No-Budget DIY Marketing for Indie Games

[Music] thank you hello everyone and welcome to no budget DIY marketing for Indie Games my name is Michelle and I've been helping independent developers Market their games for years over the next hour I'll give you advice tips and a plan to Market your game without spending any money and spending very little time this presentation is intended for people who don't have experience marketing a game and who are looking for ways to do it themselves so people who are Solo devs or working in small teams that don't have the time or budget to hire an actual marketing person to help them out a clicker does not work a bit about me before we get started just so you know the information I'm giving you is legit I've been working in marketing in PR for over six years now and specifically in indie games for the

past three years I previously did marketing at an indie games publisher where I worked on over a dozen games and I'm currently senior producer at Indie Games publisher armor game studios over the years I've had the privilege to work on some truly incredible indie games like cozy Grove sailforth the recently announced paladins and many more and I'm excited to share my experience in marketing Indie Games with you this presentation is divided into four sections that will break down marketing into a more easily approachable set of tasks that you can do yourself first I'll go over how to communicate the message of your game it's vital to be able to describe what your game is in as few words as possible since most of marketing is trying to catch people's attention as quickly as you can next I'll review social media and how to cultivate a following I know there are as many different opinions on social media as there are people out there but there's one thing that we should generally agree on and that is that is very important to use social media to

get the word out there about your game then I'll go into the meat of this talk this is my hour a day marketing plan this plan will break down marketing tasks into a schedule that takes one hour a day five days a week marketing a game does not have to be a full-time job and finally I'll talk about marketing around your game's launch and post launch since marketing doesn't end once the game's released I'll also go through a little bit of the marketing beats that you can do leading up to your games launch to start let's talk about developing your message without a clear message you'll have a hard time communicating what your game is about and that's the most important part of marketing the next few slides I'm going to show you a short description of an indie game without the title and once I show them I'll let you take a moment to see if you can figure out what game the short message is communicating here's the first game description an online and local party game of teamwork and betrayal for 4 to 15

players in space I'll give you a few seconds to see if you can guess this one Yep this is among us nearly everyone knows about Among Us now but what I love about this description is that it could very easily have been the description for the game when it released in 2018 when it was a small indie game made by a small team this description hits some very important points it tells you what the style of gameplay is by starting the description with online and local party game this is communicating that social play is the most important part of the game the space setting the types of characters the art style that's not necessarily the point of the game this game isn't being marketed toward fans of outer space it's being marketed toward fans of party games the words teamwork and betrayal these three words communicate that this game is both a cooperative and a competitive game it doesn't have to say like the party game Mafia to communicate that it is like the party game Mafia you don't

need to compare your game to other games to explain what it is and if you find yourself relying on those comparisons you should work on solidifying a better idea of what your game is about that doesn't rely on the audience's knowledge of another existing game for 4 to 15 players players know exactly how many people they need to play this game they won't buy it thinking it's a single or a two-player game and then get upset when it isn't and similarly they know they can play it with a larger group of people and this is again emphasizing the party aspect of the game and then that final little tag in space this hints at the setting which is honestly enough to distinguish the description from other similar games players don't need to know they're playing as crewmates in a spaceship and they have to do tasks on the ship and figure out who the Imposter is that information all bogs down the clarity of this description Among Us is first and foremost a party game and that's what this messaging prioritizes here's the second game description

even the smallest person can make a big difference join Alba as she sets out to save her beautiful island and its wildlife and possibly start a revolution if you know this game you already know what it is Alba a wildlife Adventure this short description tells you that it's going to be a heartwarming story with a small protagonist who has a big heart it prioritizes the story of the game which shows you it's going to be a narrative focused game it gives you the name of the character in the short description Itself by including that name it personifies the main character and it helps people remember the title of the game it also tells you what the story is going to be about Alba has to save her Island and its Wildlife so you know it's likely going to be a story focused on conservation and nature and finally it gives you a taste of the tone of the game with the slightly tongue-in-cheek and possibly start a revolution at the end this lets you know that it's not going to be sweet it's not all going to

be sweet and cozy and it'll probably grapple with some deeper themes now the first step to crafting your game's message is to Define your audience it's very important to make sure you know who's going to play your game and who wants to play your game you can't just assume that anyone who likes video games in general is going to like your specific game so take some time to narrow down who you think is most likely to play your game hopefully it is people like you since you are presumably making a game that you like to play people who like the genre of your game people who like the mechanics of your game and people who like the type of story that you're telling you can also find your audience and people who have interests that align with your game for example if you're making a game about lassoing horses you can appeal to horse riders and fans of western films a lot of times you can find an audience who don't necessarily play a lot of video games but they do have interests that are aligned with the kind of game that you're making

the way you craft your game's message is up to you but I'll give you a few good templates to start remember figure out what the most important important part of your game is to communicate to your defined audience and base your message around that for example if you're working on an action-focused game you may want to use the first template here verb in a noun while you verb say your game is a roller derby Cowboy simulator where you need to protect your village from hordes of horses whose sole goal is to trample everything they see you could say lasso evil horses in the wild west while competing for the big roller derby title this lets players know that your game is focused on the action of lassoing it gives a little bit about the setting and then it gives you just a little bit more about the story of the game and what other actions you might be taking or if the game you're making is capitalizing on a popular genre you could use this template game name is a genre where you verb and verb for example horse Bandits is a roguelike

shoot em up where you shoot Horseshoes and lassos at horses to stop them from stomping all over your crops if you're making a game in a genre that has a particularly Avid fan base it's good to call out that genre as much as you can to attract those fans or if you're making a narrative focused game you could start the description with a brief bit of story detail followed by a diegetic call to action so the town of horseberg used to be idyllic before the evil horses attacked and only one hero can save them will you take up the lasso this signals to the player that story is prioritized in the game so fans of narrative Focus games will be interested in playing it it's important to identify what your audience will find the most appealing about your game and to come up with a pitch that concisely explains why they should be interested if you find yourself struggling to Define your game in a simple way think back to when you first came up with the concept of the game and go from there did you excitedly call your friend and tell them about

your bullet hell with horses game idea did you sketch a cowboy on a napkin with a name tag hero of horseberg that's a good way to get to the core of your game what it's really about and that can help you craft the message of your game after you've figured out your short description or your pitch it's important to solidify a list of bullet points that clearly communicate more of the important aspects of your game this list is really useful to put on your steam page in your press kit and to send to press and influencers when you're reaching out to tell them about your game bullet points can include the following depending on what's relevant and what's important to your game what's the gameplay like what are some of the mechanics of the game what's the story what's the art style is it 2D 3D Pixel Art what's the soundtrack like how many levels or worlds are there is it a multiplayer online game is it a single player game what's the length of the campaign it's important to note that these bullet points should Express the unique aspects

of your game if you're making a fantasy RPG called dwarves and elves go to war you don't need to include a bullet point about the fact that there are dwarves and elves going to war in your game but you should include a bullet point about the Rhythm Mini-Game set to 80s disco music since that is a unique aspect of the game that likely won't be clear in the title or the short description here's a good example of some bullet points Shovel Knight does an excellent job representing what I've just walked you through it tells you the style of the game which is 8-bit it tells you a little bit about the mechanics of the game so there's jumping there's fighting digging up treasure exploring upgrading it tells you the soundtrack and the composer if someone is contributing to your game that is a well-known name or they have a lot of fans you can call them out in the bullet points to get a little more attention it also tells you the art style big beautiful pixels Harkens to the pixel art nature of the game

uh it it adds a little note that it's accessible to everyone it has balanced gameplay it has a little bit of information about the narrative so it lets you know that while it's not a story focused game there is still story in the game it tells you about the challenge mode so this way it'll appeal to people who are interested in a more challenging game and then there's information about the co-op mode for people who want to play with their friends now these bullet points don't necessarily tell you what happens in the game or what the process of playing it is like but they do lay out in an easily digestible way things that may hook potential players now that you've crystallized the message of your game it's time to build a following or refine the one that you already have there are four big things to remember when you're building a community for your game first people follow people not games now I'm going to contradict myself right

away and say that this is not always true huge games like Destiny 2 or Among Us or Cult of the Lamb they may find followers because of the people who like the game itself but it's also important to note that those communities have great Community managers and marketing people but if you're at this talk I'm going to assume that you don't already have a following of hundreds of thousands of people and you're looking for advice as to how to build up your community in the small Indie space people tend to follow developers instead of games if you're a fun and personable person to follow you'll be able to attract a community to you that's interested in who you are and what you're doing be genuine and true to who you are in the space you want to be in if you're a poster keep doing that you don't need to change your whole personality to try to appeal to a bunch of different people if you like posting informative threads about various aspects of game development that's a great way to Share info about yourself and about the game and people love learning when you're starting out it's incredibly important to engage with other people on

whatever social media platform you're using no one is an island make sure you're supporting other devs you're interacting with your fans show people you care about them Beyond them as potential consumers this is how you cultivate a community your biggest fans will come from people that you're the biggest fans of they're your best marketing tools but make sure you don't think of them as tools and most importantly be kind keep your public criticisms of other games other people Etc to a minimum you never know who's going to see your posts and you don't want to create a following of haters if you're constantly engaging in drama or criticizing other people or games the people following you are going to be people who enjoy consuming that sort of negative content and also potentially creating that negative content which is not a good foundation of followers when you're trying to Market a game great so now you know how to build a following but what are the practical steps you need to get started well I'm glad you asked if you're starting from

scratch choose the social media platforms that best suit your online style and audience and set up accounts I'll go into more detail later about how to decide that then you want to set up a website and a press kit for your game the website should contain information and links to everything you want one Central Hub where people can go to get all the information they need about your game what it is a trailer for the game how to contact you how to follow the game when it's releasing what platforms it's coming out on Etc you can Google Indie video games press kit and you'll get a template that's super easy to use and this is really vital to provide information to the Press you don't ever want to be in a situation where a member of the press wants to cover your game but doesn't because they don't have access to important materials about your game that's why you want to make sure you have a press kit and then set up your steam page once you start building up followers you need somewhere to direct them to go wish list your game I'll go more into setting

up the steam page later and then set up a Discord if you have the capacity to manage it a Discord is not necessary but it can be very important to keep your community in one place to be able to interact with your fans directly and provide Dev updates in a chill way and put up a demo this is a great way to get people interested in your game don't do this until you're ready of course and be willing to hear and respond to feedback but there are plenty of steam fests that you can put a demo up for or you can put a demo in your game up on itch.io to make sure that you can send people to a place where they can play your game and get a better sense of what it's like a lot of people will discover demos of games just by scrolling through itch a lot of content creators do that as well so it's worth looking into now I'm going to go into the various social media platforms you can use to promote your game start let's talk about Twitter I used to be a very strong proponent of using Twitter to engage with people and Market your game but in the past two

years the site has fallen pretty far from Grace so while it's still important for networking it's not the most vital platform for marketing if you decide to start a Twitter you'll need to decide if you want a studio Twitter a Game Twitter and or a personal Twitter a personal Twitter is good for showing the person behind the game this goes back to the people follow people tip but it can also be harder to separate your personal musings from important stuff about the game so if you're the kind of person that likes to tweet every thought that pops into your head it's better for you to set up a separate account for your game if you're working with a group of people you should either have a studio Twitter or a Game Twitter so fans can follow One account to get updates it's hard to cultivate a community if your updates are scattered across multiple different people's Twitter accounts and remember people follow people so even if you're running a studio Game Twitter a studio or a Game Twitter followers will still engage more when they know they're engaging with a real person social media can feel

disingenuous especially if you're not used to it but try to be fun kind and engaging you don't need to be corporate or stilted you don't need to speak in marketing speak all the time you're making a video game that's a cool thing that's a fun thing and you want tweets that people will enjoy reading and want to interact with and feel free to post about more than just your game you can post random thoughts support your fellow Indie devs you can post you know a fun meme that's relevant to the game that you're making anything that'll get people to engage with the content that you're making and importantly don't overload your tweets with hashtags they're not the discovery tool that you think they are and they're really only good for specific things like hashtag screenshot Saturday or Twitter campaigns or connecting directly with a community so here are a few examples of tweets from Indie devs that have done really well the first is from my friend who's making a game called Ali frog toad skater you'll notice a few things about this tweet it's not a lot of text so

people's eyes won't glaze over trying to read it it uses Emoji to illustrate what the text is saying which gives it a little bit of flair and it uses just one hashtag the gamedev hashtag which can Surface it and gave Dev communities without overloading the tweet it also includes a very cool video that shows off the tweet and this is the most important part the visual the video shows off what the text says it gets right into the action and it stays in the action and it shows how vibrant and fun the world is here's another example of an indie game tweet that appeals a little bit more to the development side of Twitter this is from the developer of the game sale fourth which I did some marketing and production work on note that the text of the Tweet isn't too technical or too much getting into the weeds this will catch the eye of people who know what the developer is talking about who can then read the rest of this Twitter thread because this was a thread going in the into the details of development but for people who aren't on the technical side of development for fans of games for example the video does a

good job visually representing what he's saying in a way that still makes sense Gamers who don't know much about development can still appreciate this video and getting a behind the scenes Glimpse makes them more excited to play the game to see how it plays out in real time and bolstered by the need to stay entertained and engaged throughout the pandemic Tick Tock has emerged as the top runner for best social media to promo your game on if you can hit the algorithm right now this advice may very soon become irrelevant if Tick Tock is banned in the U.S but for now let's act like it won't um I'm not a tick tock expert and there are a few other talks here at GDC that will have more information than I do about how best to create content for tick tock specifically but much of the same rules as Twitter apply here don't be too corporate show your personality have fun with it Trends are important on Tick Tock so make sure you take some time to understand the app before posting to it learn how to use trending

sounds and hashtags Tick Tock is hard to parse and you will likely fail quite a bit before getting a hit Tick Tock but I really do think it's the biggest driver of interests and wish lists of all the social media platforms it's all about viral content it's a bit harder to cultivate a community Through Tick Tock but it's a great way to reach the masses games that go viral on Tick Tock often get noticed by journalists and streamers and all it takes is one popular video to get a lot of attention here are a few indie game Tick Tock accounts that have been wildly successful I highly recommend you check them out to see what hits and what doesn't one more Multiverse is a great example of an account that uses being personable as a way to explain their game a lot of times one of the developers will be in the video themselves showing their face the game Mail Time has found a lot of success by the Creator showing her development process and posting clips of funny bugs that are going on in her game landfall games is a bigger Studio but

they've done a great job getting a huge following on Tick Tock because they have a lot of silly games and they like to post little clips from that Inky Fox is the solo Dev of the game omno and if you can see their tiny numbers but you can see those first videos there all have millions of views which contributed to the success of that game he posted a lot about what it's like being a solo Dev what it's like developing this game and that got him a lot of followers and then this game from one of the creators of the game tinyglade you can see again that first video there has almost 10 million views on tick tock now Anastasia opara recently posted a great Twitter Twitter thread Breaking Down The Tick Tock strategy so definitely check that out if that's something you're interested in and often the people running these accounts will post blog posts or Twitter threads going through their process there are plenty more of examples out there so do a little bit of research and chat with your friends and other people you know who are using Tick Tock to see what approach is best for you now like I said earlier Discord can be a

really good place to build a community as long as you have the energy and time to take care of it a good Discord Community can make an indie game but remember your community is a reflection of your game and you so be sure to set rules and moderate to cultivate your community make sure you use your Discord as more than a place to just throw Dev logs in and leave it alone chat with your fans talk about the other games that you're playing other hobbies that you have show off your art to each other if you're comfortable with it you can set up monthly voice calls or Dev streams to chat live with the people in your Discord it's good to give perks to people in your Discord these are the true fans of you and your game and you want them to feel special and appreciated you can do game key giveaways you can give them behind the scenes info you can do polls to let your community make small decisions about your game you can even encourage them to to do fan art of your game and chat with them about the process of development okay yeah steam is not technically a

social media platform but it is important to use if you're planning to release your game on Steam you'll want to set up your steam page as soon as possible unless you're seeking a publisher but even still most smaller Publishers are going to want to see a game on Steam already so that they can see the interest and wish list that you have you want to set up your game or your steam page as soon as you have good art to use for the capsules and the screenshots you can change the art as many times as you want so don't worry if it's not final use that message that we came up with earlier as your short description and be sure to include the bullet points in the long description of the game remember that wish lists convert anywhere from 10 to 30 percent to sales in the first year so make sure you're accumulating the number of wishes you want before launch if you're the one setting your launch release date and you don't have the number of wish lists that you really want to have in order to make the sales you want you can just delay your game a little bit to do a little bit of more marketing and use the steam announcements feature

to tell followers about your development process any steam events your game is in when a new demo is up anything like that short of the 100 you have to pay to put a game on Steam it's free marketing the discussion section of your community page on Steam is a great place to cultivate your community players will ask questions and leave feedback there and those are going to be the most excited and hardcore players for your game be responsive and they'll spread the word for you speaking of people spreading the word for you this is also not technically a social media platform but Word of Mouth marketing cannot be underestimated there's going to be a portion of your players who aren't chronically online who don't have Twitter accounts or tick tocks and who don't check the steam Discovery queue every week to find games that they'd like to play Word of Mouth marketing is nearly impossible to quantify but it's important to remember that no one will talk about your game unless you're also talking about your game if there are people you regularly hang out with or interact with that don't

know you're making a game that needs to change you don't need to be annoying about it but keep your friends updated on what you're doing and what you're working on making a game is cool your friends want to support you even strangers will support you if you're friendly if you're taking regular horseback riding lessons it'd be a good idea to slip in a hey did you know I'm working on a video game about horses and you'll get other people interested in what you're working on I'll give you a real life example recently I had stopped by a smoke salmon shop in Seattle where I'm from to buy a gift for my dad for the holidays I asked the cashier for some recommendations and then we started chatting about when I had moved to Seattle and what I was doing started talking to him about my job and the games that I'd worked on and now he's writing down the titles of the games that I'm working on he's like this is so cool I'm really interested in this game I'm gonna go home and play it all because I just started up a small conversation with a person in a shop and that also means that other people in that shop were hearing me talk about the game that I'm working on and they may also be interested in it

you should also make sure to have some sort of take-home item about your game especially if you're going to a conference like this one this can be business cards or postcards with info about where to find your game uh and a shout out to the developers I met yesterday who pulled out a steam Deck with a build of their game on it that was a super cool way to see a game in action um you could also consider making a cool t-shirt with your game's title and imagery on it or some sort of fun phrase that'll get people approaching you and asking you about it you can make stickers to hand out to people who seem interested make the stickers cool enough to be attractive to people who are into more than just your game but also include the game's title or aesthetic so that people remember what it is about um but also be kind to the environment and don't put stickers all over everything everywhere there are a lot of other platforms you can use to build a following and each has its pros and cons and here's a quick rundown of a few more Kickstarter is a

lot of work but it does give you a built-in following and funding it's up to you to decide if you're willing to sync the time and energy into running a Kickstarter Reddit is like the wild west I've seen Indie Games go viral on there successfully but it seems to be mostly dumb luck if you're already an avid Reddit user I'd recommend posting info about your games in the relevant subreddits but if you're not I wouldn't say it's worth the time there can be a lot of specific rules to each of the subreddits and it can often be just a waste of time if you're posting things and not getting a lot of attention Facebook and Tumblr aren't worth your time unless you already have a big following on them if you have personal accounts on these platforms it may be worth it to occasionally post Dev updates so your family members know what you're up to but it's up to you if that's worth worth the energy and then in the wake of Twitter's impending collapse a lot of other social media sites have been popping up to take its place but I've yet to see one that's really been good for the purposes of Indie marketing

all right now let's get into the meat of it this is the hour a day marketing plan this is a plan I've invented that will take you one hour of work a day five days a week from now until you launch the game that will make marketing much more manageable ta-da here it is I know super exciting right I love fancy boxes with words in them so the overview of this plan you do social media on Monday that's posting and maintaining your twitters and your tick tocks and all the other great places you've stuck stakes in on Tuesday you're going to build out your press list till now I've talked mostly about building an audience but it's important to engage games press and content creators with your game as well on Wednesday you'll work on networking and applying to festivals Thursdays for writing up a devlog and working on your steam page and then Friday is content creation this is

organizing screenshots and videos and editing them for posting on various sites so Monday Garfield's favorite day of the week on Monday you're going to schedule posts on your social media for Twitter you can schedule posts natively in the desktop app so write them up schedule them during a time of day that makes sense a lot of times you're going to want to be posting midday Eastern Standard Time unless you live you know across the pond in which case post it during the day you don't want to be posting tweets at midnight no one's going to be awake to read them create a tick tock or two and save it to your drafts post later in the week to make sure you're spreading out your posting schedule and remember that visuals are the most important on any site so include a pretty screenshot or a fun GIF or a cool video talk to your community on social media day as well you should be casually talking with them throughout the week but Monday is the day to follow up on replies to your tweets check your DMs all that good stuff and then you also want to work on your

own list of following people you're following so follow people that you're engaged or you're interested in and engage with their content that way you can Strike Up friendships online for to find people to support you your work and your game on Tuesday you're going to work on your press list this is going to be a spreadsheet where you keep track of press people and influencers who would be interested in covering your game for major marketing Beats when you have a new trailer when you announce a release date when the game actually comes out Etc include the big people at the review like the reviews editors at Major sites but don't forget smaller streamers and Niche game sites I will continue to reiterate this that's where you'll find your most Ardent fans you can search tags on Twitch to find streamers who stream the kind of game that you're making you can go to the reviews section of your favorite games press site and find reviewers who have written reviews for a game that's similar to yours you can even set up a Google form and post it where people can easily fill it out so you can get their information quickly do not make it hard

for press and content creators to find and contact you this list could look like make sure you have the person's name email address Twitter handle if applicable website if they're a streamer what site they stream on and if they're pressed what site they write for a link to the website what platforms they play games on what region they live in so when you send them emails you're making sure you're sending them at Prime Time and any notes that could be helpful in your reach out to them it's important to note that you should only use publicly available information if a person doesn't have their email address listed anywhere on any of their social media or websites then they probably don't want to be contacted via email use your best judgment and don't spam people on Wednesday you're going to do some networking and you're going to apply to game festivals especially if you're making a game by yourself you don't want

to isolate yourself from other devs join your local Indie Dev group if your city has one join Discord for Indie devs working in the engine you're working in or working in the discipline that you're working in find meetups go to online conferences go to in-person conferences talk with people about more than just your game make friends is what I'm saying your friends will support you and hey you're at GDC right now so you're already doing this good job when you've met every single Indie Dev in the industry or just when you're feeling a little less social you can also apply to game festivals on this day big and small festivals are happening all the time and a lot of them are online and don't require a lot in the way of content steam has a ton of demo fests and there's a great resource put out by the Indie houses which is a collective of Indie Publishers that you can use to track events that website link is right up there make sure your game is at the right stage of development before you submit though being igf nominated would be incredible but don't submit your game to

igf when you still have three years left of development some festivals focus on finished games and some of them focus on in progress games Thursday is for writing up a devlog and updating your steam page you don't need to do a devlog every week unless you love doing that so this day can also be to catch up on other things devlogs don't have to be long or unique it can just be a little blog explaining the new content you've added to your game bugs you've run into and how you fix them and any upcoming showcases you're in or demos you're planning to put up cross post this devlog to your website your Discord steam link to it from Twitter maybe even make a small video to put on Tick Tock it's a great place to get a lot of content for a lot of the different websites you'll be using for steam maintenance you're going to work on polishing the marketing copy for your game update the art if it needs updating check your wishlist numbers and if you're into analytics you can get into steam UTM links make sure your tags

are accurate on Steam since that's a way that a lot of people will find your game and then check the discussions tab on your community page to see if anyone's chatting about your game asking questions about it again another great way to interact with the people who are interested in your game and then on Friday you're going to create content to use during the rest of the week throughout the week as you work on developing your game you'll want to take screenshots and videos as you work on Friday take that content and organize it make gifs convert your 16x9 videos into 9x16 videos for tick tock and consolidate your assets keep these organized in a nice folder so you can easily access them to schedule them out on Monday which is social media day I like to do separate gifs screenshot and video folders and then another folder that I title already posted that I move the asset to once I've posted it just to make sure I'm not posting the same content over and over again on this day you can also schedule a post for screenshots Saturday on Twitter

and sometimes all you do on Friday is edit one Tick Tock video and that's great that's a lot of work Tick Tock videos take a long time to edit good job I'm proud of you so there it is five hours a week to Market your game now if you're thinking five hours is still a lot of time to spend marketing a game that's fair if you're working on your game in your free time spending a whole hour on marking a day may seem absurd to that I say spend as much time as you have you don't have to do devlogs you can smoosh days together or shorten it to 30 minutes a day whatever works for you the important thing is getting your game out there so however you can make it manageable to you is the best way to do it one post a week is better than no posts a week one devlog a month or every two months is still better than none so once you've been marketing your game building your press list posting devlogs finishing your game what now

well the marketing doesn't stop once you launch your game I'm going to take a second and go over the important marketing beats that you should be reaching out to press to and posting everywhere for leading up to your games launch the obvious first one is your game announcement if you haven't done this already make sure when you put up your steam page and release your trailer you're also letting everyone know that you're making a game so reach out to press and let them know hey I'm making this game here's the trailer for it here's some screenshots here's you know if you have an anticipated release date let them know the next big beat will be when you announce your launch time frame now this can get a little tricky you can choose to announce your launch time time frame at the same time as your game announcement or you can hold off until you have a solid date locked in but if it looks like it's going to be a year or two before you have another big marketing beat feel free to release an updated trailer with a coming Q3 Q3 2024 end slate

then you'll want to reach out to press and content creators when you have a new demo up or when you're going to be in big festivals because there are smaller festivals happening all the time you want to make sure to only reach out to press for the really big ones that way you're not spamming their inbox things like packs or the mix or date of the devs or indicate those are ones that press will have an eye on and if you send them an email ahead of time they'll know that they can come check out your game at that Festival and then once you have a solidified launch date that's when you want to start reaching out for coverage interest you'll want to announce your release date no more than a few months in advance if it's too early people are going to forget about it so around the same time that you announce your release date or about a month before you actually release your game you'll want to start providing review keys to your press and your content creators make sure you give them plenty of time to review your game and also make sure to give them an embargo so they know when they can start actually posting content about your game and then finally launch day that's your

last well that's not your last Big Marketing beat but that's the biggest marketing beat that you want to reach out to everyone you know for so launch day on your launch you're going to post everywhere and I mean it post on your Facebook account that you haven't used in years dig up your Tumblr password and post there print out a flyer and hang it up in the town square the hardest part of marketing is getting people to hear about your game so make sure everyone can hear about it you're also going to want to send emails to your press and content creators list this email should be relatively brief it should be clear what your message is the subject line is something like roguelite horse FPS gun horse releases today and in the body of the email include your short description your bullet points a link to the steam page a link to your press kit your press release a nice small size GIF or screenshot and a steam key you don't want to create an extra step by making the press and influencers have to ask you for a key the more steps they have to take to cover your game the

less likely they are to cover it and don't be afraid to ask for Steam Reviews they're super important for getting your game traction on Steam now steam discourages you from explicitly asking for positive reviews in your game but you can reach out to your friends your Discord your followers and very politely explain that you'd love to hear their feedback in the form of a steam review and reply to the reviews if you have reviews come in that aren't so positive but are calling out specific issues in your game like if someone leaves a negative review and says there are a lot of bugs and I didn't like it you can reply to that review and say Hey thank you so much for the heads up I'm working on these bugs or I've released a patch that addresses these bugs I'd love for you to try the game out again and then launch with the launch discount this is standard practice nowadays so make sure you've locked in your launch discount at least two weeks before you release your game on Steam people are more likely to buy a game when it's on sale and if it's on sale when you launch it their W is likely to buy it

now press release can be a good way to get the attention of press who might not otherwise see your game I won't go into the details of how to write a press release it involves a good bit of formatting so if you haven't done it before make sure to Google it but if you yeah but but make sure to Google it if you haven't written one before once you have the press release you're going to save it as a text file you're going to get six to ten nice screenshots make sure you include the key art for your game both with and without the title that's a big thing that press asks for a lot and then you're going to go to gamespress.com that's the website where press releases about games are hosted they'll give you information about how to send the press release to them and that way they'll ingest it and they'll post it on their website where games journalists have access to it and they can see the press release that you've released and they'll get access to the screenshots as well make sure to include a way to contact you in the press release if you want you can make a press at domain email address so that you don't get spammed at your

personal email address because this will be public information so you've done a bunch of marketing work and you've launched your game but you're not sure how to tell if your marketing has been successful well measuring success is a tricky business and if you want to get into analytics and click through rates and kpis this is not the talk for you but assuming you're a small Dev who already has limited time to focus on marketing here are some great ways to measure your success first of all set realistic expectations and goals that will make you feel good everyone wants to be the next stardew Valley or vampire survivors but realistically the large majority of indie games only make a few thousand dollars in sales knowing that success could look like getting 10 reviews on Steam on launch day or posting a tweet that gets a hundred likes or getting 200 subscribers to your Discord or you don't have to think in numbers it could be a friend telling you that they're so proud of the game that you've made or maybe your favorite small streamer complements the lasso mechanic

in your horse game or maybe you get your first purchase of your game in another country identify the success that matters to you the things that will make you feel good and use those as barometers don't base your game's success off of any other game's measure comparing yourself to others will only bring you down so you've launched your game you've had some successful and not so successful marketing beats what do you do now how do you keep the conversation going first things first be proud of what you made making a game is incredibly difficult and to do that and release it is a very impressive task if you're not thrilled with your sales remember that most people buy games when they're discounted check steam's rules for how often you can discount your game and if you'd like to boost if you'd like a boost to your sales make sure you're following and keeping up with the discounts continue to engage with your community and make sure to address any bugs or issues that come up in a reasonable amount of time if people see that a game

is continuously being worked on they're more likely to buy it if there's a feature that you didn't have time to get to before you launched your game Now's the Time to add it new content updates and DLC are all good post-launch marketing beats and they can drive more people to play your game remember people can only hear about your game if you're talking about it and some people might not hear about it until months after it comes out you can announce your game as many times as you want in a month or two throw up another tweet that's like my horse shampooing game is out now with an embedded trailer you never know when it's going to hit the right people at the right time someone might see that tweet and be like oh this game just released I have to go buy it right now even though you released it you know three months ago and continue to seek out and submit to festivals and steam events now you can submit to the festivals that prefer finished games like igf or indicate and there are always steam events happening chat with your fellow devs to know when genre specific or content specific events are happening

keep your fans engaged for your next game keep chatting with them and let them know your plans ahead of time these are the people who are most likely to spread the word when you have your next game coming when you start working on another game so don't forget about them anything can be a marketing beat if you see a lot of interest for your game in another region find a localizer to translate your game and release it that's a marketing beat if you feel like your launch trailer was a bit lackluster cut a new one or hire a trailer maker and re-announce your game with the new trailer if you really feel up to the challenge you can release your game on another platform another PC storefront for example or you can look at mobile or console just make sure you know what you're getting into and consider talking to a publisher or other devs that have self-published before looking and deporting to a console you can also look for non-games related connections I worked on a game called space otter Charlie where you play as an otter in outer space and we reached out to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which has a twitch Channel where they live stream

you know live animals at the aquarium and they actually stream the game for a few hours it was a really great way to make a connection to a non-games group that would not have otherwise heard about the game here's a quick rundown of good talks to check out if you're interested in Indie marketing um if you want to take a picture of this slide and then look up all the things later I know it's a lot of content the Indie soapbox talk that is happening right after this one that'll have Paige and Nick from agrocrab they've done a lot of great work marketing their next game on Tick Tock and remember that these will all be in the GDC vault as well so don't feel like you have to go to every single one there's three on Thursday all at the exact same time which you know uh but also remember that you're at GDC so use this time to make connections and tell people about your game thank you so much for coming to my talk I hope you now have a better understanding of how to Market your indie game by yourself without a budget

we have some time for questions so if you have any questions step up to the microphone and make sure to talk to say your question directly into the microphone and I will answer it as best as I can if you'd like to follow up on anything feel free to DM me on Twitter I'm always happy to answer questions thank you thank you start now yeah um quick question so what do you recommend well I know it says no budget but hypothetically speaking if you had a budget for tick tock what would you recommend on a daily basis and for what period of time so if you do have a budget to spend comes down to the do work marketing indie games on Tick Tock reach out to them ask them if they have you know what their availability is like a lot of times you're going to want to focus your marketing to write before the games launch so if you have the

budget for three months of tick tock marketing make sure it's the three months before your game launches um if you don't know what amount of time to do generally it's up to how much money you have and and how much the person you're hiring costs you want to do maybe one or two tick tocks a week a lot of people will charge per video or per hour so it's essentially up to the budget that you do have so you're saying it's better to allocate the dollars to a person that maybe like an influence or something versus me personally putting out the video is that what you're saying no so so if you if you have the money to like hire someone to run the tick tock for you is that what you're asking about no no like let's say I have a game and I have the money to promote the video oh that's what I'm asking yeah in general I'm sorry spending money to spending money on ads or spending money to like promote a post that generally doesn't do well um across the board usually paid ads or promoted videos on Tick Tock or promoted

tweets they aren't worth the spend um there's research has shown that the click-through rates for those are are just you generally aren't going to get your money back on those okay I understand it was just that the confusion about you know actually expanding the audience not like you engaged audience but then you need to actually build the audience though so I I understand what you're saying yeah yeah thank you thank you for New Media Manitoba we help interactive digital media companies in Manitoba Canada and this is a great framework for many of our devs and new Studios at what point should our Studios be considering working with a marketing firm and expanding beyond the do it themselves so the biggest factor in that is um if they have the budget for it um if you find yourself with you know if you've gotten funding from a grant or you know an external funding source and

you don't need that funding for yourself for the game's development that's a good time to start looking for external marketing firms um and it's also a good time to shop around you want to make sure that you're you you know you have a firm that you both can afford and is also going to be able to give you the um the support that you need but you know if you have money and it's a it's a you know toss-up between marketing or like hiring a really good artist for your game you may want to put it toward the actual development of the game first um and then if you you know if you get more money later on then you can move on to looking to Outsource that great thank you thanks thanks for the talk Michelle um is it a good idea to use the same content across all of the different social media accounts or is it better to make sure every piece of content is unique yeah yeah we want to um if you make a video for Tic Tac you can post that on Twitter um post it you know on Instagram if you have one yeah if you're making one piece

of content make sure to post it on all of the platforms that you have that way you're not spending a lot of time making content for a lot of different platforms I see and you mentioned launch discounts what are your thoughts on bad versus like pre-orders and if you're offering a price for pre-orders should you give it discounts compared to that yeah so pre-orders are a little tricky to do but if you're able to manage them I would say offer the pre-order at the same discount that you're offering the launch discount at because that is also an extra incentive for people to pre-order your game because they'll see that it's pre-order and get a discount you could even offer the pre-order at a higher discount rate to get people more interested just make sure that the people who pre-ordered your game are not getting you know screwed out of yeah you know that that's the 10 launch discount or whatever got it thank you thank you hey Michelle really helpful talk so I was just wondering at what uh stage in the development process do you think is the best time to start marketing as soon as you have announced your game

as soon as people know you're making a game you want to start doing your marketing um if you have limited time to focus on it um generally you know six months before launch uh is sort of the the minimum amount of time you want um a year before launch is good if you're working on games super super part-time and you know it's going to take you like seven years you still want to be talking about it but you don't need to be doing the weekly you know the weekly plan that I had until about a few years out so for sure um and a follow-up question that um I was just wondering I do recommend like kind of documenting your process as you're developing the game so that you can actually um because I know there have been a lot of uh posts that have done really well where you show like the early stages of your game and then moving on to like how far it's come so do you think that's a good idea to be documenting your process so along the way yeah absolutely yeah documenting your development process is a great tool for marketing um for exactly the reason you said a lot of posts that are like here's where the game started and here it is you know three years later those posts do really well because people love

to see the development process of the game all right for sure thank you so much thank you hi thank you great talk um so trying to frame this uh for my project I have a lot of anxiety about the tone clashing with marketing I'm going for a moody atmospheric mysterious type of game and if I'm making Whimsical funny posts or if I'm showing behind the scenes of these things I feel like I'm creating a clash between what I'm trying to deliver and what people are seeing do you have any thoughts on this yeah so the biggest thing to remember um you know when you have a tone clash with the marketing versus the tone of your game uh it goes back to the people follow people thing so humans are humans and even if your game has a moody tone the people playing it aren't gonna necessarily be you know that Moody kind of person all the time so they will want to hear the funny stories about the bugs that you run into or you know just a lighthearted chat about you know whatever specific thing is in your game

um definitely Focus your your marketing a little bit more on the Moody tone so that people know that is the tone of the game but remember that you know people like to see the human element of game development um and so it's it's fine to have your marketing be you know more human than it is about the tone of the game awesome thank you fantastic talk thank you thank you um a quick clarifying question you said that you want to get your steam page out as soon as possible does that also count for like many multi-year Indie unfunded projects you know where it might be a long time before the game is out yeah it's so what time to get your steam page out can kind of be tricky and there's there are a lot of resources out there um that talk more about it in general you want to have it out as soon as possible again to drive people to do something um when you're talking about your game you always want to have a call to action and that call to action in that case is to wish list it um there is a little bit of a boost that you get when you first post your game on Steam so like I said wait until you at

least have you know the art to do the capsules and a good trailer to post your game or to to release your game on Steam because you don't want to release a page that's Barren um but even games that have been in development for a long time it's always good to just have somewhere to point people where they can take an action if they're interested in the game okay so both sounds like yeah good art and some mechanics send a video is what we want first yeah yeah okay thank you very much hi thanks for the talk um when it comes with Word of Mouth being as powerful as it is uh when it comes to spreading Word of Mouth should one rely on demos and discounts to sell the game or how careful should you be with giving out free copies of the game to friends and family or people who might talk about the game when they play yeah so yeah the question about um when to give out free copies of the game to encourage Word of Mouth marketing it's it's a tricky one you want to make sure that you're not

devaluing your game so if you're handing out like bundles and bundles of steam keys to like everyone or everyone you know and don't know then your game is going to get a reputation being like oh you don't need to pay for that um so yeah give out steam keys to your family and your friends um and you know the the press and influencers that you've identified as good people to talk about your game but make sure that you're not just giving one out to everyone that asks you can even sort of give a little hint if people ask about your game they're like hey I'm interested and covering your game do you have a steam key and maybe they you know they don't have a big following at all um you can say something like I'm sorry I don't have any to give out right now but the game is going on sale next week let people know that there's a time they can get it on discount because yeah you want to make sure that you're not devaluing your game in the process thank you hi so one of the questions I had was around um YouTube and twitch do you see it as a devlog platform just a place to host trailers

um stuff like that yeah for sure so YouTube and twitch are both good places um like you said to to put devlogs um to do Dev streams if you want to do that on Twitch um it's it's a lot of effort which is why I didn't include it uh in the marketing plan that I have because a stream itself could be more than an hour a day you know um but yeah if you if you you know have the tools to do it uh twitch is a great place to show off your development process and YouTube can also be a good place to post Dev videos or post stream videos um or even little like how did I make this thing in this game so yeah if that's something you're already inclined to do feel free to do it I just think that the barrier to entry to making videos and streaming is pretty high um so it does take a lot of time and effort to get started okay thank you hi good evening Michelle thank you for your talk excellent framework uh I'm the co-founder and co-owner of a tiny independent game Studio wall found

Studios and my question is what do you consider is more important between your marketing for your game Studio or your game or how do you strike a balance so one doesn't overpower the other yeah so in terms of marketing for a game versus a game Studio I would say focus on the game first if you don't already have a following because the game is going to get more attention marketing for a game studio is is a little harder to do because people are going to be following your studio for the games you make anyway so market for the game first get the following for the game that you've made and that way you can convert those followers to follow your studio and get updates about other games that you may make in the future awesome thank you thanks hi Michelle thank you for the talk um how worth it is maintaining a email list or newsletter so that depends oh to repeat the question how worth it is it to maintain an email list or newsletter um it kind of depends on like what your

following looks like and how the ability you have to send out newsletters um so if you you know use MailChimp or whatever if you know how to use those tools if you're able to format a nice looking newsletter send one out every few months or so then yeah it's a good idea to have an email sign up on your website to drive people to that but in general it's sort of hard to build a community off of that because it's not a two-way communication stream it's just you're just blasting out this information to people um and it does take a little bit of work up front a little bit of effort so if it's something you already have down or something you've done it's a good idea to do but in general it's not necessary thanks hi um I'm worried that this finite number of uh videos that I could make for my game that would communicate um and something new about it is that likely just nerves on my part or is other some games Drew harder to

Market through uh short clips yeah yeah it is true that there are some games especially games that are more about a singular gameplay Loop that are going to be a little bit harder to create new and interesting content with um but that's when you rely on other forms of you know the dev process that's when you make videos about bugs that you've run into you make videos about how you've you know made a certain aspect of the game or how you've decided on the character design or this mechanic um just remember that anytime like at any point someone could be watching the video that you've posted for the first time so it's not a big deal if you're repeating content or if a lot of your videos look the same um but just make sure to to add a little bit of variety in terms of what you're saying in the videos yes okay fine hi Michelle thank you so much um so being on a student Dev team who truly is on like a no budget DIY marketing kind of thing

um I was kind of curious about the like reaching out to pressless type things versus like going to networking events is it kind of like a feedback loop of if you do the networking events you will find press or is it worthwhile to like reach out to press and then go to networking events yeah thanks um so the question was about um if it's worth going to networking events to meet press and then or is it is it worth just reaching out to press ahead of time um and the answer is kind of both so when you go to networking events you will meet with press and that goes back to the like making friends and and talking to people as if they're people um so you'll meet press there and then you'll be able to keep in touch with them but also there are a lot of press that you may not meet at events and you're not guaranteed to have them available to network with in which case it's good to reach out to them via email as well a lot of times before events if you're going to an event where your game is being showcased you'll want to reach out to press ahead of time who you know is going to be there or even if you're not sure just to ask and say hey are you going to be at this event I'm going to

have a demo of my game there I would love to chat with you about it um are there any other questions all right well thank you so much for coming out to my talk um remember to give hold on I need to look at this thing session evaluations there will be an email sent to you to evaluate the session afterwards um but yeah if you're interested in chatting more about anything uh that's my Twitter handle or if you'd like to see me around GDC just feel free to come up chat with me I love talking about this stuff thank you so much foreign [Music]