Why Marketing Is a Crucial Step for Success

What is the essential thing for any business? Correct—it's marketing. Because no matter how great your product is, if nobody knows about it, sadly, nobody is going to buy it.

So what is marketing? Marketing is the activity a company performs to promote a product or service. It includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses. Marketing is a very vast topic, and each type of business has its own techniques, styles, and strategies that work better for them than for others.

But today, I want to focus on marketing for video games, especially independent video games.

Let’s start by taking a look at the video game industry as a whole. The gaming industry is now estimated to be worth 178 billion dollars, and based on projections, it will only keep growing. However, if we focus specifically on independent games, the numbers look different. Indie games generated about five billion dollars in 2019. It still sounds like a lot, but if we look at the success rate, it doesn’t seem as promising. Over 50% of independent games have never made more than $4,000, while only 9% have managed to make over $200,000.

You might think that those fifty percent simply didn’t make their games well—but that’s not really the case. When you look at these games, you can clearly see that developers spent years building them, usually anywhere from three to five years. They invest money into cinematics, develop many features, add content, and truly put in a lot of effort. Yet they still receive only a few reviews. It’s sad to see these cases, because as a marketer, I know that the only thing separating them from that nine percent is the absence of marketing. Once again: if nobody knows about your game, nobody is going to buy it.

So how do you market an independent video game, especially when these companies usually do not have any budget for it? I will share a few techniques that worked really well for our company and cost literally nothing.

1. Define your target audience.This is the most basic technique, but also the most powerful one. Think about who your players are going to be. Why should they be interested in your game? What are they looking for? Imagine yourself as your ideal customer and answer all the questions they might have about your product. Then use this information when you create your store page.

2. Reach out to influencers.Influencers should be targeted as well—they should be genuinely interested in the type of game you’re making. If you write a personalized email explaining the benefits they would get from covering your game, there is a good chance they will feature it for free. These benefits can include giving them a free game key before release so they get exclusive content—or simply highlighting that your game can bring fresh, engaging material to their channel.

3. Stay active with your community.Customers love attention. They want to feel heard, valued, and supported. Unfortunately, many people ignore this technique and underestimate its impact. But think about it—who would you listen to more: an advertisement or an influencer, or your close friend telling you they discovered an awesome game? Word of mouth is incredibly powerful, and to make it happen, you need to create the best customer experience you can.

Even though different types of businesses require customized marketing strategies, today I wanted to share advertising techniques that work well for almost any business. Keep them in mind—and remember that you can absolutely be part of that successful nine percent. The most important thing is to use the power of marketing.