Checklist for budget promotion of independent games from SOOMLA

Not so long ago, the Israeli company SOOMLA has prepared a detailed guide to the marketing of mobile indie games. We read the text and realized that we have not only a guide, but also a kind of checklist for budget promotion. We offer you a revised version of the material in Russian.

Photo: businessinsider.com

Before embarking on a budget promotion (in fact, media), it is important to do two things: a press kit and a press release concerning what you plan to tell your audience about. We’ll talk about them at the beginning.

Press Kit

Today, the press kit – with the light hand of Rami Ismail – is most often understood as the game’s website, which contains comprehensive information about it and about the development studio, as well as graphic and video content.

“The website is an opportunity to demonstrate game levels, characters and design from the best side. There should be content that will make people download a mobile game,” Israeli marketers write.

Only here it is important to understand that in the case of the site, as with the game as a whole, it is important to think about all sorts of little things, like good design (non-random WordPress is not the best solution), SEO, separate links to each section of the site (if we are talking about a single landing page), and, of course, it is important that the site contributes to an increase in downloads (for example, using the text-to-download form).

Today, many independent developers often use the following tool of the Rami already mentioned above to create such a page: presskit().

Press release

A good press release is quite a task. It should contain:

Heading

“Imagine that you are flipping through a Facebook or Twitter feed or just reading a newspaper. Think about which headlines will attract your attention? What can I say about your game in 18 words? Why is your game so special? Keep all this in mind when writing the title,” SOOMLA writes.

On our own, we add that 18 words is still a lot. 10 and less can easily be dispensed with.

Plus, remember that it should be clear from the title what exactly the press release is about.

Lead

If the title is, in fact, the topic of the press release, then the lead is a summary of all the material (at least its main points). But if, as a rule, a lead is a mandatory requirement when writing news, then in the case of press releases they are often either omitted altogether, or some short addition to the title is written.

Introduction

As a rule, the tu is given information about the time and place of the event, as well as answers to such basic questions as: “who did it”, “what happened”, “why did it happen”.

Description

The introduction is followed by a description of the project, its key points.

Quotes

After describing the project, it is advisable to give a quote on behalf of a high-ranking person in the company. Often, basic phrases are used here, a la: “We are so glad to see our product on the market, which will contribute to the further development of the company.”

After the quote, do not forget to give contact information about yourself, as well as a separate paragraph description of the company.

Classic press releases are made by the Germans from Daedalic. The work of their PR people can just be taken as a sample of competent and correct materials.

As soon as there is a ready-made website and a good press release, you can finally take up promotion.

It is clear that advertising campaigns to buy traffic are not suitable for companies with a small wallet. Remains:

word of mouth
inappropriate press
target press
social media
cross-advertising
blogs
forums

And now about each in a little more detail.

Word of mouth

SOOMLA calls Word of Mouth (aka Word of Mouth) the most unrecognized marketing tool. Only the guys understand it a little more widely than usual. Speaking of word of mouth, they mean non-standard methods of promoting the game outside of digital channels. Of course, there is no talk of distributing leaflets, but it is hinted at: “go outside and tell about your game. Ask friends to post links to it.”

Can such an approach help in promotion? We’re not sure. On the other hand, when a good game has loyal users, they contribute to the growth of organic downloads. In any case, it’s worth thinking about how you can promote the game not through standard channels.

As for the traditional word of mouth, firstly, you should not rely on it, and secondly, even for its appearance, you need to work a lot with promotion.

Inappropriate press

Another, to put it mildly, non-standard method of promotion may be an attempt to cover non-targeted local media. According to SOOMLA, “local news sites can position you as a local game development team [possibly in the format of a local landmark, – approx.editorial offices]. If a particular city is represented in the game, it may make sense to contact one of the radio stations of that city.”

In any case, whether you are contacting non-targeted media or, conversely, gaming, it is important to follow the following recommendations when writing a letter:

the message should be specific and short;
the subject of the message should attract attention;
the body of the letter should explain concisely what is interesting about your game;
the letter should be easy to read (short specific sentences and small paragraphs);
attach a press release and relevant media files to the letter.

Target press

As for the target press, the same rules apply here as in dealing with non-target.

“To post a review or just write, many platforms need a strong argument in favor of such a publication. For b2b publications, such an argument may be the number of downloads achieved by the game, for b2c-oriented sites, such an argument may be some kind of unique feature. The style in which the game is played, or the name of the team, is an important argument for third editions. Dear communities with DAU, counted in millions of users, may refuse to write a review. Anyway, a good press release and website will increase your chances of being mentioned in similar communities. But if the game is not interesting, exciting, and its quality leaves much to be desired – such a strategy can damage the game. Bad press ratings do not lead to good downloads,” SOOMLA writes.

Social Media

We will soon post a separate large material about working with VKontakte, as for Facebook, according to SOOMLA, there are also many groups dedicated to games and independent development in it.

Here is an incomplete list of them:

And, of course, it is important that the game itself has pages on social networks (and even its own Twitter feeds).

Twitter

And, by the way, about Twitter. Hashtags are an excellent tool in it. In order to find out which hashtag is best to use when posting news about your game on Twitter, it is best to use the following tools: Hashtagify.me , SproutSocial and Tagboard. As for the hashtags popular in the gaming environment, which are often used by both journalists and developers, here is a list of them:

#gamedev
#f2p
#freetoplay
#indiedev
#indiegame

Accordingly, if your game is made on a specific engine, do not forget to also specify it in the hashtags.

It doesn’t end on Facebook and Twitter.

Google+

LinkedIn

Forums

Forums are the place where communities of players and, of course, game developers literally live. There are thousands of similar places, here is only a small fraction of them:

Blogs

Blogs are a way to informally present information about a product and a company. Almost every marketing company has its own. As for gaming, everything is more complicated here. On the one hand, they require considerable effort to maintain and, in theory, contribute to the formation of a community around the project, on the other, the effectiveness of a blog is a big question.

Cross-promotion

Cross-promotion can also help sell your game and reach the desired audience. There are many advertising platforms within which you can share. change and directly sell and cross-promote your game in other apps and mobile games. As independent developers, you can encourage downloads and acquisitions of users cheaply and with the right tools. For example, Chartboost was the first to offer a direct sales market.

But it is important to note that the main part of the advertising that is shown is advertising from large companies with large wallets. And developers, resorting to cross-promotion, risk losing their users in favor of the products of these big players.

Pre-release hype

It is clear to everyone today that information about the game should begin to arrive to users even before the release. In other words, the same press kit should be ready long before this moment. However, many large companies, for example, Gameloft, on the contrary, not only announce games just a few weeks before the release, but also give only the bare minimum of information before the start of sales. But according to SOOMLA, the start of the campaign before the release will increase the chances of the game being noticed, will allow the formation of a community that will be waiting for it.

Only again, in order not to lose future players, the company will need to maintain the site itself (and in this case the blog becomes a necessity), coming up with more and more new news reasons. Plus, it will be necessary to work with the community, communicate. And this is a separate big job.

A source: http://blog.soom.la

You will be able to learn about the latest trends in the gaming industry first-hand, personally meet and discuss working issues with leading companies in the game development and publishing market at White Nights Moscow 2015, which will be held on October 13-14.