How Do I Market An Indie Game For Free?
Discover effective marketing strategies that won't break the bank. Especially if you’re a solo designer, or part of a small team working on your game after your full time job, finding extra money under the mattress for marketing can be impossible. We decided we wanted to put together a few suggestions for you to market your indie game completely for free.
Use Social Media.
We’re aware we sound like a broken record about this, but no joke, social media is the number one way to market your game. It’s a completely free platform that requires no money on anyone’s part
Engage with your audience and build a community for your game.
Creating a Social Media Strategy
Being on social media as a presence isn’t enough anymore. It’s important to have a real strategy. For example, Instagram’s algorithm loves short form video content, so posting lots of that will help boost you. Facebook is partial to walls of text as well as a couple of images, so refining in-depth copy will help your engagement go far. Doing research into what platforms crave what kind of content can allow you to harness the algorithm in your favour and have hundreds of people discover your content really quickly.
Having a strategy also gives you the added bonus of keeping consistent content across your platforms, and people are able to see a mix of new and updated content that keeps them engaged and interested in your game.
Leveraging Influencer Partnerships
Identifying creators you have an existing relationship with is a good, but slightly risky way to promote your game for free. The way to this is certainly not by jumping into a Twitch Streamer’s chat for the first time and demanding they play your game, but if you are a frequent visitor in a chat and part of the discord community, it absolutely would be worth reaching out to see if they’d be interested in playing your game. For example, at Corvian Marketing we have a partnership with BluishGreenProductions. Every Friday, they review games for free on their Twitch channel and provide feedback as well as a public playtest and demo for the game in question. Signup form for this FREE service can be found HERE.
It’s important to be aware that larger streamers and creators may ask for monetary compensation for a service like this, and no one should ever be expected to work for free. That being said, if you are friends with/have relationships with streamers, they may be willing to do it for you as a friend. Like we said, it is slightly risky as it needs to be approached delicately, but the payoff can be immense.
Optimizing Your Game's Website
This is a lesser-known one, as smaller indie studios often don’t think about having a proper website. They have a steam page, a Twitter account, and maybe a discord server. Nowadays, you don’t need to know specific code to build a website from scratch. Wordpress, Wix, and (our favourite) Squarespace, host expansive and often very affordable/free website builders. Registering a domain is typically less than 40$ CAD per year and website subscription services are between 15$-30$ CAD per month. However, you can create a website completely for free with Wix, just be aware you won’t have your full domain. Your URL will look something like “yourgametitle.wixsite.com/yourgametitle”. It’s a great jumping off point for a larger website further down the line when you have the budget for it.
On your website, include developer introductions, descriptions of the game, hosting your trailer, a gallery of concept art, contact information for you, and more! Using your game’s colours and using a professional layout can lend credibility to your studio and make companies that may offer grants or investments look more favourably on you.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Going further with your website, you can release blogs, or even be smart about your page and link titles. Search Engine Optimization, in a nutshell, is the art and science of using specific keywords in specific places in your website to make Google rank your website closer to the top. Figure out which keywords you’d like to use, and incorporate them into your meta tags, headings, and content. Create high-quality, informative content that will attract organic traffic and boost your website.
User Experience (UX) Design
UX is crucial to having a website people want to visit and spend time on, and it’s not as straightforward as you might think. The top 5 things to be mindful of when doing a UX audit are:
Colour Contrast. Make sure you have light on dark, or dark on light. It should be simple, and easy to read. You can use tools like https://colourcontrast.cc/ to check how contrasting your colours are.
Mobile-Friendliness. All website designers, even the free version of Wix offer both a mobile page and a desktop page. As you design the desktop version, the mobile version will automatically update. Once you’re satisfied with your desktop version, make sure it looks good on mobile. If there are things that don’t work in terms of spacing, or broken links, it will turn people off to your website.
Clear CTA’s. A good Call To Action button (like Buy Now, or Book Today) is imperative. An easy one to incorporate on a game website could be “Wishlist Now!” with the button link taking them to your Steam page. It should be accessible, simple and concise.
Language Editing. Look, we get it. But there are too many websites out there with painful typos or run-on sentences that make you out of breath just reading it. While we are fans of the occasional run-on sentence, it’s important to be mindful of your grammar and spelling. Taking an extra 15 minutes to double check all of your website copy can be a huge difference.
Organization. Your website, when done correctly, is the central hub for your game’s marketing efforts. It should be well organized, and easy to navigate. Don’t hide your Contact Us button somewhere on the “About The Team” page, give it a place of its own on your menu. Take a look at other game websites to get an idea of what other games are putting on theirs.
Game Trailers and Demos
Making a good game trailer and demo, contrary to popular opinion, does not need to break the bank. And you most certainly don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on one. Most computers come with a built-in video editing software, and CapCut has a free desktop download for almost any OS. Even setting a montage of the most awe-inspiring clips of your game, with your logo and release date flashing at the end count as a trailer. Same thing with a demo. It doesn’t need to be a 4 minute masterpiece, it doesn’t need to look like a professional graphic designer did it, you just need to have one. It legitimizes your studio and game by a lot, and it statistically will do incredibly well on your socials, especially if you have a following. It gives people something concrete to share with friends and family to say “We should play this!”
Blogging and Guest Posting
This one goes hand in hand with our tip about developing a website and working some magic with SEO. Not only can it be a super valuable tool for your SEO, but you can use it to share informative articles, tutorials, game design tips, or even some industry analysis surrounding your genre. You can even reach out to some gaming websites and offer to write guest posts or collaborate with some other devs to cross-promote each other’s games. In the shadow of AAA studios and major companies, indie devs can leverage this unique community to make incredible games.
Engaging with Gaming Communities
This seems evident, but a lot of the time indie studios, particularly one-man-teams, get lost in the overwhelm of creating their own game. Especially if you have a day job, a family, or even a social life, spending all your free time making your game leaves very little room for community building. And yet this is one of the biggest ways to promote your game, is to be a known member of gaming communities, particularly in your genre. If you’re publicly known to be a supporter of other indie studios, they will be incredibly quick to uplift and support you, knowing you would do and have done the same for them.
Participating in Forums and Subreddits
More on #9, one way to get moving in the community is to actively participate in forums and subreddits. Replying to people asking questions to which you know the answer, offering helpful advice, and reviewing games will boost both your presence and credibility online. When it’s your turn to ask a question or promote your game, the people you’ve previously interacted with will be much more likely to check it out.
You can use this for feedback solicitation, finding people for playtesting, sharing updates about your game’s development, and more!
Hosting Online Events and Tournaments
Once you’ve built a community, you can organize events that are related to the game’s theme or mechanics. For example, if you have a forest-themed cozy game, you can host guided forest meditations, setup public polls over what kind of animals people would like to see in the game, and more! If you have a more competitive game, you can host tournaments for select playtesters and broadcast it live on Twitch or Youtube.
Using Email Marketing
Even without a website, this one does work. You can build a subscriber list and send out dev updates, playtesting announcements, requests for feedback, and more. We at Corvian recommend using either Squarespace or Sender for free email marketing services. Please note regional and federal anti-spam laws and be mindful of those when sending unsolicited marketing emails. We are happy to help direct you to governmental resources for anti-spam legislation if need be.
Create Engaging Newsletters
Once you have an email marketing campaign, use your game’s colours and logos to build eye-catching newsletters. This can include cheeky headlines, easily understandable dev updates (as opposed to jargon-filled technical writing), and feedback requests. Most email newsletter softwares have robust capabilities for gifs, images, short videos, and more. They don’t need to be long, and with indie devs, they don’t even need to be regular or consistent.
However, providing your supporters and followers with updates, announcements, and even exclusive content can help remind people the game is coming, and makes them feel valued and appreciated for their support.
Running Promotional Campaigns
Offer special deals, discounts, or exclusive content to your email subscribers as a thank you for their support. You can host pre-order campaigns, provide early access to demos, or offer limited-time promotions to incentivize players to spread the word about your game and encourage them to make a purchase or a wishlist.
The platform doesn’t matter much as long as it’s where the majority of your community lives, which looks different for everyone.
Finally, remember that only using one strategy doesn’t always work. Find a healthy balance between a few that work for you, and utilize what works for your game and your studio. While this is very much an article about free ways to promote your game, we understand that it’s always easier said than done. Corvian Marketing offers complete services for everything we mentioned above, as well as fast customer service. Reach out anytime to start your journey with us.