Dear Influencer Agency

let's get started with the first talk and we're going to be opening up our track today with uh chansey from square enix who's going to be talking all about uh influencer agencies and everything so uh we've got chanze joining us there you are hi how are you it's good to see you again hi how are you yeah thank you i'm good too yeah i got a that's fine not a problem with that it's lovely to see you again how are things you're down in london aren't you yeah down in london the weather looks nice for once i don't know if it's really cold outside though yeah that's the thing isn't it it's always lovely inside at the moment and it looks nice but you wonder if i step outside am i gonna need a scarf and usually the answer is yes yes so cold right well i'm just to make sure you

know we stick to time i'm going to let you share your screen get everything set up and while you're doing that i just want to remind everyone that um obviously throughout the day you can post your questions to all of our amazing speakers like shansay use the q a function that you can see down below and after we're finished i'll be coming back and we'll go through some of the questions and answers that are here also um you can use the chat just like david ranki is and to just continue conversation flowing whilst uh the talks are going on that's one of the the positives and advantages of a digital show is you're not interrupting the speakers so uh yeah keep the chats going but uh i'll drift off into the background because i can see your screen everything looks beautiful and perfect and um i'll be back at the end to do some uh q a with you okay sounds great fantastic looking forward to this okay okay so i guess i will just get on with it you know um so

okay um so some of you may not know me or have seen me before so who am i um i've been working in and out of video games for almost about four years now but i spent a lot of that time working in tv production so i've worked with and in agencies um a lot over the years and on top of that i have been following the social media slash influencer world since probably back when youtube began like with og smosh and philip defranco jenna marbles um and then you know through vine instagram twitter to the vine apocalypse on youtube and like musically becoming tik tok everything um so my expertise is therefore born through intrigue and has like grown through my work um and now i'm a brand manager at sparinex having some secret things um so because of that i just wanted to put a disclaimer here before i start that just because i work for this company doesn't mean that i represent them and in the famous words

of natasha bettingfield these words are my own i'm so sorry anyway um so this is simply like my personal feedback and advice from my experiences um for people who i may work with but like past present future okay so as we don't have too much time i've condensed my advice into some very simplified top 10 tips um you may have heard everything that i tell you before but um sometimes drumming the simplest advice home could help and unfortunately i've seen these mistakes many times and honestly i'm tired of them and i want more from the people that i work with and you should feel the same so this is very simple information but this presentation is me speaking from the experiences of what i've seen and what i don't want to see again basically so tip number one uh currently we aren't meeting in person at events so your first impression or your first

contact is so important so do try to sell yourselves well and for that your intro deck is crucial back in the olden days when we were able to meet in person um asking for a meeting was smart you could create more of a personal connection with people but now if you ask anyone for a meeting it's probably going to be a no because zoom intro calls are long and they're a waste if they don't go further so time is really precious right now um so my advice is to make sure that your deck is good make sure it's the best deck that anyone's ever seen because that's what people base whether it's worth having a call or not okay tip number two i cannot stress enough how important it is to pay attention to detail this advice spans from first contact all the way through to pitching and to actually working together so i've had to eliminate people simply because of their poor attention to detail if you're fortunate enough to make it

past all of the other agencies and get chosen to pitch your ideas then show that you're worth that i once briefed four agencies and had to deny like three of them simply because of careless mistakes don't give others your work through default the following advice is directly from things that i've seen happen check when the deadline is double check it make sure you submit on time check the name of the game double check it make sure it's correct throughout your pitch and check my name i'm not going to reject you for like not spelling my name correctly but i will definitely take it into account i can't explain how honestly lazy and disrespectful it is to get my name wrong or anyone's name wrong it is literally right there it's in my email signature email address in the zoom invite in the zoom call like if you can figure out whether it's about haley haley haley haley haley haley haley or haley then i don't understand why my name

would be so difficult it might just be a minority thing but i think making that kind of simple a easy mistake shows a lack of care for your job for my time and illustrates a bad attention to detail and related to this and because this is such an important point and spans ideas i have another slide for it so if you're going to pitch on a campaign or choose influences for it or even work on ideas for it then please do your research it is likely that the campaign that sorry the company you're um pitching to will give you a deck of information about the game so please use it show you know the game inside and out um you're leading the campaign as much as the influencer creates the content so like agencies are meant to ensure that the campaign is relevant and ensure the communication style fits that of the game read everything provided we work on these marketing decks for a

reason it's so that you have all the information and tools at your fingertips and if you're initially pitching we aren't sending you a dense deck of information we're sending you enough information to easily provide a one-page pitch so please read what we give you they'll only help you sell your campaigns okay tip number three i when you're initially making contact so you need to be aware of how often you're sending emails and if it's every few weeks then it's too much please don't clutter anybody's inbox you need to find the fine balance between being in mind and not being annoying um nothing is more off-putting than too many emails from someone that you don't need right now there has to be a balance a quick side tip when emailing about your company if you aren't very known or even if you are put like a summary either in the email

title within the email because sometimes when i'm looking for influencer agencies or whatever agency i'll go into outlook and just type influencer agency or localization agency or whatever into the search box and see what comes up um that's like if i don't have a list or whatever so yeah that's sometimes how i find agencies that's just a quick tip um so this next point is more of a personal thing and i can't advise it for everyone but personally i like having people on my social media i use linkedin as the primary example as that is the main professional platform although i personally prefer twitter and others may favor instagram or tiktok or even clubhouse nowadays um social platforms enhance your visibility i can interact with you there it personalizes you it allows me to see the kind of person you are your interests your knowledge your contacts and i'll remember you if i see you on my socials and and if i see that we have mutuals then

you know i can ask for recommendations or you can you can even mention it in the emails that you send me when you're asking for briefs um but again i do not recommend that for everyone some people prefer their socials to be a private space and you should be able to look through their previous posts and look through their whatever platform and see whether they use it for work and in line with that please be aware that if you're interacting with me on social media that i can also see your posts so please make sure the impression you're giving is what you would want to present to a potential client if that's the platform you choose to interact on um and another quick side tip is if you're interested in the esports scene which greatly overlaps with the influencer industry um then i highly recommend that you use twitter um for work as well so some further advice to that and this is again just for me i do not condone stalking other industry

folk but um if i haven't been on twitter for a while not liking posts i don't post that much anyway but not posting at all um then it's probably because i have way too much work on my plate and too many emails already so be wary of emailing me at that point just because it probably won't be as effective um that also carries to other platforms like linkedin um if someone's usually very active and hasn't been for a while then i think everyone distances from social media but when they're excessively busy right and finally to and to like end this point um it's important to be aware of timings a lot of agencies message after seeing a title announced but in mobile that could be right before launch um and at that point i've probably already briefed agencies and possibly even chosen one so yeah just uh be aware of timings okay so this is a really easy way to stand out and make anyone notice you

i'm about to give you advice that is completely contradictory to the last slide but it's because this is meant for after you've been briefed so if you're speaking with a company or being briefed do keep in contact with them if you've been given a brief with a deadline in two weeks then email me call me show me that you care about this project be proactive ask questions show me that we could be a priority for you again this is not advice for before the brief i want you to like i want to make that very very clear that this is meant for the stage between you being handed a brief and the moment that you present your pitch be visible and be available the best agencies i've worked with have kept in contact throughout um and have asked questions and have proactively asked me for a meeting to present their pitch if i'm honest i'm not going to ask you for a meeting i'll read the document that you sent me um and decide against you versus the agency that took 15 minutes to present their ideas to me on a call

but again don't hassle someone if they don't want to call though ask but don't push um and when you get the work i may not always email you or ask for updates but you still need to show that you're on top of your game be organized sending updates obviously your work will speak for itself but further to that i want to work with organized consistent people who are really prepared and methodical that makes you stand out and that makes me want to come back to work with you again and again okay tip number five so if we are working together i am trusting you to do your due diligence and know your talent this is the foundation of our working relationship together so i need you to do your research any influencer you recommend should be checked and their content thoroughly understood this partnership will be a long-term

investment those videos will be up that's that content will go out with our names on it and once something's out there it's there forever it's important to ensure that the right people are being brought in and this isn't just being aware of the controversies or the outward drama it's also about intricate intim i can't say intricately understanding the creator's content as an example i always thought david dobrik was a great investment he was charismatic and popular and seemed very unproblematic until that just wasn't true anymore and if you watch his content you can see the pattern of manipulation and the cult like comparisons by other creators and the controversies that were quickly questioned hidden under the rug like with trisha paytas so looking back i can see that now but it was never my job to know that and unfortunately it is yours um you have to understand the influence that you're recommended recommending

inside and out because you're representing them and they're representing you um and you know just because they are popular and can give us loads of views or downloads doesn't mean that in the long term they're worth the risk and that level of insight is something that you as an agency can provide us and should pride yourselves in and sell yourselves as such you know if you can okay so this is a hard one and what i mean by this is that if you're pitching you need to give me something out of the box something that i can't do internally but something that is still feasible we have an internal influence team and if they can provide the same services that you are then i could just stick with them generic ideas won't work um give me something new or something that will take up too much time or effort for us to handle internally or give me something completely random and out of the box that we would never think

of this industry is driven by change it's driven by new and exciting ideas and it's driven by those who move it forward and we want to work with those people um so be what this industry is designed to be be innovative i don't know how to explain that further or tell you how to do it which is unfair but that's what you're here for you tell me um look at the upcoming trends stay up to date stay in the moment and then show me that um however i learned the hard way that too many memes in an email is a bad idea so please don't do that and as my colleague lucy once so eloquently pull it i can't speak i'm not eloquent like her um you don't want to look inauthentic and like you're using a shortcut to being contemporary so as an example i once had an agency sell me a very very new idea but it was unreasonable and it didn't fit

the vibe of the product and they would have known that if they had read the game information that comes with the brief beforehand and that's related back to tip two okay so this one's simple our team is very much committed to edi like equity diversity and inclusion um and that extends beyond our internal team and to the companies or agencies that we work with if we're working together you're representing this team as much as we are so we have to ensure we have similar values and if we if we share values we're on the same page and mutual decisions will be easier we'll have more trust in your decisions you'll understand you'll understand hours better the entire working relationship will likely be much easier i think in 2021 most companies are at least superficially committed to this so i'm not going to hold my swings at this point

if you show me a sea of white faces and tell me that you're diverse because you have women on the team then you haven't understood the term diversity and therefore i'm forced to conclude that you're not going to be able to handle or understand my project i understand smaller companies will find this harder but change comes through aspiration and goals so show me you're committed to edi and show me you're committed to your team's well-being honestly down with crunch culture like i want to work i will want to work with you if you're committed to this this is incredibly important not just for our industry but for our society if we aren't committed to it as a collective then there won't be change so we have to put our money where our mouth is to be honest i will always choose a diverse healthy team so make me want to choose you and please this is incredibly personal once you have the brief or the project please don't present for white male influences and one male

person of color to me for a campaign if you can't find a woman or more than one person of color or any other form of diversity from sexuality to disability then i i won't want to work with you i want to see a range of faces that better represent our society and thereby our audience this is particularly relevant to video games and esports where representation is already so lacking and that's just another reason why using an agency could be so great because you're introduced to people or influences with audiences that you may not otherwise be exposed to different people and different publishers and different agencies will give this their own level of significance and importance but i can tell you that our team in particular is very committed to this okay so tip number eight show me your numbers um so it's all well

and good showing me an influencer's reach and i like seeing like the quality of their content and things like that but i also want to see the return on investment especially in mobile what is your cpi your cpc your engagement rate yes there are some people that are looking for brand awareness campaigns but personally i won't spend money on an influencer marketing campaign that doesn't deliver me some customer gains you know like we're usually looking for consumer engagement that's what i want you to share with me granted there are certain things that can't be shared because of ndas but if you open the door by presenting that campaign then and then don't share the numbers then i'll be concerned that you can't deliver any numbers you know so be honest and be clear and show me how you've tracked the data show me how you've done show me how you'll do better next time if those numbers aren't the best standard it's okay to learn from mistakes but it's about clarity and honesty

and that's who i want to work with and please don't assume that big publishers want to work with big influences you know you know better than anyone that the more followers the lower the engagement rate is likely to be so show me a range i want to see reach and i want to see engagement my main aim for these campaigns is downloads so and having people play the game so that's what i'm looking for okay so parks and rec reference for anyone who didn't get that um so be clear be honest and be concise don't take us through the whole pitch process and then give us the run around when it comes to pricing if we give you a budget then stick to it you can try to upsell and give me different tiers of budgets or different types of campaigns but please don't ever imply that certain budgets are imperative for a good campaign it's just it's not true and we have internal experts who can debunk that in minutes um be honest a lot of this presentation

has been about how you present yourselves so be clear tell me what you can and can't do be honest about numbers whether whether that is engagement or budgets through to your diversity numbers just be honest okay tip number 10 um ask for feedback so this point is incredibly important and i really appreciate all of the agencies that do this the only way to learn and do better next time is to ask for feedback whether you were awarded the business or not ask for feedback after your brief ask for feedback after the project ask for feedback if you didn't get the brief ask for feedback it's obviously at the person's discretion whether they choose to provide any or not but personally i will always give you honest feedback and i really appreciate anyone who asked for it it makes me believe that you won't make the same mistake next

time so there probably will be a next time um so if you messed up this one that's okay keep trying ask to be briefed again especially if the feedback was somewhat positive and honestly even if the feedback wasn't that positive i for example will add please do keep in touch with those agencies that i do want to brief again so don't give up but there's a caveat to that um please also do be aware of your standing and how you're coming across um i've had agencies message me about titles in my team or asking for a link to another internal team after some very bad initial pictures um so please do know when to cut your losses and that's like kind of but like if you had several different people from your small agency email me about the same brief that i've already sent you showing a lack of internal communication and then what you pitched didn't follow the brief at all showing a lack of research and or attention to detail

and then when corrected your pitch was incredibly basic um and then you asked me for a favor introing you to another team in the company and use the wrong name then unfortunately i won't be asking you to pitch again and i won't be recommending you to my colleagues so going back to tip one first impressions really do count but because this industry is so competitive but um so does second and third impressions so be aware of how you're coming across um but yeah so but also yeah don't give up anyway so yes please ask for a bit fill it up sorry please also feedback after every stage so you know where you stand okay and those were my top 10 tips or just my personal advice for working with publishers um everything should be given taken with like a grain of salt because you know um

this is just my personal advice um and that is it thank you for listening i don't know fantastic thank you no thank you that was brilliant i always like talks that have like everything like actionable in stages and that was brilliant so there's a lot that can be taken away from that and used so thank you so much um thank you we've actually got a number of questions so in the interest of time i think i'll just dive straight into the q a section if that's okay with you yeah that sounds great i'm really nervous no that would be fine i have ramadan brain nobody's named me if i can't if i can't answer them so so uh the first question we've got is do you feel that agencies use copy and paste to reach out to several publishers uh like that kind of wide net approach do you see a lot of that like rather than taking the effort to create personalized approaches

yeah i mean yeah i see that a lot um but if i'm honest because i think because i've worked in agencies before i am a lot more um i have more sympathy for that because you do you are getting in contact with a lot of people and constantly um and i get that there's like numbers behind it and stuff so i'm never like um i never care too much whether it's like personalized or not what i care about is the content of your email so if it's too long and it gives me too much information i'm never gonna read it so give me you know the highlights give me something that i can take away and be like okay cool they have like these good numbers they have this good information they've been highlighted in some top 10 agencies list or whatever yeah that's that's really that's good to hear um and the the next one i suppose is connected where it's like maybe some of the things that we expect the negatives don't necessarily have to be dependent on how you approach it and

i certainly have an opinion on this as well but is how many emails is too many and are there any labels that would immediately put you off i mean i'm imagine for example in the title or content within the email um i can't think of anything that would immediately put me off apart from you know spelling like the company name wrong or my name wrong like just details again um but yeah there are there are agencies who message me like once a month even even then that's like currently because i don't need anyone or i will need someone at some point um sorry my notifications are going that's absolutely fine trust me mine are going left right and center yeah um but yeah no i i don't know just don't don't email me every three to four weeks email me like six every six to eight weeks you know yeah i mean it's actually that was one of my opinions and feelings on this is like a lot of the time it's not

how many emails that you send me for example a lot of people want to know about upcoming pitches or other stuff it's it's more about how regularly you're emailing me if you're emailing me like one day and then you're chasing me literally the next day or two days later it's like just give me a minute here you know like i'll get to it i remember working at an agency and my boss would want me to like email every two or three weeks and that's way too much like yeah yeah it just just give me a month you know yeah totally totally yeah um so the next question we've got is what is the best practice to get to know the best timing for a publisher how can one know when a release is scheduled so basically what's the best way of gaining that prior information from a publisher yeah that's actually a really really good question because i think the best time is before it's been announced to press you know um [Music] honestly you just have to get lucky

because i mean obviously i'm not going to help you try to find a way to break nda's because like we're all under nba i can't you know like i can't give that kind of information out but i could like if you're i don't know if we're on social media and someone's like oh um i said no like hey when are you gonna have a brief available or something but like in a nice way because i would hate this someone messaged me now oh my god um i'm not encouraging that but yeah just like i don't know i think you just have to get lucky or like just i don't know ask subtly but don't be like hey do you have a game coming out because i'm not gonna tell you that but if you're like are you gonna have a brief soon like maybe i'll be like yeah soon i suppose it's in some ways just keeping those lines of communication open and being friendly and approachable so that when the things ready like you know you'll think oh yeah i remember them i should you know check them out sort of thing 100

yeah and next up and we've got and and hopefully you're okay with me diving into all of the questions that we've got here we've only got a few more but we've got thank you we've got do you think it's best to work long term with the same influencer or to have a pool of talents um i think having a pool of talent available is smart because that just means that i have more options from you and like i'll have more people to be able to choose from um so yeah having a pool of influences is good but having a good relationship and knowing those influences in and out is incredibly important so if you're going to have a pool it shouldn't just be random people you know it should be someone you have a long-term relationship with or someone you know is like definitely someone you should present forward yeah so a bit of both yeah no that makes total sense um and we've got um how do you analyze the culture of an agency beforehand like you personally is there any key things that you're

you're looking for when you're searching i know you mentioned a lot about things like diversity and what they stand for in terms of their company culture um i suppose are there any other little things that you that you um you know that people can sort of take away from this i mean i will do my research before i work with a company so if i am briefing you i'm gonna have looked at all of your social media i will have asked people around about you like usually a lot of the times some of the agencies i've gotten like pr agencies and stuff have been through recommendations as well so if you're well known in the industry or if you have like a few contacts here and there that i can ask for like and ask and like find out about you that's usually where i i will find out about you is like through other people you know yeah like um yeah like my partner has probably recommended half the agencies that i've spoken to so you know like get in contact with him i guess no

don't stalk him oh my god i'm just stalk everyone that's my takeaway for everyone um and i will uh squeeze in one more and which is um do you prefer working with bigger agencies or smaller agencies like do you have a preference do you think that one works better than the other or anything like that no i think i think both have their benefits right like bigger agencies are established they have a lot of experience um but they're more expensive frankly um whereas smaller agencies and also smaller agencies i think it's easier to get to know them because they are more committed to you because you're their main project sometimes um so i like smaller agencies in that sense i like that they're very like uh comfortable usually um and you have more contact with them i think um so yeah i think i think both have their benefits it just really depends on the project and what you're presenting to me you know

what what can you give me i think that's really good to hear in many ways because i think a lot of people incorrectly assume in the influence of sphere that like you have to be millions of viewers with a massive agency to sort of have an impact and be a part of the the sort of you know the business side of things i say business but you know what i mean like be a part of the of everything that's going on and it's just it's nice to hear that that's just not the case and it depends on the person and the culture and there's so many factors going into things yeah exactly yeah yeah well thank you so much thank you for sticking around for the uh the q a as well um yeah don't worry sorry i saw something coming to the chat but uh yeah um no um i wondered if it was another question being thrown in but no thank you you are free from the questions i hope today is not too long for you because uh i i can't imagine how it is to keep going all day especially given that the sun stays out an awful lot longer than it did a couple of weeks ago

it's nice out there isn't it yeah so um yes i hope you have a lovely day and and thank you so much for opening up this track it's a really amazing talk and i think there's so much people can take away from it so it's brilliant it's perfect talk to open the show oh thank you so much it was really lovely thank you for having me well thank you thank you okay bye you