The best and cheapest way to market your indie game (ft. Impress) transcript

Coverage of Gamescom has been brought to you by Exola. Learn how you can get increased earnings for your game at the end of the video. We talk a lot on this channel about influencer marketing being the second coming of Christ and it being the only thing that you need to do to make your game successful. But sometimes, you know, we've had some misses as well with influencer marketing. So, I'm going straight to the source of like how does influencer marketing work basically.

And I'm here with Ashley. Ashley, can you give a little bit of an intro of what do you do? because we've actually showcased your products before and now we get to talk to you in real life. >> Yeah. Well, uh I used to make indie games and I built a bunch of marketing tools to help myself cuz self-publishing is as you know notoriously difficult and that sort of turned into me providing tools for other people. I felt like I could provide better value not just in making my own games but you know helping other people is something I I really enjoy doing.

So, so what are those tools? Behind us, you can see Impress uh is a suite of marketing tools built for indies. We are kind of end to end. So, I know a lot of tools focus on one thing, but we trying to provide the, you know, all the tools you need from announcing your game right up to, you know, engaging with influencers and everything in between really. >> Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I know a lot of our audience uses, for example, Presskitty because it's it's free.

Like, do you actually make money on that? Cuz I feel like >> not very much. It's just for the love of the game. And then we've also talked about coverage bot which is like for tracking uh like whenever we get games cover basically we know it instantly. And then you're working on a third like cool thing. Right. >> That's right. So uh so sort of in between setting up a press kit and tracking the coverage results of announcing a game, you need to do the thing in the middle, you know, the influencer marketing part.

So we have built a tool called Launchpad which kind of brings a few things together. where it brings together creator discovery. So, it takes your game, it finds lookalike games based on Steam tags, store descriptions, things like that. Finds creators that have played those games and gives you a list of creators that have played those games. So, you take that list of creators, you put it in a CRM, uh, which is built into the tool, and then you use a campaigns tool to outreach to those influencers and send them the keys at scale really easily. >> Yeah.

So basically, I don't have to have my giant Excel list anymore of this is every influencer and then manually send every email for 4 hours at a in one go. >> You can still do that if you like. >> Yeah, but so optimal. Now influencer marketing, I kind of want to get your opinion on it because I talk a lot of good things about it, but is it really like the best way of marketing your game? Is it or are there some things that a lot of people maybe not know what to approach with influencer marketing?

Is it just literally I send an email and that's it? or is there some more finesse to it? >> Well, a lot of people think, you know, I want to start a devlog on YouTube and build my own audience and kind of go that way. And I think influencer marketing is really just buying into someone's someone else's audience. You know, they've spent years streaming on Twitch, they spent years doing stuff. Yeah, you're just kind of you're using them to your advantage, but you know, you're giving them a free game to play or hopefully not spending thousands of pounds if you're an indie or if you are, you want to probably have someone else handling that for you cuz of contracts and legal and all of the stuff that you probably want to work on. >> You don't care about that stuff.

Yeah. >> And basically, this video I'm I'm going to just say it now. It's an a secret ploy for me to actually just ask you questions so I can learn more about where I went wrong cuz I want to get your opinion on this. There's a trend that I noticed and that some of our viewers have noticed as well where when you do influencer marketing campaigns, not every campaign is equal, so to say. So we, for example, did unicycle pizza time, which is how we got to know each other as well, which was really good conversion rates and things like that.

But we never got that same thing for, for example, our horror games where we had influencers with 400,000 views on our our video leading to 80 wish lists and and things like that. And that's kind of what I wanted to ask you. Does influencer marketing are there like what's like the top genres and the worst genres to do those kinds of things for? >> I wish I wish I had an answer for you there. I think each uh each game is different.

It depends. Ding ding ding is is the answer to most things. You know, there needs to be a good influencer audience fit for your game. You know, if they're playing horror games normally and your game's a horror game, that's a good fit. if they're playing your horror game. Unless it's a horror racing game that sounds exist I haven't heard of before. >> One thing as well is that we have been doing mainly YouTube for the most part but coverage bots tracks more than just YouTube, right?

Do you know of like a lot of like success stories more on like for example I don't know you track Reddit or like Tik Tok is probably a big one as well and do you see like some differences there of like certain genres that have like horrible like coverage and conversion and whatever on one platform but then do really good on other platforms and then kind of how do you figure out what's the platform I should focus the most on because of course it can be easy to say just do all the platforms >> but if I'm a solo developer and I have to make the game and I'm going to also do all the other stuff.

That's not always feasible. >> Well, it comes down to knowing your game and knowing the games that you're sort of similar to, what you might be competing with. You really need to take a good look at what they're doing in terms of their appeal, like not just, you know, looking at their socials. See what content of theirs is performing and an really analyze it and figure out why. And you can also, you know, look at the influencers that they've engaged with, which ones of those have been successful.

Yeah. I think benchmarking is the kind of hidden gem of of indie marketing to be honest. >> Yeah. So, you just look, is there like a a standard process for benchmarking? Is there like a tool for that or is it literally just basically vibes based at the end of the day of like, yeah, I feel like this performs better on on a certain platform. I think you can probably pay good money for some ex for some tools that will tell you these types of things, but as an indie, I think vibes based is probably the way.

That's certainly what I would try and do. I think if I was still making games, yeah, I don't have the budgets for that stuff. >> Yeah. Speaking of good money, that's maybe a question as well of like, you know, this is tools at the end of the day for if you kind of want to do it yourself, right? Does it make sense or are you like, honestly, all of those marketing agencies that like do marketing for you, they're all rubbish. you should just use impress like at what point do you kind of draw that line between I should just probably deal with this myself or actually I have the budget for this like how much around that is should that be is it like save up as much money as you can to just hail marry it all into the PR agency for example like how do you see that balance kind of >> I think if you're a small team then you can do the marketing yourself but you need to have one person whose focus it is to do that otherwise none of you will do it and then your game won't have effective marketing.

You know, you can use Impress to do the actual production of the marketing plan, but you need an expert on your team really at the end of the day >> like who knows also like these are the events that we like it's not just influencers at the end of the day then I guess that they do. >> Well, if you're jumping straight into doing influencer marketing, you've already kind of missed a step because you you want to think about your kind of overall go to market plan.

Yeah. you know, what are your main marketing beats? What festivals are you going to participate in? And what influencer campaigns do you do around that rather than, oh, I'm launching my game in a few weeks? >> Let's send out a 100 emails and and see how it goes. At least 100. >> Okay, I see. I see. on that that topic of of paid and like buying like marketing things. Is there like a point where paid influencer outreach makes sense for indies or because I know of like some developers are like I have this one one influencer and I'm just going to like it's a very good fit and I am going to give them the money but then the kind of the idea of the you know using that piece of content and to convince other content creators or would you generally say it's never really worth it or there are like some occasions in case which would that be? >> Ding ding ding. >> It depends.

Yeah, I think it depends on the budget, what you have. Regardless of that, you kind of still want to tier your main outreach list versus your sort of less main outreach list. I wouldn't say spend your whole budget on one influencer. Definitely try and and spread it around. >> Yeah. >> But I think that's kind of common knowledge. I I hope. >> Do you have any like secret tricks of like what you see? because I I assume you have like your own discord server as well where there's like a lot of marketing people of like moderately big like publishers and whatever in there.

Do you see like some trends of like these things are the the cheat codes to success or like this is what all the bigger publishers are doing in terms of getting more wish list at the end of the day basically through different kinds of marketing cuz you also host your own little marketing congress as well right >> I could talk about the marketing congress yeah I mean obviously with Impress we provide the tools the end to end toolkit uh we want to help indies level up their skills so they know what they're doing cuz often they don't you're watching the right channel if you want to learn that stuff.

I think >> that's good to hear already. >> Um, to your previous point about publishers in the Discord, maybe I have there's some secret source. I I don't I don't know. I should have more conversations with people in there. >> You're not like analyzing all of their data. You're you're just letting it all be. >> I I'm I'm already doing this sort of as a oneman job, so to uh to know everything is is not possible. >> Yeah.

That's for the course that you're going to release next year. your competition that Chrisowski did everything you need to know about marketing course. I want to get your opinion as well as someone who made games before. >> Yeah. >> And now it's like into that marketing thing of streamerbased games and friends love games and all of those moderately derogatory terms to describe games. What do you do you think that it's just look this is what the industry is evolving to cuz at the end of the day those games are also easier to market or are you more of you know what's the the vibes on that?

Basically, it's just like what's your stance on them? Should you make them? >> I I don't think we've seen the end of them yet. >> Oh, you think it's going to just get like more of them or >> Yeah, I mean it's going to get sloppier. >> Okay. Even sloppier. I >> I think the industry has always had like clones and fast follows and knockoffs and dmakes. >> Uh and I think we are seeing more of that now in the indie space. >> Yeah. >> As you say, it is easier.

It's easier to copy something that exists. Yeah. It's not over yet. >> It's not over yet. Yeah. Because maybe in that the term of it's not over yet. If we look back 10 years, for example, influencer marketing was way smaller. It was like I don't even know if people were really thinking about that yet. >> People were called let's players, I think. >> Yeah, let's players with like press and things like that were more important whereas now it feels like there's way more of a focus on influencers.

It's almost one of the core things to market your game. Do you think in the coming few years influencer going to take more and more of the like total marketing like efforts basically or do you think that at the point that we're at right now is kind of the height of influencer marketing? Do you think that in the next few years we're going to have to spend even more time in it? >> Yeah, I I do I think the you know a lot of people at the moment will accept a free key for streaming or you know making some content.

I think we're going to see less of that as creators value their work as they should be. >> Yeah. >> To the detriment of of indies trying to find their success. But, you know, there's macro effects around subscription services. You know, the whole industry is having a bit of a bad time as as I'm sure people know. >> I think longterm as a studio, if the reality is you probably won't be successful on your first game. Uh, as sad as that is, the secret to success is 10 years of hard work.

Mhm. >> But you know, building up your reputation within the industry, uh, your network with publishers and investors, you know, you need to set yourself up for long-term success, not just think about the next 3 months or the next 6 months. And, you know, obviously with impress, we're trying to give everyone >> the processes and the things they need to to do that. >> And you already kind of mentioned it there because I went to a few talks at Defcon back like a few days ago where there were streamers talking about like, hey, here's why to reach out to us.

And there seemed to be this sentiment where more and more of them were looking for real relationships instead of the very transactional I send you a key, you never respond to me, maybe I make a video. But I feel like for indie developers that's that's kind of hard to do because those traditional relationships are more of like a PlayStation has that or like a a large publisher. Do you think as an indie it's something we should try and pursue in like the future years of like there might be a shift there?

If so, how would that maybe look? Because I think definitely for us, like we've made a few games now, and I do feel like it's easier to get someone that I've sent a previous game to as well to cover the game again, but I don't really have a relationship with them. I would I would say I I still do it very transactional. And if I do send them a follow-up, I do say, "Hey, thank you for the previous piece of content, >> but that's about it." >> You know, the smart thing to do is to make your second game in the same genre as your first game. and then just reuse the cont and you can contact the same people obviously and that is relationship building but for that I I think that's where the agencies come in they have the relationships they maintain them if you're um I mean I advocate smaller projects smaller budgets quicker releases I know he does I mean the reason I started making Impress was because I wanted to make shorter games and that was 10 years ago and you know hitting up the roadblocks of of of marketing where am I going with this relationships. >> You just need to be Yeah, you can offload that to an agency or someone in your team, but you really need to >> You think that this is going to be one of those things that maybe in the next few years we're going to have to spend more effort into.

It's not just send a key and >> I mean, I think streamers and creators, they're all already over overwhelmed with key requests. And >> I' I've talked to some of them. It's like, "Oh, we get 60 emails a day." And I'm like, "What?" >> And it's only going to get worse with like AI agents and stuff like that. And we I mean we can talk about that, but it's a whole nightmare on its own. >> The nightmare. Yeah. >> I have one final question for you. >> Imagine I have a game and it's whatever you want to imagine it.

And I have a good steam page already. Like don't worry about the Steam page. And I found the $1,000. My grandma gave it to me and she's like, "Here, here son. Use it to market your game or whatever." What would be your plan of action with those $1,000? Do you put it all in ads? Do you do influencer art? Do you do something else? basically. >> Thanks. Thanks, Nan. Uh, I'm going to promote my horror racing game with this budget. >> Yeah, >> you know, I I would set aside some of that to test your marketing copy. >> Uh, so maybe run some Reddit ads, things like that.

So, obviously, you want to be able to pick the right subreddits for these types of things. Want to set aside 100 bucks for impress. >> It can be less if you use code biteme 10 that it's only 90 bucks, >> something like that. Yeah. And I think maybe you should take the money and uh invest it somewhere else. >> That is a and a unique approach. Yeah, >> I I'm I'm comedic effect. >> Okay. >> Uh I I I don't Yeah, I don't know.

It's $1,000 isn't very much. >> You can't do much. >> What would be the minimum point if you want to do marketing then? If if you go back to your nan and you like, you know, actually I need >> I need a bit more. >> I need a bit more. What would be the number you would ask for at that point? That would be a horribly awkward conversation. Can I Can I have 20 grand? >> Oh, you're looking at 20 grand. You think only like if you have like 20 grand like pets? >> How many How many influencer partnerships are you going to get for 20 grand? >> I'm not sure. >> Not too many.

I mean, you might range from a £500 to a five grand, you know. >> Oh, like per influencer, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. >> So, you know, money doesn't go far when you're when you're paying people their worth. >> Yeah. >> So, just spend it on something else. It's on on the alcohol once the release fails, basically. That's where >> spend it on the party. That's where the the other $600 or something goes to. Okay, thank you very much.

So guys, you should be using Presskitty. That's that's a a no-brainer. Honestly, it's the best way you can do Presskits. Don't self-host them or whatever. We used to do it before, but it's just dumb because this works better. >> Yeah. Don't have a Google Drive link because no one will be able to find it and they will take the first images from Google and that's probably an old asset from your first uh announcement, etc. >> Yeah.

So, you can get started at impress.game is the URL. I'll I'll link it down below. When should someone start considering coverage bots? Is that something that an indie dev should consider? >> I think if you're doing any sort of community engagement or outreach, then yeah, you should be listening to people that might be talking about you. You don't you don't realize people are talking about you half the time cuz you're not looking. >> Yeah. >> So, >> like once you start taking marketing more seriously, once you have those those outreaches basically, I think it can be worth it to to pick it up because I I really like the tool.

We use it for all of our games and it is still very useful for us. And then yeah, the launch pads. >> Yeah, stay stay tuned for launch padun for that. >> Uh we don't have pricing for it yet, but it is at the moment it's in free early access that it's been in in that state for about a year now. Uh we probably will be wrapping it up, but it will still be fairly indie friendly. >> Yeah. >> And I know you'll recommend it when when the time comes. >> I I do like generally the approaches that you've been doing and you're a very chill company.

And you can tell, you know, there's some like I'm not going to call them out like other agencies here or like not agencies that do like sort of similar stuff, but their pricing is just like literally 10x basically what you're charging sometimes. And I'm like this is not for indies anymore at that point. >> They're behind me. >> I think you can't see it on camera, so it's fine. Anyways, thank you everyone for watching.

Once again, if you do think you want coverage bot or whatever, you do have a discount code 10% off using code byv10. I'll I'll put it down below as well. You help us, you help yourself. It's a win-win for basically everyone. So, apart from that, thank you very much for watching and we'll see you guys in the next one. >> Bye. >> Big shout out once again to Exola who made this coverage possible and sponsoring my event coverage here.

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