Website: www.WickedInteractiveltd.com

Services: Strategic Planning & Brainstorming

Company Description
Wicked Interactive Ltd. is an online games publisher, founded in 2008, and based out of Toronto, Canada. Through its Suba Games platform, Wicked Interactive creates a centralized destination where North American gamers can access a range of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games.

Work
September – October 2009

Started working with Wicked Interactive and looking all the different items they were trying to get done on their list of goals. One of the areas was relooking at their website and home page to a greater degree. The company is looking to intermediate itself and change the company and the video game industry over the next few years. I started working on some designs on the home page and this is the first of many drafts that stuck with the company’s management team. It’s currently being refined more as the design gets pushed throughout the rest of the website.

Outcome
You can check out the image below for a first draft of their home page. It’s still very much a work in progress and one that has been put on hold as other items need to be taken care of.

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Website: www.gamercamp.ca

Services: Market Research and Strategic Planning & Brainstorming (also execution in sponsorship and advertising of the overall marketing plan)

Company Description
Gamercamp is a new conference that is a great opportunity to connect Toronto’s gaming community (press, media, publisher, developers) on the cusp of Ubisoft opening a Toronto development studio in our world class city. The conference is going to be different from other events as its areas of focus are the history, creativity, and ideas behind video games.

Work
September – December 2009

I was originally brought on this project to help out with market research and make sure that the schedule and conference as a whole resonated with the video game community. This included looking at potential associations to partner with including Interactive Ontario, Hand Eye Society and International Game Developers Association (IGDA) as well as who could the organizers get as speakers for the conference. The Gamercamp organizers had particular criteria and with the help of a website I run, www.GameIndex.ca, we were able to source potential speakers quickly and learn what video game projects they are working on.

As this project and conference grew, my relationship with the organizers grew to the point we were expanding on our working relationship. I was able to leverage my knowledge and background in the video game industry to help with strategic planning & brainstorming to assemble a full marketing plan for the conference. The marketing plan encompassed:

Public Relations:  Including looking at traditional press like The Sun, The Start and National Post and sites including BlogTo, Torontoist and IGN. I also looked at the number of freelance journalists that live and work around the Toronto area and write for both Canadian and US publications.

Sponsorship: Finding sponsors that would fit with the Gamercamp brand was important to the organizers. They also wanted to start a long-term relationship with each sponsor and integrate their brand into the conference. One major sponsor that came on board was Red Bull, which is a perfect fit for this event.

Community Opportunities: Looking to connect with schools and students at local video game programs was an important part of the marketing plan. These were the type of people this conference was going to attract since a few of our speakers were form the independent development community in Toronto.

Advertising: Besides advertising the event to students in the Toronto area. There was also a focus on looking at the other video game companies in Toronto as well members of Interactive Ontario, Hand Eye Society and International Game Developers Association (IGDA). This focus allowed each e-mail to be tailored to each recipient while at the same time allowing for creative freedom. Other opportunities like South by Southwest’s e-mail newsletter were looked at but weren’t feasible with the short time line for this marketing plan.

Connecting the four areas above to form a marketing plan for Gamercamp was going to be the best use of limited time, money and other resources as the event was less then 2 months away when I got involved. It required focusing and firing on more then one cylinder at once, but was achievable with everyone on the same page.

Outcome
Gamercamp was a success as the event was sold out. In fact, when the final numbers were tallied the event was over sold by 20%. Having the community support this great event as well as have Red Bull on board this early was a huge help. A debrief meeting was held recently and talks of launching Gamercamp 2 are in the works for 2010.

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I think it’s important for every company, regardless of industry, to do non-client related work each year. For a one person shop like myself, it gives me a chance to tinker with some ideas and stretch my creative itch.  There are a few other reasons doing non-client work can be health for your business:

• Burnout: Taking a few hours a week to do something that isn’t client drive can help cut down on burnout in regards to yourself and the people around you. I know Game Index does that for me. I can just site down and do something for the fun of it and not worry about short deadlines.

• Comfort Zone: Some say to learn something new you’ve to go outside of your immediate comfort zone. I’ve found with my two current projects that I’m learning a lot more then I thought I would and even if I feel bit awkward at times,.. I’m loving the experience.

• New Thought Process: This tags on the last point a bit. When you are outside of your comfort zone and learning something new. This helps to expand your mind and you start to see ideas, opinions and objects in a new light.

• It’s Just Fun: At the end of the day, it’s fun to do non-client work. Not everything in life should be about making money.

A lot of the reasons above are why I started working on Game Index last year. Now I can’t wait until I get to version one and grow with the project. This is a journey more then a destination for me but I’m having a ton of fun on the way and that was more important then anything for me.

Ad Age had a great article last year about agencies doing non-client work. The article focused more on the agencies doing it to drive new  revenue streams but I still think alot of the reason above hold true for the teams doing the work. What non-client work have you worked on lately?

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1. Write more for this blog and
2. Network more at industry and social events

I’ve been out of school for four years come summer and I want to meet more of the wonderful and insightful people I’ve connected with online. I’ve started writing down some of the events that I want to attend throughout the year including MIXX Cadana, SXSW & ICE.

I want to help get my ideas out into the world and just share what I know and I’m very passionate about. I’ve just 352 days left to keep moving forward on these two goals and know I’ll need to stay focused on just these two goals.

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Website: www.sackepr.com

Services: Consulted on their search engine marketing (paid) campaigns that was being handled by another consultant.

Company Description
Sacke & Associates Inc. is a management and employee-owned marketing communications and media relations agency serving clients across North America.

Work
January 2009
I’ve known John since 2008 and we’ve talked back and forth many times. He asked me to come in and consultant on his current search engine marketing (paid) campaigns that was being handled by another consultant. I thought the campaigns were doing good but there was definitely room for improvement, especially in the area of better click through rate to leading upto someone acting on the AdWords they clicked on. Below are some the recommendations I had for his campaigns across many of the campaigns he was running for clients.

* Break Ad Groups into smaller sizes with no more then 20 keywords per group.
* Delete Keywords that aren’t showing any impressions after a number of months. You can try and make new ad copy/creative for these words but I doubt it would be worth it.
* Break out Keywords with high impressions and low CRT into their own Ad Group
* Remove some of the bold tag on your title’s copy line, so you’ve more room for a creative title
* Make the last line of your copy a call to action… buy now, call us today…ect (For Unite move the $9.95/month to the title section of the ad copy)
* Break ad campaigns into regions (UK vs US vs Canada.. ect) since we all spell words differently in different parts of the words
* Try French copy on Google AdWords or Canoe Klix when targeting Quebec/French searchers
* Spend more time on your creative ad copy, so it entices people to click and call/e-mail your clients
* Look into using more Keywords taken from the websites that your clients call competition
* You can get ride of having the same keyword in broad, exact and phase mode.. as Google treats this all the same.

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