MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
This year’s London Games Conference on November 19th will have a number of high profile speakers from around the games industry sharing their knowledge.
Today, Facebook’s Rick Kelley tells MCV about the social network’s importance to marketers, and the challenges of discoverability in gaming at the moment.
For the unaware, who are you and what do you do?
I lead the development of Facebook’s marketing offering to the gaming industry globally; with teams acrossEMEA, APAC and North America. Gaming is a global industry comprised of many categories; from console, mobile/social, massively multiplayer online (MMO), real money gaming (RMG), fantasy sports to social casino. These diverse businesses all share a common set of objectives: to drive broad awareness to brand/game/app discovery,acquire high-quality players at scale, and engage their most valuable players to drive lifetime value.
Tell us a bit about your talk at LGC. Don’t just tell us the title – what is it really about?
My talk is entitled The Art of Growing Your Game.With 1.35 billion peopleon Facebook, we can drive the right users to play to your game, with precision and scale. No matter if you’re looking for a casual game player, a football bettor, or a first-person shooter fan, Facebook can help you reach all the people who matter to you, every day, across every device. I will focus on the blend of art and science required to deliver games atthe center of discovery – the Facebook News Feed. I’ll discuss the creative ways you can use your customer relationship management (CRM) information to reach players with very specific messaging and creative…and why that’s important to being successful on Facebook.
What are the biggest challenges currently affecting the way games are marketed?
The single biggest challenge in gaming right now is discoverability – helping players find your game in the first place. The greatestmarketingchallenge facing the industry is building a marketing plan that stands out from the noise. There are over two million apps on Google Play and Apple’s App Store stores right now. The games that invest in a strategic marketing plan are the ones that will prosper. This includes not only the user acquisition component, but also an awareness component centered on communication plans that have the player’s interests and behaviors in mind. It isn’t enough to have just a solid game anymore. Publishers need to have a value proposition at the core of their games that separates them from the competition to promote discovery and download.
What single area of games marketing should we pay attention to in 2015 – and why?
Precise targeting plus relevant messaging. The best game companies have a strong understanding of who their players are, where to reach them, and how to capture their attention with relevant messaging. With precise targeting, you can beconfidentthat your messages are reaching the right people, and therefore tailor those messages based on player insights. Game companies now have the ability to createhighlysegmented targeting strategies that provide more interesting content for players and more insightful data for publishers.
