We were approached by Newfangled Games, an Indie Game studio based in the UK, to support their pre-launch campaign for the upcoming puzzle game title ‘Paper Trail’. We laid out a social media strategy for TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube Shorts with the primary goal of driving traffic to Paper Trail’s Steam page both directly and through brand awareness. Over the course of the 6-month pre-launch campaign, we generated 15M+ social impressions, contributed to the 75k+ Steam Wishlists, and generated a 125%+ audience growth for all Newfangled social media accounts.
Our content strategy was specifically designed to support the aesthetic of the game through a unique tone of voice and personalised short-form video content strategy. We initially designed the tone of voice to be “comfy, wholesome, and welcoming” which reflected the game’s cute and hand-drawn aesthetic qualities, we later iterated on this to position copy and assets as if they were coming from the developers directly whilst still encompassing the original feel. Our short-form content strategy was designed to showcase the game, its unique mechanics, and its artwork to viewers who were seeing the title for the first time – we ensured it was short and to the point to maximise information delivery during watch time.
Within the first two months, we created content that still stands as the best-performing post on the games’ official Twitter/X account, generating nearly 70 thousand verified video views and over 1 million impressions. Utilising this type of content in addition to content showcasing ‘in-development’ assets allowed us to reach new audiences and keep existing audiences engaged. We were also able to build on the success of the game itself with wishlist milestone posts and major announcement posts generating significant reach and impact.
We also supported Newfangled with Steam blog post copywriting and creation, Discord management and community updates. We gave the Steam blog posts their own unique tone of voice, keeping copy lighthearted and engaging, writing as if we were the dev team themselves. We were able to generate full-length blog posts with minimal input from the developers themselves, taking the stress of creating marketing materials and content away from the team so they could focus primarily on the development of Paper Trail itself.
We’re so proud of the Paper Trail team and we are proud of our own contributions to their pre-launch campaign. We are certain the game will be extremely successful and we hope that you get a chance to check it out! If you would like to chat with us about supporting your game in all things marketing, then feel free to reach out to us at hello@hotdrop.gg
Last but not least, we also gave Newfangled Games paid media counsel, helping them design and A/B test copy and assets across Reddit and Twitter. We also produced a full “Reddit Posting Guide”, showcasing subreddits and styles of posting that fit each community. This helped generate an extremely successful Reddit post on the /r/steamdeck community that generated over 1000 Steam Wishlists alone.
If you are interested in chatting to us about game launch strategies, creative support for games including trailers, or influencer marketing strategies then feel free to get in touch at hello@hotdrop.gg
