Developing your own video game is a complex process. It can be challenging to introduce your work to the world and attract initial enthusiasts to your game. This challenge becomes even more formidable if you are an independent developer without a substantial advertising budget and a dedicated marketing department. We've gathered essential tips for promoting your indie game, which can help you even if you lack experience in this area.
Indie game marketing plan
Step 1 - make a research. To promote your game, study similar games in your genre. Select games that have succeeded in promotion and observe their social media presence. Check fan communities and influencers to get practical ideas. By doing these things, you can gain valuable insights into how to effectively promote your game and attract more players. You can find out more about how to research here.
Here are some websites that can assist you with your research:
- Streamscharts - database of live streaming stats and analytics
- SteamDB - is a database of everything on Steam
- Vginsights - Access to prices, sales estimates, ratings, genres, and much more for over 50,000 Steam games!
Step 2 - setup your goals. Keeping in mind that these goals will vary at different stages of game development. Are you preparing for a release and aiming to generate interest? If so, you need to share information about the game, including artwork and teasers, and build an audience within a community. This will help you gather initial feedback and motivate potential players to add the game to their Steam wishlists. Don't overlook any available promotional methods during the game's development phase, as investing a little time and effort is better than doing nothing at all. Kepp in mind that players might not convert right away, but once they enter your funnel, they will inevitably contribute to promoting your game if they've heard about it through discussions with friends, on gaming forums, or in Steam conversations.
Let's do some math.
Step 3. You need to be aware of your game's cost and objectives at each stage of the conversion process. You'll have to make a few assumptions and calculate how much you can allocate to paid marketing, your projected sales, and the resulting profits. Keep in mind that this estimate will never be 100% accurate, and you'll have to adjust your plan once you observe the initial outcomes. Therefore, it's crucial to begin with small tests across various channels and determine what yields the best results tailored to your game.
Step 4 - select tools for advertising your indie game. After finishing the previous exercise, you are now contemplating which hypotheses to test to reach your goals and estimating the financial resources required. At this point, it's crucial to select appropriate tools that can cover various promotional channels simultaneously, saving you time and money.
Promote your indie game with guaranteed success and achieve multiple goals simultaneously
Indie game developers can achieve several goals and pay only for the results they obtain. Let's take the Drope.me platform as an example, which can assist in achieving any of the following:
- Increase app installs - Fuel social media - Obtain UGC content - Boost engagement - Grow Steam Wishlist
All you need to do is create a campaign for your game. Choose your platform, set the timing and budget, and specify the required user actions.
The best part is that your campaign will be promoted by our influencers. There are over 17000 influencers who fit your criteria. To make it easier for you to choose the right influencers for your campaign, you have two options. First, you can give automatic access to all influencers who meet your preferred criteria for language and gaming preferences. Alternatively, you can set specific criteria for each influencer, which could affect the success of your campaign if it has a short duration, high budget, or low price per action.
How will your goals be achieved? The answer lies in the actions that users must perform. On Drope.me, actions refer to tasks that need to be completed by members of the influencers' community. Gaming companies can create and assign tasks, set the price for each completed task, and determine the total quantity required. Once completed, influencers and their community members will receive a reward, but only after the task completion has been verified.
You can collaborate with influencers to create custom content for Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, or X to promote your game, which can help increase its visibility and engagement among the community.
By using one tool, you can achieve multiple goals and focus on necessary decisions for different stages of promoting your game. This tool can provide you with a lot of content about your game, help you build a community on social networks, receive feedback from interested users and attract more fans to your game.
And the main thing is that you will not do this yourself, but through the strongest promotion tool of our time - influencer marketing. So, if you want to maximize your reach and get the most out of your marketing efforts, use your resources wisely.
