{"id":469,"date":"2013-10-04T14:27:17","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T19:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/games\/?p=469"},"modified":"2013-10-11T10:13:03","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T15:13:03","slug":"marketing-tip-1-winning-distribution-partnerships-for-your-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/2013\/10\/04\/marketing-tip-1-winning-distribution-partnerships-for-your-game\/","title":{"rendered":"MARKETING TIP 1: Winning distribution partnerships for your game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/games\/files\/2013\/10\/Build_it_so_they_will_come.png\" alt=\"Build it so they will come\" width=\"180\" height=\"140\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-471\" \/><strong>Takeaway: One of the fastest and cheapest ways to win a big audience for your new game is through a well-connected partner. It\u2019s a lot easier to win partners when your product fits their interests and business model \u2013 and that needs to be built into your plans from the outset.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A lot of startups and smaller organizations assume that they have to build their own audience organically. This leaves a lot of great games (and other products) out of the market, unused and un-useful. Getting other organizations to push your games through their existing networks is the fastest way to pull in a sizeable audience for your product \u2013 even if you already have a respectable audience of your own.<\/p>\n<p>Enduring distribution partnerships can happen by happy accident, but it\u2019s possible to plan ahead \u2013 as early as your product strategy and design phase \u2013 to make them more likely. After all, it\u2019s one thing to convince someone to Tweet about your awesome new game \u2013 it\u2019s another for them to invest their own resources into a meaningful distribution effort. You can design your product to make it easier to secure these partnerships:<\/p>\n<h2>What\u2019s in it for them?<\/h2>\n<p>Giving your partner tangible incentives for spreading the word is the best way to win real and enduring help:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Profit.<\/strong> Can your partners resell your product and make profits? This is the clearest way to incentivize a distribution partnership, but it\u2019s not always easy to achieve \u2013 read my story below for some caveats.<br \/>\nThe various app stores, from iTunes to Edmodo to Steam, all offer access in exchange for profit-sharing \u2013 but don\u2019t expect them to elevate your product above the clutter unless you have something extraordinary to offer. You\u2019ll still need to push meaningful sales through sharp marketing, including more substantive partnerships.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Enhancement.<\/strong> Does your product meaningfully complement and enhance your partners\u2019 products, e.g. fill a critical gap or provide a competitive edge? This can ultimately translate into higher profit for your partner, but you may have a harder time claiming a share if you can\u2019t demonstrate direct causation.<\/li>\n<li><strong>PR.<\/strong> Can your product generate a meaningful boost in awareness, e.g. help win news stories in relevant publications? Note that this is the weakest and most ephemeral of incentives; after the initial flush of excitement, there\u2019s little further incentive to continue promotion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Does your product match your partners\u2019  business model?<\/h2>\n<p>A few years ago I helped an indie game developer market its game for change. Among the most promising assets it had was a revenue-sharing deal with a major international nonprofit. That organization would help promote the game in exchange for a cut of the profits \u2013 a win-win for both parties.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, when the time came to promote, this relationship didn\u2019t generate meaningful sales. Why not?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Audience alignment.<\/strong> While the game was compelling, it was also \u201chardcore\u201d (e.g. not Candy Crush) and available only on PC. There just weren\u2019t that many hardcore gamers among the nonprofit\u2019s membership.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Channel mismatch.<\/strong> The nonprofit mostly promoted the game through Twitter. It\u2019s pretty tough generating sales of a PC game through Twitter (a mobile game, maybe). The nonprofit refused to promote through its email list, where there\u2019d be a somewhat higher chance of success. And this was because of:<\/li>\n<li><strong>Limited incentive.<\/strong> Sure, a cut of the profits is some incentive \u2013 but how does that stack against the organization\u2019s other income sources? We\u2019re not talking about GTA5 here; even in the best-case sales scenario, the game would only have generated vanishingly small revenues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This same analysis applies to educational games and major publishers. Even if your game were a perfect match for a publisher\u2019s content, does it match their marketing and sales strategy? Would the publisher be able to charge more for their existing products if they bundled yours in? Does it merely provide another \u201ctalking point\u201d for a sales rep, or can it justify a meaningfully higher sales price? And remember the moral of this story: if the revenue is minimal, a sales team will have little incentive to push a new product.<\/p>\n<h2>Does 1 + 1 = 3?<\/h2>\n<p>Does your product have qualities that make it synergistic for potential partners?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Does it <strong>transform <\/strong>the partner\u2019s product? For example, does it add new capabilities, especially those with high revenue potential such as assessment, or allow it to sell into a new market segment?<\/li>\n<li>Is it <strong>broad <\/strong>as well as deep?  A one-day intervention, no matter how profound, just doesn\u2019t add the same value as something that enhances an entire semester. And make sure it feels coherent: one publisher I recently spoke with scorned mixing-and-matching games from different developers because it would result in a patchwork user experience. <\/li>\n<li>Is it easy to <strong>integrate<\/strong>? For educational games, do your game&#8217;s data outputs match existing standards? Are all your games in Flash when your partner has standardized around HTML5?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Don\u2019t just plan. Ask.<\/h2>\n<p>Despite everything I\u2019ve written above, the surest way to build meaningful partnerships is to build real relationships with the intended partner. The best way to build a product that your partners will promote is to ask them directly what they\u2019d like to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Takeaway: One of the fastest and cheapest ways to win a big audience for your new game is through a well-connected partner. It\u2019s a lot easier to win partners when your product fits their interests and business model \u2013 and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/2013\/10\/04\/marketing-tip-1-winning-distribution-partnerships-for-your-game\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[923,53641,64677],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-educational-games","category-funding"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions\/478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}