Best ways to spend a small marketing budget?

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Aviala
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Best ways to spend a small marketing budget?

#1 Post by Aviala »

Hey all! I'm getting close to releasing my game, Your Royal Gayness, and I need to figure out how to spend a small marketing budget. I already commissioned a new trailer because it's the thing that people will see when they first enter the steam page etc, so I spent most of my marketing budget on it. I'm pretty happy with the decision, but now I need to figure out how to spend the rest.

I'm thinking of just boosting posts on our FB page but I'm not sure if that will actually help with sales or just get a bunch of "empty" page likes from bots or something. We've already boosted a couple of posts and got some likes, but it's difficult to tell if it will lead to sales or not.

Does anyone have any experience in spending a small marketing budget? We're talking like, a couple hundred euros/dollars.
Did you boost posts on social media? Buy ads on a website? Something else? Which social media platform has proved the most useful for you when boosting posts or creating ads?
All ideas and opinions are welcome, and also general discussion about the topic, not just about my game.

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ComputerArt.Club
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Re: Best ways to spend a small marketing budget?

#2 Post by ComputerArt.Club »

I tried Google ads pay by install for Santa's Workshop (https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... s.workshop)
, but didn't get any installs from it, probably as I had specified about 30 cents per install and it seems people usually pay waaaay more than that (my app was less than a dollar so that wasn't even an option for me).

Yes, I read a lot of bad things and watched a documentary about facebook ads recently, my advice, stay away. Bots everywhere, even in the US, why? I don't know, Facebook makimg bots to make money seems too crazy to be true, but I don't know how else to explain it.

I also used to use them about 5 years ago for some old business ventures, they were ok if you specified the audience clearly, but once you build an audience your post still wont reach everyone. Facebook wants you to pay more to reach them all. I spent a lot of money on advertising, built an audience of genuinely interested people, but there weren't enough sales and contact with them felt like it was behind a paywall. Thousands of likes but very bad ROI, and I think things have just gotten worse.

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Re: Best ways to spend a small marketing budget?

#3 Post by Aviala »

Hmm, I see. I'll probably use the rest of my budget somewhere else then, but I wonder where? I would imagine that most social media websites have similar problems as facebook, or does someone know if for example twitter or tumblr ads would work? I'm sort of running out of ideas...

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ComputerArt.Club
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Re: Best ways to spend a small marketing budget?

#4 Post by ComputerArt.Club »

This doesn't help solve your current problem of spending money, but here is a post I made for exchanging reviews:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=47116

You review someone else's app and they review yours. It is genuine, free and pretty much common practice. I have some tips for how to make the reviews rank better with Google too.

Originally it was for android apps, but I guess there is no reason that it couldn't be expanded to include other platforms.

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Re: Best ways to spend a small marketing budget?

#5 Post by MapletreePaper »

ComputerArt.Club wrote: Fri Jan 12, 2018 8:23 pm I tried Google ads pay by install for Santa's Workshop (https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... s.workshop)
, but didn't get any installs from it, probably as I had specified about 30 cents per install and it seems people usually pay waaaay more than that (my app was less than a dollar so that wasn't even an option for me).

Yes, I read a lot of bad things and watched a documentary about facebook ads recently, my advice, stay away. Bots everywhere, even in the US, why? I don't know, Facebook makimg bots to make money seems too crazy to be true, but I don't know how else to explain it.

I also used to use them about 5 years ago for some old business ventures, they were ok if you specified the audience clearly, but once you build an audience your post still wont reach everyone. Facebook wants you to pay more to reach them all. I spent a lot of money on advertising, built an audience of genuinely interested people, but there weren't enough sales and contact with them felt like it was behind a paywall. Thousands of likes but very bad ROI, and I think things have just gotten worse.
So, is it just as I feared and online advertising is (mostly) unless for indie devs? That's the sort of vibe you're giving me.

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elixxxirium
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Re: Best ways to spend a small marketing budget?

#6 Post by elixxxirium »

For marketing and seeing some really interesting game sales studies, I highly recommend following Chris Zukowski's blog: https://howtomarketagame.com/
He occasionally does marketing experiments and there are lots of gold nuggets to read about on his site.

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Re: Best ways to spend a small marketing budget?

#7 Post by fundogmo »

Necro, I know. Boosting posts on FB or other social media platforms can work well, but it's essential to target the right audience to see a conversion. Instead of solely focusing on boosting, consider improving your engagement strategies as well.
I've found great value with this Facebook adspy tool for my business's Facebook ads. It's a tool that can give you insights into what type of ads are performing well in your niche, acting like a shortcut to finding effective strategies.
Also, influencer marketing could be a viable option. Find influencers within the gaming community who align with your game's target audience. It could generate good exposure and doesn't necessarily have to eat up your budget.

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