A Solid Foundation

As a self publishing indie developer we have found that understanding our expectations and applying those metrics to the following basic business marketing techniques means we have been able to create a solid working foundation for online marketing.

Customer service

Everybody wants to feel special in life and by making sure you respond to your consumers by asking their opinions and responding to them, you are letting them know you have recognised them and appreciate their input. (Krotz, 2011)

Become an online expert

You don’t need to become a ‘flaming’ blogger or critical ‘know it all’, but simply engage actively with your consumer in a manner that doesn’t focus solely on you wanting something in return.

By keeping in touch with blogs and online discussions and offering first hand advice about your experiences and knowledge, without charging for it, you are building relationships that can lead to more consumers of your products at a later date. Better yet, because you’re active in blogs and discussion you’re open to information and feedback that you wouldn’t come across through other channels.

Court local media

No, we are not talking about wining and dining your local newspaper reporter! Focus on creating a well written press release that can be posted on your website and easily downloaded by anyone that wishes to interview you. The press release should be up to date and relevant, with an interesting story that will grab the media’s attention.

Follow local industry bloggers on their website or through Twitter and occasionally comment or re-tweet their articles. This is a great way to get their attention as it’s difficult to get noticed in their e-mail box’s if they contain 500 e-mails

Contact websites by sending them your press release and asking them to review your game. Having your company or game featured in the local and online media doesn’t cost you anything and holds a lot more sincerity than paid adverts.

Boost company profile

Attending trade shows and conferences is a great way to network with other industry professionals and helps to boost your professional profile within the industry. It also helps to connect you with industry and possible future clients that you normally wouldn’t have access to.

Online Marketing

Good online marketing should consist of a steady, targeted stream of information that gives your brand positive exposure to acquire new consumers. While also allowing existing consumers the opportunity to engage and interact with your product thus helping with the retention of that consumer.

Twitter

Twitter allows us to deliver news to a waiting audience without wasting time on clicking send.

Gain valuable clients

You are able to gain access to valuable industry professionals that in turn will help you boost your visibility on other media. (Five ways Your Twitter Account Can Boost Marketing, 2009)

Increase your brand awareness through content management

By having access to other peoples content through Twitter, you are able to easily increase your perceived usefulness by re-tweeting informative information which helps to boost your brand awareness without much effort.

Improve consumer loyalty

This ties in with what we said earlier about Customer service. With Twitter it means keeping an eye out for tweets that are addressed to you and responding directly with any relevant information the consumer is after.

If you are helpful and approachable, you are seen as a more valuable asset to the consumer and helps with consumer retention.

Keep up with relevant trends

Just as we mentioned before in Court local media, having a Twitter account allows you to keep up with relevant trends within the industry and allows you an insider’s view into what your consumers, clients and competitors are thinking.

We found Twitter to be very useful in gaining access to industry and media professionals and allowed us to easily boost our brand visibility through those contacts.

Online Media Marketing for Indie Developers – Part 3…

In the next part of these posts, we’ll continue to look at social media marketing and focus on using Facebook to build brand awareness in our next post installment.