_Sweats_
I like... a lot of things.
question is there a way for us to see the difference between the number of click throughs on the first email compared to the number of click throughs on the survey at the end of the email chain? Mainly because the majority of the ones that would find it to much would in fact drop off before the survey email. then we also need to compare the numbers of click throughs on weekly and monthly emails or a couple days going between email or a small jump before hand. I assume that the 9 day method at the sign up did hold up for compared to not doing it otherwise i doubt there would be much excitement about it. I just like to see a bit more of the numbers of those retained. Then i may also like to see how many of the initial click throughs towards the actual number of players at launch up. Even if the 9 day email have only 20% click though towards the end i can say that 20% should be more likely to follow though to the game on the same email schedule as those that went with only one or two emails cause of initial engagement and would be more likely to remember about it when the game comes out. Though i think the best course of action would to also have a couple day period of repeat every so often to keep engagement cause the people who click through to the end would be the people who want more engagement in the first place and a minor repeat of at least a couple days of being daily email may make them retain to the game launch. Again though i know the data is going to be hard to get but i wanted to put out the concept of trying to track that data so we can all be more aware of what the numbers we looking at say.
Quest of Courage was solid
Wow what a master 😮
This was one of my favorite talks
You are one of my favorite youtube commenters!
1:40 I actually read the articles outlined in read.
I found the first one by looking up ,,I thought I made a hard game and then speedrunners totally *".
I found the rest by clicking on Chris Zukowski's profile picture.
By the way, ,,I am a colorblind game designer and I just released a game that lets you experience this wonderful superpower!" is still the newest article on his imgur profile page, when I typed out this comment.
His featured articles:
· I am a colorblind game designer and I just released a game that lets you experience this wonderful superpower! imgur.com/gallery/oHQFB68
· Zelda to Chrono Trigger: The history of gaming's favorite castle imgur.com/gallery/AhEcrXS
· I quit my job today to make video games full time imgur.com/gallery/CVq5bO8
· I thought I made a hard game and then speedrunners totally destroyed it. Here is what that feels like. imgur.com/gallery/OUtDA5J
His imgur profile page: imgur.com/user/zukalous
I don't want to set up a Twitter account, so I'l have to type the question here:
How do I set up my own email autoresponder?
I may or may not promise free wallpapers, sale notifications, and other digital gifts for mailing list members, directly next to the call to action.
I got conditioned response, every time I hear the bell I always have to call to action.
What do you guys think of patreon?
It was all good talk till he recommended spamming your mail lists like everyday. Please do not spam your already potential customers for keeping them "more" interested which will backfire and i am saying this as a customer. I can not remember how many mailing lists i rage unsubcribe even if i was really interested about them in the first place.
Oh dang he said it would be below and his other talk was right below in the recommended.
Does Itch.io have room in this marketing strategy at any level?
HappyBowl itch is bottom of the funnel. If your audience lives there target it. Really any platform that fits your audience. I am just showing examples it is up to you to apply it.
Didn't know one of the most famous Twitch emotes was considered a "weird racist frog" lmao
51 minutes of valuable information and incredibly useful examples and alternate sources just to be duped into being added to a marketing list? Downvoted!
(nah this was golden thank you for this)
Whew you had me there.
Me watching in 2024 feeling like a time traveller lol
Why does everyone seem to say to market your game well before it is released? Why not make a game and release it, then market it? Wouldn't it be easier to convert views into buys if they can actually buy it right now instead of just adding it to a wishlist to buy later?
Because you can do 2 things at the same time rather than wait for 1 to finish. Take kickstarter funded games like Hollow Knight, Shovel Knight, etc, they have to market early before release not only because their funding requires it, but to gradually cultivate an audience so that when they do release, they don't have to wait around to build a fanbase. Big AAA games do this also.
"Don't go finding reviewers who have that weird racist frog" :''') Pepe was super effective!
Definitely an “okay, boomer” moment. 😆
Ray Romano? O.o
Thanks? I mean he is Americas second favorite dad (after Bob Sagat of course)
I am skeptical about mails being so effective.
Personally, I hate mails. And mostly everyone I know also hates emails. The last thing we want is one more email of the 50 emails a day we have to click. Isn't it a chore to click an email?
"Email is better than emoji anime girls." --Chris Zukowski, 2020
That email auto responders, that feels really sleazy. I wouldn't know what to write for 3 days straight.
So say you got them with a viral post, hooked them with the game demo to join the mailing list. Now what?
Anything not relevant to the game would make myself immediately unsubscribe. I don't care that you made an other game, I don't care what caused the studio tho almost give up on the idea. Anything I can think of would be annoying TBH.
NINETY SIX FIRE EMOJIS
I hate those automated emails. If I give you my email and then start getting obviously pre-written spam like that, I'm unsubscribing immediately and marking it as spam, because that's what it is. If I was interested enough in your game to give you my email, I'm going to remember it in a month, or 6 months, or 3 years, so only email me if you actually have something to tell me. Don't send me an email "just because".
I'm certainly not the type of person who would play the type of game you used as a case study though, either. Maybe there's a correlation there.
Why are you automatically assuming automated emails are obvious pre-written spam? Presumably, if you're signing up for an email list, you WANT to hear what the developer has to say.
Also laughing my ass off at the idea of someone signing up for a mailing list and marking what they get as spam. Surely you don't actually do that, right?
Especially considering that all developed nations force companies to make unsubscribing from mailing lists simple :)
man, it does not do justice when u are a marketer that has such a bad audio in his presentation video.... If i realize how bad that looks on him, why didnt he plan ahead to get a good MIC? Looks like common sense has "left the chat".
still feels sleazy, mate
Good speaker, terrible audio. :(
41:25 i got faked
"That weird racist frog"
Does those exist? >_>
that moment when he called pepe the "Rxcist frog": Sadge. 16:26
Does anyone else cringe every time he pronounces it "IM-grr"?
Alarec Scarbrow I learned something. It is imager. Right?
It's a brand, say it how it looks. If the people behind the brand say it differently, they got it wrong - not you :)
I am going to be frank; your statements at 5 minutes in were enough for me to stop watch. Dismissing self-doubt so flippantly, when it is usually the main thing that stops people asserting the value of their work, makes your intended message seem alien or dogmatic to the very people you are trying to reach.
Being offended is not going to gain you sympathy. I get where you're coming from. I'm not a game developer but I do have A LOT of issues with precisely that. I tend to be very apologetic in talks I give and similar stuff because I am terribly afraid of wasting people's time or losing their trust.
But I acknowledge that's not effective. Being apologetic is good with people you know well and are somehow close to. It's not a good way to start a relationship with someone. It doesn't work with sexual/lover relationships, and it doesn't work with commercial relationships, and it doesn't work with networking relationships.
There's too many people in the world for people to care about every single one of them. Most people, if they see someone they never heard of, and they see them vulnerable, they're gonna say: "Oh, I don't have the time/energy to deal with that. Bye". If they see someone confident and happy, they're going to be interested: "Why are they happy? Why are they confident? How can I be like them?" It's fine to be honest about your insecurities, with people who have developed enough investment on you to care for it. Not with random people, it just pushes them away.
It does not mean you have to be dishonest (which is something that took me a really long time to realize). It's about being diplomatic and optimizing your communication. It's about not wasting other people's time with problems they cannot help you solve.
You will never accomplish any of your goals in life if you have this mentality