[EASY-TO-USE TEMPLATE PROVIDED]
You are a dedicated indie team attempting to market your game to the vast sea of media outlets and content creators. This can definitely be overwhelming, but there are ways to organize your pitching to increase your chances of getting the coverage you seek! Our Contact-Database template will help you keep track of all your contacts, as well as generate efficient target lists for all your game’s outreach needs. This is a modified version of what we use at Evolve to track media and influencer engagement for a wide range of indie and AAA games, so it should work well for you, too!
A quick note before we begin: this resource does not include contacts. That would be a violation of all sorts of privacy laws. So you’ll need to build your own contact list to make the most of this tool.
Contact Database
The Database tab is the heart of all your data. Here, you can enter your contacts’ basic information, such as their name, email, and region. You can also enter in more specific info, like their average concurrent viewership, what platforms they prefer, and their sponsored content rates, just to name a few. Like any spreadsheet, you can filter and sort the data in any way you’d like, but if you’re sifting through hundreds of contacts, then it may be easier for you to use the built-in search functionality.
With the Search Tool, you can filter contacts by any combination of channel platform, game platform, genre, region, and minimum sub/follower count. In Row 2, you’ll find several drop-down boxes that correspond to each category. Simply select which parameters you’re looking for, and the sheet will populate results that match! This makes it incredibly easy to find the perfect set of contacts for your game! Just remember that this pulls from the Database tab, so you’ll need to have that filled in.
Have a specific list of people in mind? Navigate to the Look-Up Tool and enter their channel or outlet names in Column A. This will automatically bring up your contact’s basic information, provided that you’ve filled them in on the database sheet. This is a great way to quickly put together a list of potential… Targets!
target list
Target lists, ideally, should be a list of contacts that are likely to be interested in playing or covering your game, and/or people you really want to reach. At Evolve we believe that good targeting is key: not every news beat or coverage opportunity is appropriate for every contact. Our Target List template is a perfect complement to the contact database, in that all you need to do is copy and paste the information from one sheet to another.
To use the template in conjunction with the database, first, generate a list of desired contacts, using either the Look-Up Tool or Search Tool. You can then select Columns A to J and copy and paste them into the Target List template.
The Target List does require upkeep in order for you to get the most out of it, but it’s worth it! In addition to all the basic info you get from the database, the Target List sheet will also help you keep track of pitch status, when you last reached out to a contact, as well as whether or not they’ve requested keys for your game.
The Importance of Organization
While all of this documenting and tracking could seem a tad pedantic, taking the time to properly build a list of relevant contacts within the contact-database template, and doing research into how they fit into your game outreach campaigns will pay off in the long run.
Using a bespoke target list ensures that you’re reaching out to contacts who have a higher likelihood of covering your game, whether that be due to past coverage or a known interest in similar titles. From a content creator or journalist’s perspective, this shows you’ve done your research and are being considerate of their time.
Sorting outreach by activity can further refine your efforts. Different activities can be more relevant to media outlets than to influencers and vice versa. Are you announcing a new title? You may be more inclined to seek out media coverage! Are you releasing a demo? You may want content creators to stream it. The beauty of target lists is that you can curate them to match your needs.
Lastly, if you’d rather focus your time developing—or if media and content creator outreach is intimidating for you—we’re here to answer any questions and help 🙂