The Influencer Silver Bullet Myth ☕ Indie Marketing Coffee Break #1
A new bite-sized OPGM edition for faster insights between the deep dives
This week we’re trying something new. Between the long research heavy newsletters, I want to share something smaller but still useful. This is the first of a new “coffee break” format i’m trying. These are designed to be bite sized newsletters you can read in 5 minutes. Each one packs a community discussion, a marketing idea worth stealing, a piece of content that caught my eye, and random stuff I feel is useful to share. Think of this as an espresso shot of practical advice and inspiration for your own marketing.
Let me know in the comments if you want more of these or would rather just wait for the deep dives.
Community Discussion
I want to discuss the challenges that you as a community face. While I can relate to and guess many of them it would be much better to hear directly from you! With that in mind i’ve set up a simple anonymous google form where you can submit questions you'd like me to tackle in the next newsletter!
Since this is a brand new initiative and I don’t have questions to reference yet, i’m going to use an interesting one I found in the HTMAG Discord.
Discussion Topic - Should you send keys to Press & Influencers before your launch window or only once during launch?
The answer is almost always before your launch. There may be specific scenarios where you want to wait until your launch window, but 90% of the time I would always advice activating press & influencers anytime it’s relevant (including your launch). It depends on the influencer but they generally don’t operate on a "ill only cover this once rule" but rather take each request in isolation. Even big influencers like Wanderbots cover the same game at different points in a games journey, the game Nimrods would be one example of this. In my experience creators are happy to cover (with interest in your game) EA release, Demo release, 1.0 release, and even significant updates to your demo or EA. As long as it feels significant and like something their audience may enjoy, they will cover it. This is the same for press.
Just remember when you reach out to an influencer you’re writing to a human, so don’t be an asshole or annoying. Only reach out when you have something significant and newsworthy. If you’re wondering how to reach out, i’d start with Wanderbots template on reaching out to creators.
TLDR: You won’t waste your “silver bullet” with influencers or press as long as your sending them newsworthy updates worth covering.
Don’t forget to submit your own question, concern, or discussion topic for me to cover next time!
Marketing Idea of The Week
The idea - Flex the nationality of your game dev team.
This might sound simple, but it’s honestly kind of a marketing hack if you live in an area that is low on game development but high in patriotism. I’ll use Norway as an example. 🫎
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I’ve worked in the Norwegian game industry long enough to realize that when Norwegian gamers find out that a game is made in Norway they can’t help but engage with the content. In the video above I put some simple text over our trailer practically screaming “WE’RE NORWEGIAN”. The result? 73k views and hundreds of comments.
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When we posted a new trailer later guess what I did? The same damn thing. This time resulting in 128K views.
This strategy works especially well on Tiktok where your content is always fed to a local audience first. Remember that this works best when game dev is relatively uncommon in your country. I don’t really think Americans are going to care your dev team is American due to how huge the game industry is in the US.
Cool Content of The Week
I thought it would be fun to share some cool content I come across that may inspire you. For better or worse marketing is an incestuous business. Everyone is constantly looking at others to see what’s working so they can copy it. While I don’t agree with ripping off someone’s game, I absolutely support copying marketing that you see is working. This is the whole reason you see trends go viral across social media.
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I like this video for a few reasons
Speaking over gameplay with subtitles
Really strong hook in the beginning
It’s very indie
This video is well edited for Tiktok. One of the great things about Tiktok is that the bar for great editing is substantially lower than somewhere like Youtube. This video has all the standard things you want when making content about your game: clear gameplay, footage matching what he’s talking about, subtitles, and a strong hook.
The hook is the secret sauce. There’s actually 2 strong hooks. The first is “We made a huge mistake and now the future of our indie game is on thin ice” and the second is pointing out their game director is one of the original creators of Subway Surfers. Both of these get you to stop scrolling and think "what did they do to risk their game?” & “oh cool what’s that subways surfers guy working on now”.
It’s an engaging video that keeps you watching to the end, at which point the indie flavor I mentioned comes into play. At the end you learn the “thin ice” is simply that they were so busy making the best game possible that they now have no money for marketing. This is so indie. You’re not gonna see Activision or Blizzard begging for wishlists because they need your help to get noticed. As indies you get to play this card. Players are usually happy to support if it’s framed in the right way and they have a genuine interest in the game.
I came across this amazing meme and wanted to share it. It perfectly sums up my advice when i’m asked for 1000th time when you should start marketing your game.
Recommended Readings
How much should we freak out about Silksong: Chris from HTMAG tackles the sheer panic that occurs for any game devs releasing near a giant like Silksong.
Game Developer Legal Foundations: Copyright, Trademark, and Contract Essentials with indie Lawyer Jacob Vela - If you haven’t checked out Freaking Cool Indies yet, you’re missing out. It’s packed with insightful interviews with industry pros covering a wide range of game dev topics.
Before You Go
If you find the newsletter insightful, I’d love if you shared it. Every share helps it grow, gets the knowledge in front of more devs/marketers, and reminds me that the time and care I put into writing it actually matters. 🫂
First time reading your publication, just wanted to say this is super well written and interesting. I’m not exactly the target market but I was hooked.
I like this style of format! Would love to see it continue, even if I don't currently have questions myself (since I'm not working on an indie game yet haha).