5 Reasons You Need to Be Consistent with Your Video Game PR

In video games PR, consistency is key. The video game industry is one that relies on relationships with journalists and the media in order to get your message out there for players to see your game. Video game marketing professionals are constantly seeking new opportunities to reach a large number of potential players through various different avenues of communication. However, PR strategies can be ineffective if they're not consistently carried out over time. This article will explain why it's so important for game developers to have a consistent strategy and how you can go about being consistent with your video game PR efforts!

Before we get into how to create consistency lets just explain a few home truths that catch out even the biggest video game developers and publishers.

• Video game journalists are some of the least paid but most overworked individuals in the industry. Luckily for you they love video games.

• On Steam alone there are approximately 10,000 new PC games released every year. And yes, all of them want PR coverage. This means video game journalists are getting emailed, DM’d, and called constantly.

• A journalist has competing interests. What interesting games there are to cover vs. what will drive traffic to their site. An article (however unimportant) about a massive video games franchise is going to drive more clicks than a story about your unknown game.

All of this means it has never been more difficult to get coverage, especially for an unknown developer. Journalists and content creators have limited time and media space to cover everything and even if your game does interest them, they have multiple editorial commitments that take precedence.

So how do you battle this? Starting early and creating a consistent video game PR strategy.

Game developers should take the time to continuously build their brand with journalists and media figures. This will allow you to strengthen relationships with these key players in order to gain access to new opportunities for game PR.

Consistency is required when building a strong reputation because it helps form long-lasting partnerships that game developers can count on, as well as reinforcing the message you are trying to deliver.

It takes time to develop not only your message but also the relationships with those you are trying to convince. Jeff Bezos was famously quoted as saying that "all overnight success takes 10 years". Now most games don’t get 10 years to be successful but think of it this way. A journalist you introduced yourself and your game to previously is much more likely to open your next email about your imminent release than one who has never heard of you or your game before.

Why? Because you will have developed your video game PR strategy, relationships with game journalists and have built a strong reputation. Starting early and being consistent gives you the tools and time to make PR a success. A video game PR strategy is not something you can develop overnight. It takes time and patience, but the work will pay off in the long run. The more consistent your PR strategy is, the less work that needs to be done later because of how you have developed your message over time and kept everyone informed on your progress. Video game PR is not something you can do in one day, it takes consistency and dedication.

Developing PR relationships with video game journalists will make your PR efforts more successful because they have built up a relationship with you and are familiar with what you want to say. Journalists have deadlines which they need to meet so being able-to present them information on time or early is going to help them help you.

If your video game PR strategy is consistent you are much better able to track your results. Video games are a very competitive industry and being able to track the results of your game marketing efforts is essential.

The success of any video game marketing campaign usually has three components: visibility, credibility, and momentum. Visibility helps others find or learn about your game; credibility will convince them that they should care about what you're saying; and momentum makes it difficult for someone else to take away their attention from what's happening with your game.

Once you have a good strategy and know what you are doing then it can be easier to measure successes through metrics such as social shares, website traffic spikes, increased games media coverage etc. You can also measure this over time and in relation to where you are in your overall campaign. Conversely, If your approach is scattergun or last minute you have no way of accurately judging results based on past performance. So, people won't trust what you say because they never really know if it'll happen again next.

To build video game PR consistency, it's important to be consistent with what you're saying. If your PR strategy is sound, then journalists know and understand what message they are getting from you about your game, and it becomes difficult for them to take their attention away.

If you have a good PR campaign properly planned out with specific goals in mind, then game marketing consistency will make sure these objectives can be achieved more easily when the time comes. PR consistency ensures that marketing objectives continue to be met even when there are PR obstacles.

The first step in video game PR consistency is choosing a goal for your campaign and then setting specific goals for each tactic within the PR strategy so you know what needs to happen on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis. Once these tasks have been established, they should be written down somewhere so everyone involved knows exactly what they need to do. Then you need to stick at it!

However, remember consistency is not spamming nor should you expect any immediate response from your activities. If you email a journalist and they don't reply that is not to say they haven't seen or considered your message. Immediately chasing is more likely to get you spam blocked than responded to.

Video Game PR is a delicate balance of knowing what your PR objectives are and executing them properly. As a video game marketing agency, we tell our clients not to be afraid to do something new or different for every campaign so that you don't burn out the media with repetitiveness. However, without consistency within each PR strategy there will likely be no PR success.

If you have changed your product messaging and key points in every single press release so far, perhaps in an effort to make things more interesting or get coverage, you are actually just confusing people. How is anyone supposed to understand your game if you're constantly changing your story?

Every PR strategy needs consistency in messaging (press releases), social media content, email marketing campaigns - everything! You need to make sure that every point is as clear and concise as possible by repeating the same message over and over again.

You'll find PR success when journalists know what they can expect from you because for them, consistency equals reliability.

A lack of consistency may lead to confusion about your video game marketing goals or even worse, mistrustfulness among players and journalists who feel like they cannot rely on your company anymore. In order to build a strong brand and maintain trustworthiness with players, you need the right video game PR strategy in place that is consistent across all channels. You need to keep track of what you are accomplishing and where you need to go from there so that you can better craft an effective game launch campaign

Do not let inconsistency sink your video game marketing success!

If you are still unsure about how best to implement a video game PR strategy give a us a buzz for a free consultation.