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Do you know what the #1 ingredient is when it comes to turning your indie game into a success? And no, it's not making an excellent game (although that's pretty important, too). The answer is: marketing your indie game. Relentlessly.
Here's a step-by-step guide on getting started with indie game marketing.
1. Market research
Before you start marketing your game, you need to know who to market it to. In other words: find your target audience so that you can hyper-focus your efforts on them. This will give you a better return on investment (ROI) since you'll be targeting a group who's already interested in the kind of game you're developing.
You can find your target audience by identifying your competitors and seeing who their players are. Once you identify them, you can survey them to get to know their gaming preferences, likes, and dislikes. This will help you make sure that you create a game they'll definitely want to play!
2. Social media
The next step is creating a social media presence, engaging with your intended audience, and building a loyal gaming community. This will help you form genuine connections with your potential players, fostering loyalty and trust, giving you a ready-made fan base on the launch date. You'll also be able to boost brand visibility, get feedback from your audience about your game, and get some much-needed motivation.
3. Steam page optimization
Your Steam page is how most new players will find you, so you need to make sure that it’s top-notch. This includes writing a proper game description, including the relevant tags, adding a trailer, and optimizing everything with keywords. This makes it easier for new players to find your game through the search tab.
4. Email marketing
Social media is a great avenue to engage with your audience, sure, but there’s no guarantee that all your players will still be around on the same platforms by the time you launch. How, then, do you make sure that you stay connected to your audience? Through a newsletter!
Once you create one, include the subscription link on all your platforms and encourage people to sign up. You can also make use of several email marketing strategies, such as making your emails interactive, hosting giveaways and contests, and giving your subscribers exclusive content to increase sign-ups and keep your existing subscribers engaged.
5. Influencer marketing
Once you have a demo version of your game ready, it’s time to collaborate with influencers and promote your indie game. For your first influencer partnership, pick micro influencers within your niche. They usually have a targeted audience, which lets you focus your marketing efforts to your target audience. This makes sure that no penny from your budget goes to waste. And, hey, if bigger influencers stumble upon your game through this collaboration, they might promote it on their own!
6. Press releases
Getting press coverage for your indie game is a non-negotiable aspect of marketing. It helps you get the word out about your game to people who don’t use social media. Even casual players might read your press release and add your game to their wishlist if they find it intriguing.
Want an expert tip? Time the press releases to go out during major game development milestones. Just released your trailer or a demo version? Finally set up a launch date? Hosting a contest for your audience? Get that press coverage!
7. Paid ads
While all the methods outlined above are great for raising brand awareness in the long-run, they also require a lot of patience as you won’t see results overnight. So, what do you do when you need faster results? Run paid ads!
They work within your budget and help you reach your marketing goals (such as building up your Steam page wishlists or increasing newsletter sign-ups) more quickly. You can run paid ads to highly targeted customer groups and track your results. This gives you the opportunity to analyze your marketing plan to see how well it’s working. If the results aren’t up to par, you can tweak your plan and get better results the next time around.