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This week we start by answering two questions around potential audiences and reflection how we ourselves found some of our favourite indie games.
1. Think back to a favourite indie game. How did you first discover it? Was it through social media? If so, which platform or channel?
Looking back at my favourite indie game NEMESES, I found this by playing a game called "Two Lines" which was one of the developers earlier games on itchio. I hadn't found it on social media or anything like that, I was just browsing through the horror tags on itchio one day and decided to play it. When the game ended however, there was a teaser for his upcoming game NEMESES. I immediately started looking into it and found that I could play it now by joining the developers Patreon for $1 a month. I joined it, downloaded the demo and really enjoyed the atmosphere, the setting and the enemy design. So much so that I ended up playing it numerous times and I am now best friends with Matt Reeves and is one of the inspirations behind me doing what I am doing now.
2. Do you find new games via the games press, YouTube, Twitch, old-fashioned word-of-mouth, or somewhere else? Working for Life is Xbox magazine gives me a lot of insight now into games that are coming out and exposure to a lot of different genres. Before Life is Xbox came along, I would normally hear about new games through game press and YouTube. Nowadays though I do enjoy watching Twitch and looking at the showcases that a lot of companies do. One of my all time favourite ways of hearing about new games though was when Devolver Digital did a downloaded games showcase during the initial stages of the pandemic. It was a game called Devolverland and you got it from Steam. You then got to walk around and play demos and interact with the many games that they had coming out. Very clever. Marketing strategies and considerations for indie games: Why is marketing so important?
Marketing is important because it helps you sell your products or services. The bottom line of any business is to make money and marketing is an essential channel to reach that end goal. Creators explain that without marketing many businesses wouldn't exist because marketing is ultimately what drives sales. It informs: On a base level, marketing is useful for customer education. Sure, you know the ins-and-outs of your product but do your consumers? In order to buy into a product, your audience needs to have a solid understanding of what it does and how it works. Marketing is the most effective way to communicate your value proposition to your customers in a fun and interesting way. If consumer education is on your priority list then marketing should be too.
It equalizes: Modern marketing is a less expensive game than ever before. Social media platforms and email campaigns have made reaching out to consumers a much more finance-friendly possibility. For SMBs, smart marketing can help even the playing field when it comes to competing against big name competitors. Modern consumers value experience over pricing, so this kind of one-on-one interaction could push customers in your direction over bigger brands.
It sustains: Marketing is more like food than it is medicine. Essentially, marketing is meant to sustain a company’s presence – not remedy a lack of engagement. In this sense, marketing is something that businesses need to create and manage every day to maintain a healthy relationship with their consumers. Marketing is important because it allows businesses to maintain long-lasting and ever-present relationships with their audience. It is not a one-time fix, it is an ongoing strategy that helps businesses flourish.
It engages: Customer engagement is the heart of any successful business. Marketing solves the question of how to keep a conversation going once your customer has walked out the door. In the past, face-to-face interactions made up much the engagement. You walk in the pizza shop, talk to the server, laugh with the waiter, wave hello to the owner etc. While that in-person engagement is still alive and well, it’s no longer enough. Consumers want to be engaged outside the store. This is where marketing comes in, and whatever the medium, you can send your customers content to keep them engaged beyond store hours. Your audience wants to form a relationship with your brand, and marketing can be used to do just that.
It sells: Marketing is important because it helps you sell your products or services. The bottom line of any business is to make money and marketing is an essential channel to reach that end goal. Without marketing, many businesses wouldn’t exist because marketing is ultimately what drives sales. Sure, you need to have a good product but if people don’t know about your offerings to begin with then how can you generate sales? Put simply: You can’t. Marketing helps sales and sales help your business.
It grows: Marketing is an important strategy to ensure the growth of your business. While your current customers should always be your main priority, marketing efforts can help you expand this base. Little efforts like social media posts and email campaigns can not only engage existing consumers but spread the word to new potential customers. In essence, marketing secures your business’s future through new and old customer engagement.
Building a Marketing Strategy:
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This week I also watched a video presentation by Chris Zukowski where he discusses the importance of building a marketing strategy. Based off of this I looked into some of the marketing strategies used by other companies and implemented my own so that they were unique to me. This is being used as the base of my business plan that will help me generate new business and also help keep current customers engaged. 1. Start with focusing on ASO
2. Focus 100% on your soft launch
3. Get your game reviewed
4. Leverage the power of word of mouth
5. Get yourself some paparazzi
6. Tap into the power of social media
7. Become active on forums and communities
8. Leverage cross-promotion
9. Focus on user relationships
10. Participate in events
The above 10 steps also fall in line with Adam Lieb's stance on marketing concepts, and I have ensured that at every step of the way, the 10 points can all be measured by KPIS. For example, reviews can be counted and collated into numbers, whereby a overall score is generated. Social Media can be tracked with likes, retweets and other engagements. Focusing on ASO can also be used by using google play and Apple's variable tracking. These can then be adjusted in real time to influence better results.
Challenge Activity: This week we have been asked each create a marketing plan for the game concept that we are creating. This piece of work will form part of our first assignment — the individual business plan.
I have broken down each section in my Marketing Plan above and detailed it below.
Image Source - Falmouth Online University Canvass & Upsplash.com - Improving app visibility/store visibility within the app stores like Google Play & Steam and increasing conversion rates by focusing on click-throughs & in-game advertisements also.
- Focusing on a soft launch style will allow me to gain useful data that I can use to help implement and improve the full launch when it is ready. An early access business model will allow me to gather data on user behaviour, define success criteria, find out what effective types of promotion are working and this will allow me to repeat the process & optimise every new launch.
- Getting my game into the hands of reviews will be a great step in getting noticed. I am lucky enough to be working for a review company so I should have an easy time getting my games in front of them to review which they have offered to do. The review site has approx. 200,000 views a week. Getting into YouTuber's hands as well is another great way of getting noticed.
- Ask people to share the game & talk about it. Looking at my hooks and kickers I think I will have a good few things for people to enjoy whilst playing the game but the pre-play and post-play hooks will be in the form of an engaging trailer and the art style. The story I feel is strong that people will continue to talk about it after. Also, offer a referral program to encourage word of mouth.
- Build advocates for the brand by offering them free keys/merch and only work with those who are truly passionate about the game and not with people who are just looking for handouts. This can be done via discord where I can manage the advocates and hold meetings with them. We can also discuss game plans on how to better promote the game using their knowledge as well as word of mouth.
- Create a social media account for the game and ensure I interact and tweet and do giveaways. This will tie into the word of mouth and the paparazzi sections but it's all about cohesiveness and making sure all the steps work nicely together. Ensure people are aware that they can Wishlist my game/buy my game and also earn discounts through the referral program. I can also utilise the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram ad campaigns that run for very minimal money and increase my views on the game page daily.
- Reddit pages, steam reviews, app store reviews. Replying to these people and being active is a great way to show that the game is still gaining support after launch and that any bugs/feedback they provide is acknowledged, and if discovered dealt with in a timely manner. People will build trust and develop relationships and that creates potential buyers who are happy to support hardworking honest developers.
- Sign up for cross-promotions through my other products and services or other developers' products. Cross-promotion is a form of marketing promotion where customers of one product or service are targeted with the promotion of a related product. I could advertise my website, my asset packs, Patreon, and other products I have for sale.
- Focus on customer loyalty and long-term customer engagement rather than shorter-term goals like customer acquisition and individual sales. By doing this I create brand loyalty and word of mouth sales and other referral program sales. By building the brand this way I am reducing my CA costs and will grow them more organically in the end. This will then have a ripple effect on the products/services I then release in the future.
- This helps build brand awareness and generates leads that I can potentially turn into sales. At events, I can get email addresses and use them to market later on via advertisements. I can also use this to get players hands-on time with my demo so that they can play it and give feedback then and there. By also participating at events I can see if my current marketing attempts are actually working by assessing the customer's engagement. If they are not, I can look at improving various aspects of it.
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