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Marketing indie games is often a challenge, mostly because of all the myths and misconceptions that surround it. Come with us as we debunk some of the loudest myths, starting with the most common one.
1. “Build it, and they will come.”
In other words, thinking that indie games don’t need marketing at all. But the truth is that indie games often need more marketing. This is because, unlike AAA games, indie games often don’t have a large reach or a loyal fanbase at the ready. Indie developers need to start from scratch and let other players know that their game exists. This is where marketing steps in. Because, if nobody knows that your game is out there, how will you get players?
2. “Focus on your own game, and not your competitors.”
If you don’t analyze who your competitors are focusing their marketing efforts on, you’ll be missing out on critical information about your target audience. Moreover, diving deep into the marketing strategies of your competitors will help you identify the gaps in your own plans. This way, you can strengthen your own marketing strategy and distinguish yourself from them.
3. “Marketing only starts after the launch of the game.”
The success of indie games hinges on the number of wishlists you build on Steam before your game sees the light of day. Once your launch date comes around, Steam will automatically send emails to everyone who added your game to their wishlist. This will improve your first-day sales, giving you a better chance of being boosted by Steam’s algorithm. So, bottom line? Start marketing as early as you can.
4. “A target audience is unnecessary.”
A target audience is nothing but the people who actually want to play the type of game you’re making. So, identifying them and focusing your marketing efforts towards them increases your return on investment (ROI) and also ensures that your marketing budget doesn’t go to waste.
5. “Steam page optimization isn’t important.”
Steam is the most common platform for many players to discover indie games. If you want to boost your visibility and increase sales, optimizing your Steam page in such a way that your game appears on top of search results is crucial.
Get your Steam page up and ready with the help of experts from Campaign Cooperative! [Contact us now]
6. “If your game is good, the community will build itself.”
Even if your game is the best out there, your players aren’t going to gather themselves and build a community for you on their own. You need to take the initiative by creating a Discord channel, finding players who would like to join, and nurturing and growing your gaming community.
7. “PR is enough for marketing.”
While press releases certainly help with putting your game in front of the public eye, it needs to happen with other forms of marketing, not instead of it. This is because your target audience is more likely scattered across different avenues. So you need to target each platform to make sure that your game is getting enough coverage.
8. “Most indie games are runaway successes.”
This is super rare, and isn’t possible unless some mega influencer discovers your game and promotes it. But you need to have marketed your game for them to stumble upon it in the first place. 🤷
9. “Marketing only means posting on social media.”
While maintaining an online presence on social media is definitely necessary, it’s not the only way to market your indie game. You can–and should–use other strategies such as collaborating with streamers, running paid ads, building your own gaming community, and optimizing your Steam page to name a few.
10. “I can do all the marketing on my own.”
Marketing is a vast ocean, where people with different sets of skills come together to make a product a success. There’s social media marketing, influencer marketing, email marketing, paid ads, and so on. For your game to get the best chance of success, you must combine several types of marketing. It will be incredibly hard and time-consuming for you to learn each set of skills, do all the marketing on your own, and continue to work on your game. (But don’t worry. That’s why indie game marketing agencies like Campaign Cooperative exist!)
Hire us, sit back, and let us take care of all the marketing for you. [Let’s chat!]