Selling a Game: Word of Mouth

Keira Peney

Posted on Sun 13 Sep 2009 by Keira Peney under Community , Marketing .
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Word of MouthFirst up, let me apologise for disappearing for a month. I moved house, lost my internet for a while, and then my computer died. Not a good chain of events! However, I’m back now - with my follow-up to Selling a Game: Making People Want to Buy.

Once your website is up, and polished, your cover art is done, and your promotional materials finalized and ready for the public eye you have to ensure that the public actually notices. Many people spend a huge amount of time and effort on their publicity materials, and then just trust that people will find their way there. Not so.

I am not going to get too in-depth with this, as generating publicity is an entire field in itself. But for the bootstrap developer with no money this quick guide should get you pointed in the right direction.

1. Google and other SEO

SEO is a bit of science and a bit of magic and a bit of a con. But basically - think about what people might be searching for that your site would be a relevant result. Make sure that phrase/keywords are on your site, in several locations. If ‘fun free games’ is something that you provide, then make sure you specify that your site has lots of ‘fun free games’ somewhere in the text.

For more resources go to Google and type SEO guide or something similar. There will be more information than you can handle. Just keep it simple, and avoid anything that seems a bit ’scammy’. Remember that Google isn’t buying your game - people are.

2. Online Communities

Social media is a bit of a buzzword, and if you’re already into Twitter, Facebook, Stumble, Digg etc etc. then it will be of no hardship for you to start up a sideline account for your game/company. Focus on making it worthwhile for your followers. Don’t just link spam your latest game, but run competitions and (if appropriate) dive into the personal side a bit.

Go deep and narrow rather than wide and shallow. If you sign up to all 40k social media sites and post one thing, you will get nowhere. If you pick one community and focus all your effort on it, it will pay off.

Make friends with other developers, bloggers, and those who are really into games. What you want is for them to start talking about your game.

3. Hit up the Influential Bloggers

You already know what kind of game you have. Now you want to send out preview copies. One tip - don’t send a derivative but fun game to someone who is all about the difficult and cutting-edge. Or vice-versa. Find blogs that talk to the people who would be interested in your game. Send them a free copy. Worse that could happen is they ignore it. Best that could happen is that they send several thousand people with a favorable impression your way.

Vary the kind of blogger you send it to. Big sites get a lot of stuff sent to them - you have less chance of being noticed and reviewed. Small blogs will almost definitely discuss the game, but will have a smaller readership (but get enough of them talking about it, and hopefully it will spread).

When you send a preview copy be polite and don’t make any demands. Make it easy for the blogger to find and download the game, and include any codes they need to play it.

4. Try some forums

Again, avoid spamming. Put a link in your forum signature, and then get involved with the posts that are already up. Post interesting, insightful responses, not just “I agree”. Remember - at all times you are a public face to your company. Come off as spammy, stupid, cruel or dull, and those attributes will pass to your game.

Focus on the above techniques, and just try and network network network as much as possible. You will be off to a good start, and hopefully the quality of your game will do the rest!

Anybody got any other tips for generating word-of-mouth?

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7 Responses to “Selling a Game: Word of Mouth

Jacob Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 6:21 pm

I love to read articles that are informative, Thanks again for a nice site

Fanny Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 5:17 pm

bonjour, merci pour cette info , moi j’adore les jeux gratuit .

http://www.regles-du-blackjack.fr/ Says:
December 30th, 2009 at 2:24 am

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SEO Lake Worth Says:
January 4th, 2010 at 6:14 am

SEO Lake Worth…

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January 30th, 2010 at 7:58 pm

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