Videogame Marketers: 3 Tips on How to Choose the Right Influencer

Videogame marketers are always searching for the best way to promote their games and influencers can be very effective at reaching their target audience. As a Northwestern student specializing in Communication Studies and Integrated Marketing Communications, I have found two articles on influencers that will interest you.

Why non-gaming influencers may be the best fit for your game by James Batchelor from gamesindustry.biz gives advice on choosing the right influencer based off your target demographic. It is a challenge to get the popular game influencers who may or may not want to try your game. Rather than fighting for their favor, Batchelor suggests being open to other influencers who can just as effectively appeal to your target market. Allowing influencers to be more deeply involved in the marketing process can help produce more creative and unique ideas. Furthermore, start looking to different platforms, not just YouTube. Depending on your type of game and marketing strategy, working with different types of influencers on different channels may be a better fit.

(Image:Source)

Do not underestimate the power of active communities as micro influencers. Daniel Rosales article on LinkedIn, Guilds as Video Games Micro-Influencers talks about using guilds as a different way to reach your target market. Rosales mentions that while guilds are relatively small, there are also a few multi-game guilds with active communities. Reaching out to a professional guild, Dragons: Guild Master of The Syndicate, Rosales talks more in-depth about this possibility. Overall, Rosales stresses that guilds are an engaged, passionate community that should be further investigated as an effective micro influencer opportunity.

After reviewing these articles and from my studies from Northwestern University, I have developed with a few key tips to improve your focus on influencers:

• Be More Open- Start focusing on the demographics of your viewers. Trying using specialized channels and other influencers related to your target market's interests

• Use Other Platforms- Don't just use YouTube, take advantage of different social media platforms based on the type of game you have and the audience you want to reach.
• Think About Micro- Give guilds a chance as a micro influencer, they have potential to make a significant impact.

As marketers, it is important to look for new ways to connect with audiences. Be sure to take these tips into consideration the next time you are in search of influencers for your next game!

                                                                                                                           Oceana Hamilton is a senior undergraduate student-athlete majoring in Communication Studies and pursing an Integrated Marketing Communications certificate at Northwestern University. Graduating June 2018, she aspires to work in marketing after pursing her professional basketball career.

A passionate gamer, you can reach her on LinkedIn or Twitter

Outreach Coordinators of Nonprofit Organizations: 3 Recommendations for Outreach

          Within the last decade or so, the idea of corporate responsibility and social good has become highly discussed among the corporate world and even within the general public. As a result, non-profits are growing larger and more impactful in the communities that they help. At the same time that people in need are becoming more likely to receive services from non-profits, people and especially big donors are becoming more willing to give their money to good causes. Thus, as an outreach coordinator of a nonprofit, your job is two-fold: you need to be able to reach people who use your services and you need to be able to gain recognition and legitimacy in order to get funding. Both of these ultimately allow you to maximize the social impact that a non-profit can have. Much of this outreach will be done through social.

As a student at Northwestern interested in the outreach of nonprofit organizations, here are two articles that give interesting recommendations. “Twitter at Age 10: Why ItStill Matters in Nonprofit Communications” published by Prichard communications speaks to the importance of Twitter specifically for non-profits. On the services side of things, Twitter has become a first resort for many to get their news and learn about new trends. Tweets are closely linked to Google and will often show up in a Google search. Because of this, non-profits should use Twitter in order to gather the attention of those who they provided services for, publicizing their mission so people will see it when a trigger event occurs. Twitter has also become a great tool for activists and other revolutionaries in the world, making it a great tool for those who are looking to donate their time and money to a good cause. By “Following” the people who speak out about issues in the world, you will be able to publicize what your non-profit does to those who are passionate about looking for solutions.

            Another article, “Social Media Matters: Smart Strategies for Nonprofits”, published in Biz Journal, pushes the idea of “social messaging” to create a dialogue between patrons, advocates, and donors. This way, both people accessing services and donors will get a better understanding of the organization and feel more personally attached to it. This increases their likelihood of using the services or donating their money because they know that the organization is creating good change. This article also highlights using social media tools to increase visibility of an organization. Because there are so many non-profits in the world, people may have to sift the missions of hundreds of organizations before they get to yours. Increasing visibility can be done through increasing the Google search function, using Youtube’s nonprofit program, creating a function to donate on social media, or maximizing your posts on social media platforms. This will ensure that the mission of your organization as well as the impact that it has had will be easily accessible to those looking for it.

Based on these articles and the changing landscape of social media, the three suggestions I have for you are:

1. Increase visibility across all Social Media platforms

2. Keep up-to-date on your Social Media posting

3. Increase your Google search using keywords

By using social media in a strategic way, you will maximize your reach and ultimately elevate the mission and impact of your nonprofit.

Vicky Ho is a senior at Northwestern studying Psychology, Science in Human Culture, and Integrated Marketing & Communications. She is interested in non-profit and social sector work and wants to combine that with her interest in and knowledge of marketing and communications. She has had experience doing outreach work for student organizations at Northwestern through her involvement with the Academy of Music and Arts for Special Education and Sustained Dialogue. Connect with her on LinkedIn here

CMOs: 3 Ways to Make Your Nonprofit Stand Out through Social Media

CMOs and VPs of Marketing, given the growing ubiquity of social media in nonprofit marketing strategies, there is a sea of nonprofit voices out there vying for attention from your target market. Often it can feel like your nonprofit is not truly engaging with the communities you need. As a student in the Northwestern Medill IMC program, I have been studying the best practices of utilizing social media, and I have identified some articles that you need to read.

In How Nonprofits Use Social Media to Engage with their Communities, author Ritu Sharma gives important findings derived from a new study done by the Case Foundation and Social Media for Nonprofits, which surveyed 500 nonprofit marketing professionals on practices engaging their communities through social media. 88% of nonprofits said that websites were still the most important tool, because that’s landing page from social media sites (and where donation actually occurs). There is also a definite trend where nonprofits are beginning to allocate more resources to social media efforts, but the challenges of manpower and moving beyond “Likes” remain. More importantly, only 53% of nonprofits follow the best practice of posting meaningful content to establish “thought leadership” in their areas of expertise. Sharma goes on to give important tips on social media marketing based on these survey responses.

via Nonprofit Quarterly

In 5 Stories Nonprofits Should Be Telling on Social Media, author Julia Campbell makes the point that storytelling needs to be the central strategy of a nonprofit’s content marketing and social media engagement efforts. Campbell gives 5 types of stories that should be used in social media marketing and fundraising efforts: Value and Ethics stories on the core of your nonprofit mission, Social Proof stories on which influencers supports your work, Founder Stories on the history and value of your organization, Continuous Improvement stories on your organization’s efforts to improve itself, and most importantly, Impact stories on how your nonprofit is affecting change. Campbell presents real-life, high-impact examples of these stories in which nonprofits used a variety of social media channels (Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.). Examples include Charity Water, Environmental Defense Fund, The Robin Hood Foundation, Save the Children, etc.

Based on my review of these two articles and my studies at Northwestern, here are three action items you should consider implementing in your nonprofit’s social media marketing strategy:

• Tell a Story – Tell meaningful stories on the value, impact, and nature of your nonprofit so that your target community knows who you are.

• Make a Conversation – Posts that end with a question mark generate twice as many Likes, comments, and shares.

• Get Visual (and Video) – If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine the power of a video (even inforgraphics can demonstrate the impact of the work you’re doing). 

A good nonprofit should be on the cycle of positive reinforcement, wherein engaged communities give bountifully and nonprofits use those funds in meaningful ways, which in turn gives great stories that engages communities. With social media, your nonprofit has a tool at its disposal to give your target community frequent reminders of just how impacting and necessary its work is. So make sure that when you do send those out, it is with the best strategy in mind.

Mary Li is a Northwestern University undergraduate in the Integrated Marketing Communications certificate program in Medill, with an emphasis on digital marketing (paid search and social media) through her academic and professional experiences. Post-graduation, she will work as a digital marketing associate in downtown Chicago. 

For questions and comments, contact me on Twitter @MerrilyMaryLi. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/lingyue-mary-li/2a/6ab/157

Web Analytics Revolution: from Quantity to Quality

Are you struggling with which web analytics software you should use to measure your new website? Forget about it. They are all the same. As a marketer, what you really should think about is what to measure and how to best take actions from those measures. As a graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC program, we have studied web analytics and how they can be used to improve your business. And we have some tips to help you turn data into qualitative information.

                                        Picture Source: http://www.gabblet.com/web-analytics-service.aspx

Ron Person, Director of Analytics for Sitecore, said in his great great article Why Engagement Analytics Trump All Others that “we should be measuring marketing quality.”So far, most web analytics are measuring marketing quantity such as visits and clicks. However, to predict consumer behaviors and determine the gaps, marketers should focus more on marketing quality rather than quantity. The quality here refers to engagement, which is mainly measured by conversion rate right now. However, conversion rate may not be a good indicator of engagement since different behaviors require different levels of engagement. For example, an email address and a complete registration certainly require different levels of commitment from consumers. Even if they share the same conversion rate, they would not have the same level of engagement.

Ron introduced a simple method to measure engagement. He assigns different engagement values to different transaction points based on the communication, trust, and commitment required. The values will be accumulated. For example, clicking on a web page has a value of 5; e-mail signing up is 10; registration is 25. Then if a person clicks and signs up, he will have an engagement value of 15. In this way, marketers will be able to calculate the value of each visit rather than only the number of visits. More importantly, they can even compare the value to their other marketing efforts across different platforms and even with competitors. With this simple method, marketers will be able to avoid wasting their marketing budget on those ineffective marketing events.

The method above sounds simple and effective. However, to actually measure engagement, here are a few steps you need to go through.

1. Map out the customer purchase funnel. Purchase funnels vary from business to business. To map out the specific funnel for your specific business, you need to observe what your customers are doing on your website. You can simply use a website monitoring tool to help you track each movement your customers make. Carefully analyze those movements. Find out all the turning points where the traffic decreases significantly. Each turning point will become each stage in your funnel.
2. Categorize funnel stages. Although traditional Awareness-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA) model may no longer accurately reflect how consumers actually behave, it is still a good indicator for determining engagement levels. Categorizing each funnel stage into AIDA will help you easily assign engagement values later. For example, browsing the website belongs to Awareness while requesting for more information goes to Interest.
3. Assign engagement values. After categorizing the stages, You now only need to evaluate the engagement levels of the four categories and assign each category an engagement value rather than assigning every funnel stage. In this way, you do not have to re-assign engagement values for different purchase funnels. The engagement values can be determined once and for all.
4. Measure the quality of each visit. After you assign engagement values, you will be able to add up the value of each funnel stage a customer goes through. A higher value stands for a better visit quality. This is a much more effective way to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaign than merely monitoring the traffic. Additionally, you will be able to compare the effectiveness of one market event with your other marketing events.

Simply follow the above steps; you will be able to measure quality and make a huge difference. The earlier you take action, the more money you will save on your marketing campaign.

Yiqiong "Jessica" Xu is a graduate student at Northwestern University's Medill School. She studies Integrated Marketing Communication and concentrates in Direct & Interactive Marketing and Marketing Analytics. Follow her on Twitter(@xuyiqiong) and LinkedIn(Yiqiong Xu).