Video Games: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Gaming World with the VP of Marketing at Hackuity, Skyler Schmanski

The fastest growing entertainment industry is not music and it’s not film. It’s video games. And they’re doing a lot of things right when it comes to marketing.

Ever since arcades opened in the 1970s and Pong became popular, video games drew in a massive audience. So let’s talk about how the industry draws in all the eyes, ears, and thumbs.  

In this episode, we’re chatting with the VP of Marketing at Hackuity, Skyler Schmanski. Together, we talk about how spending money doesn’t equal making money, and making money doesn’t equal business efficiency, and much more.

About our guest, Skyler Schmanski

Skyler Schmanski is the VP of Marketing at Hackuity, formerly Head of the Marketing Innovation Lab at Tenable, and – prior to acquisition – Deputy Chief Marketing Officer at Alsid. He is also the Executive Producer of the award-winning, #1 tech podcast, The Hacker Chronicles, and a LinkedIn Top Cybersecurity Voice with extensive experience in demand gen and growth hacking across hypergrowth tech startups, scaleups, and multinationals. After calling France home for more than eight years, Skyler is now growing EU businesses from Madrid. 

What B2B Companies Can Learn From the Video Game Industry:

• Spending more doesn’t equal making more money. Making money depends on the efficacy of your campaigns; grabbing your audience's attention, speaking directly to them, and engaging them. And you can do that on a lean budget. Skyler says, ”When you drop 10 years and $500 million on a project, that doesn't always translate to a better project. Sometimes you see these lean teams of 10 to 20 people on $10 million producing something higher quality. And so I think there's that balance to strike there that yes, that unprecedented level of investment is a good thing, but it's not enough to simply grow your teams and grow your budgets in 2024. You need to be doing it smartly. Efficiency is the name of the game, pun absolutely intended, in 2024.”
• Making more money doesn’t equal business efficiency. Focus first on operating efficiently before investing in a larger team. Skyler says, “Maybe if you are hitting 50% of the same revenue that you'd be hitting with 50 people at five people, well, that’s remarkably more efficient. And in that case, you definitely want the more agile team and direct link to the studio culture we were talking about, where you just see this constant inflow of contractors. When you come back to that minimum viable product from a team structure standpoint, you start to think, ‘Okay, how do we operate as efficiently as possible?’ And then you build from that.”

Quotes

*”People would say, ‘Under promise, over deliver.’ I don't wade into that. I would say, ‘Promise and then deliver.’ It's as simple as that. You cut the BS, you cut the fluff. And if what you say works, works, you're going to have a pretty happy client base.”

*”It's not ‘Do more with less.’ It’s ‘Do less things better.’”

*”I'm a big proponent of ‘Done is better than perfect.’ So I'm not saying that you need that 4k texture pack and everything is flawless. Especially when you're a startup or a scale up, you're working toward a grander vision. And I think people are very willing to forgive some of the glitchiness if the underlying product is working, if it's delivering results.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Skyler Schmanski, VP of Marketing at Hackuity

[3:21] The Evolution and Impact of the Video Game Industry

[8:24] The Shift in Game Development: From Perfection to Patching

[21:00] Marketing Insights from the Gaming World

[22:14] Evolving Budgets in Cybersecurity and Gaming

[22:50] Marketing Agility and Team Efficiency

[24:06] The Essential: Making Games That Work

[24:22] Marketing Strategies: From Email to Engagement

[25:52] Under Promise, Over Deliver: A Marketing Mantra

[29:00] The Power of Authenticity in Product Development

[30:13] Innovative Content Strategies in Cybersecurity

[32:07] Leveraging Thought Leadership for Brand Growth

[34:42] Future Marketing Strategies and Cross-Media Impact

[36:40] Closing Thoughts on Creativity and Storytelling

Links

Connect with Skyler on LinkedIn

Learn more about Hackuity

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

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