Sales and marketing advice.

[Dyno Kid]

Hi guys,

I really need some sales and marketing advice to generate some traffic to my site DynoKid (http://www.dynokid.com)

I have my game on Oberon and Big fish soon but would really like to find out how to lure potential customers to my site.

I really have no idea where to start and until now had little time to look but now my game is finished i want to make a start and generate some traffic.

Any advice or books out there for me?

Regards,

Darren.

[anttti]

Well, there's this blog: Video Game Marketing (http://vgsmart.blogspot.com/) and this book: The Indie Developers' Guide to Selling Games (http://www.indiegameguide.com/), probably worth checking out.

-Antti

[tretmike]

Hi all,

Hi guys,
I really need some sales and marketing advice to generate some traffic to my site DynoKid (http://www.dynokid.com)

I have my game on Oberon and Big fish soon but would really like to find out how to lure potential customers to my site.


I suggest two ways to attract traffic to your site:
1. Submit on software catalogs by yourself or using submission services like http://Submit-Everywhere.com

2. Sending press release about your game.
For example, we have a special service for indie game developers - we may send your press release up to 800 game publications.

You may read more about our service at http://www.SoftPressRelease.com/games/

[Dyno Kid]

Thank you,

Is option 1 & 2 the same thing as I dont want to pay twice for a similar thing.

I will be in contact soon..

Darren.

[Polycount Productions]

First I would suggest to improve your website design... font styles etc.

14 tactics for getting more traffic: (http://www.gameproducer.net/2006/03/26/hot-to-get-more-traffic-to-your-game-site/)

Here’s some fast & easy tips for getting some traffic to your site:
- Make press releases
- Participate in different forums
- Remember to use forum signatures (This could be good place to start! We don't see a clickable link in your signature!)
- Write articles
- Create a blog that supports your game site (it can establish credibility)
- Include your blog link to your game site - and from game site to your blog
- Include your website url in your emails
- Share business cards (remember to have website URL there)
- Mention your site to your friends
- Mention your site when you play online
- Exchange links with people
- Submit your site to different search engines
- Submit your site to different news
- Get interviewed

I would also recommend book by Jay Abraham:
- Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got - excellent marketing book.

Here's some other advice on practical marketing (http://www.gameproducer.net/category/practical-marketing/).

Don't forget to search. Indiegamer.com forum (and other sites as well...) is filled with advice on how to get traffic. Use the search.

[tretmike]

Thank you,
Is option 1 & 2 the same thing as I dont want to pay twice for a similar thing.


Shareware archives and game media are different things and I would recommend to use them both to increase traffic on your site.

[Dyno Kid]

First of all thank you for the good advice!!!

I read somewhere "Making a game is the easy bit, selling it and getting traffic is the hard part".

How true is that lol.

Darren.

[Polycount Productions]

First of all thank you for the good advice!!!

I read somewhere "Making a game is the easy bit, selling it and getting traffic is the hard part".

How true is that lol.

Darren.
And where's that signature link still hiding? :)

[Sakura Games]

Making a game THAT SELLS is the hard part.
I know devs that no matter what marketing effort made, still didn't sell much of their game. IF sales are low, you can listen to the marketing guys and believe that your game rulez and is just "about marketing" or realize the truth and start another game, hopefully next one will sell.

[svero]

The game itself is your number one marketing tool. A better game on the same site with the same traffic and same exposure can sell up to 20-30x more than another game on the same site with no marketing changes whatsoever.(and I suspect its much more than that, but I dont have any examples to confirm) Everything else you do marketing wise is going to pale in comparison.

Except.. that's not really true is it.. i mean.. Suppose you got 1 million people to your site. That'd be a big difference. Problem is, unless you have a lot of money to spend to buy traffic that isn't likely to happen. So really what I mean is all the "free" or very inexpensive stuff you can do will likely not amount to a whole lot relative to the quality of the game itself. There are a few rare exceptions like getting lucky and having your game picked up and really promoted by an editor at a big magazine that just happens to really like it, but in my experience guerilla marketing usually comes a far second to game quality/fun.

[Fost]

unless you have a lot of money to spend to buy traffic that isn't likely to happen. So really what I mean is all the "free" or very inexpensive stuff you can do will likely not amount to a whole lot relative to the quality of the game itself.

Yes, I totally second that. There are things you can do, but they'll only give you a trickle of extra sales. Obviously, do all that anyway, but I have a problem with most of the free and off the shelf cheap marketing solutions. I worry people will make a decent game, try all the free marketing, pay $100 ish for a press release. Get some sales for a few weeks, then they all die off and they give up. It seems the only useful advice anyone gets these days is to pay for a press release submission. To be frank - it's not going to save the day.

You have to remember that submitting press releases is going to do very little in the long term. It will hopefully get you on news sites for a week or two, and get you reviews on sites which are at least a permanent pointer to your website, but most people don't delve deeper into a site than what's pointed out to them on the front page. Out of everything you can do to get long term traffic , the thing that pays off most if you get it right is advertising. However it is fraught with difficulty and there's never a permanent solution as any ad inevitaby 'decays' over time, so you have to continually work on new ideas and solutions.

About the only advice I can give you is to track all your ads and sales - we wasted a ton of money before we did that :( and that some games just don't work much with ads (It seems to be the case from talking to other developers anyway. Certainly, puzzle games are not the best thing to advertise from what I've heard.)

[Dyno Kid]

Thats better.