How to advertise?

[Natalie]

Hello everyone,

Could you give me some "lessons" in advertising? My company decided at last to make investiments in advertising our new game which is going to be released very soon. But unfortunately, we have almost no experience in advertising. Could you advise me anything?

Many thanks in advance,
Natalie

[siread]

One point. I've advertised in soccer magazines which is quite expensive (£300 per 1/8 page) yet it doesn't seem to have much affect at all. A review on the other hand in the same magazine resulted in my best sales ever for that game.

Not sure about advertising on websites, it's something i've been meaning to do. :)

[Polycount Productions]

Well, I wouldn't put much money on advertising. If you really want to - then some have recommended and some have told to avoid Google Adwords. Some people have mentioned banner ads like in GameTunnel or other review place.

But first I would try free methods like:
- submiting to game dev news (like gamedev.net)
- submiting to game forums (like indiegamer.com :)
- write articles (like writing post mortem to gamasutra)
- link exhanges
- shareware submission (I recall seeing somebody to offer these services in such a low price that you could do this - fortunately cannot remember if it was glimmer games or who...)

After that you could use:
- press release service
- google adwords
- banner ads

That's for the starters.

[Natalie]

Thanks a lot for your advice.
Do you think it's worth advertising on the main game portals? Which are the most popular ones?

Best regards,
Natalie

[Polycount Productions]

Thanks a lot for your advice.
Do you think it's worth advertising on the main game portals? Which are the most popular ones?

Best regards,
Natalie
Usually (I presume) it's a deal between a portal and a developer to do (in other words: the portal agrees to put your game on their site). I'm not sure if portals actually sell ad space?

Anyway - I would put more emphasis on press releases & getting reviews (forgot to mention ;)) rather than adwords or banners.

If you go with the portals - try some small contracts first (non-exlusive) to see where you get the best results without getting locked in with some certain portal.

[dxgame]

Getting your game on portals is the obvious if you can. (A very competitive area.)

Otherwise one of the best things to do is simply "act like" one of your target customers. How would they find your product? This usually starts with going to the big 3 search engines and typing in a variety of keywords that relate to your game. Do this around 5-6 times using different key words. Write down the top 10 results for each keyword listing returned and try like hell to get your product on those pages.

Marketing will be (imo) 90% of the success or failure of your game. I've seen good games with low sales and horrid games with large sales.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

One point. I've advertised in soccer magazines which is quite expensive (£300 per 1/8 page) yet it doesn't seem to have much affect at all. A review on the other hand in the same magazine resulted in my best sales ever for that game.

It's a dirty litte not-so-secret of the magazine world that magazines are more likely to review your game if you advertise with them. I don't know of any magazines where you can 'buy' a positive review, but the likelihood of getting reviewed at all (positive or negative) does increase at many (most/all?) magazines if you advertise with them.

And yes, you can still get reviewed even if you don't advertise, but it does improve your chances.

[dxgame]

"I don't know of any magazines where you can 'buy' a positive review..."

What about the growing trend of buying ad space and then formatting it so it looks likes a review. ;)

[terin]

Please, use the proper name for that task:

Advertorial :)

And they are damnably expensive... no more expensive than a normal ad though.

-Joe

[Natalie]

We do things with press releases and reviews.
Now I decided to look for an advertising agency-I suppose, it won't be more expensive than if I do it myself(I mean, doing the media plan, contacting sites and so on). Am I mistaken? Could you recommend any of such agencies?

Many thanks,
Natalie

[Fost]

Now I decided to look for an advertising agency-I suppose, it won't be more expensive than if I do it myself(I mean, doing the media plan, contacting sites and so on). Am I mistaken? Could you recommend any of such agencies?
Well, time is money, so if you don't have at least a day free every week to do it then and perhaps using an agency will work out for the best, but I'd guess if you contact an ad agency, you are going to double the costs involved in advertising. For the same reason, I try to avoid advertising on sites that are handled by an agency, because the costs are always at least twice as high.

I've always extolled the virtues of doing marketing yourself, but I think that's just a necessity in a very small, startup, 'bedroom' company. If you are a bit bigger and/or have some funds available, then throwing money at these problems is the best thing you can do.