AuroDev | Zero Budget VIDEO GAME MARKETING // Finding Creators // Influencer Marketing Services @AuroDev | Uploaded March 2021 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Getting YouTubers and streamers to play your game is the best way to market an indie game. At least that's what I think. And best of all, it's a form of video game marketing that can easily be done with a zero dollar budget. In this video I will show how I found the right creators to approach. I will also present what influencer marketing services are out there and give my opinion on if they are worth using or not.
How to approach creators:
youtube.com/watch?v=e85UCTb3Fak
⚔️ Mortal Glory 2: store.steampowered.com/app/2216660?utm_source=yt
➤ Chambers of Devious Design: store.steampowered.com/app/1650860?utm_source=yt
➤ Mortal Glory: store.steampowered.com/app/1097530?utm_source=yt
➤ Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/RedbeakGames
➤ Patreon - Support to gain perks: patreon.com/redbeakgames
0:00 Intro
1:11 Finding creators
Tier 1: Think of a popular game that’s similar to your game or at least in the same genre. Then search YouTube and other platforms for video creators who have made videos about that game and collect the contact details of those creators. These are the contacts that are most likely to try out your game.
Tier 2: Search for specific keywords that might be associated with a game like yours. For example the genre of your game. Many times at least YouTubers will put keywords like that in the title so they are a good way to find the creators who play similar games but might not have tried the specific game that you searched for earlier.
Tier 3: Find some new semi-popular indie game that was released a few weeks ago. You don’t want it to be a title that everyone knows but also not something completely unknown. Browsing the new popular releases section in Steam is a good way to find a game like this. Once you have found a game, try searching YouTube and other platforms with the game’s name as a keyword. The idea with this is to find the creators who focus on making videos about new indie games.
Tier 4: Feel free to add any additional creators to your contact list that might be relevant for whatever other reason. Maybe they are from the same town as you, maybe they have the same name as a character in your game or maybe you just like their content and feel excited with the possibility of them trying out your game. Whatever you think creates a worthwhile connection to your game.
3:58 Additional Tips
Check the date of their latest upload. If it was a few months ago, they probably aren’t actively making videos anymore.
Check the amount of views their videos get. Sometimes a channel might have a big subscriber count but get only a low amount of views. This could be for many reasons but the bottom line is that views matter, subscribers don’t.
I would also encourage you to approach creators of all sizes as they are all likely to have a positive impact on your game, regardless of the size.
5:00 Influencer Marketing Services
Woovit. I tried the paid version of Woovit at $60 dollars for one month. I was able to reach some creators through it that I didn’t reach manually, so I think the money was well-spent. I am likely to use the service in future also and I would recommend for you to give it a try.
Keymailer. I tried the free version and got quite a few key requests. But on the free tier you can’t see if those people actually made videos about your game so it’s hard to say how effective the service actually was. They are planning on adding that feature to the free tier though. If you want to step up from the free tier, Keymailer can be a bit expensive though. You will need to pay a minimum of $350 per month if you want to reach out to creators yourself through their platform. I think Keymailer is worth trying though, especially once they enable the video delivery tracking on free tier.
Indieboost. I tried the free version of Indieboost, but if I remember correctly, I only received 2 key requests through it. To me it felt like Indieboost was more geared towards being a platform where you could pay creators to play your game. I don’t know if the service has improved since I used it or if the paid version would have been much better, but based on my experience, I don’t think the service was very useful.
Terminals.io. Terminals is a game promotion toolset that can be used for delivering keys among other things. It’s very expensive though at a minimum of $1500 per game. From what I understood, it’s not really a service you will use yourself like the others and rather there will be a person managing it for you, which would explain the price. It was too expensive for my wallet so I cannot really say how effective it is.
Getting YouTubers and streamers to play your game is the best way to market an indie game. At least that's what I think. And best of all, it's a form of video game marketing that can easily be done with a zero dollar budget. In this video I will show how I found the right creators to approach. I will also present what influencer marketing services are out there and give my opinion on if they are worth using or not.
How to approach creators:
youtube.com/watch?v=e85UCTb3Fak
⚔️ Mortal Glory 2: store.steampowered.com/app/2216660?utm_source=yt
➤ Chambers of Devious Design: store.steampowered.com/app/1650860?utm_source=yt
➤ Mortal Glory: store.steampowered.com/app/1097530?utm_source=yt
➤ Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/RedbeakGames
➤ Patreon - Support to gain perks: patreon.com/redbeakgames
0:00 Intro
1:11 Finding creators
Tier 1: Think of a popular game that’s similar to your game or at least in the same genre. Then search YouTube and other platforms for video creators who have made videos about that game and collect the contact details of those creators. These are the contacts that are most likely to try out your game.
Tier 2: Search for specific keywords that might be associated with a game like yours. For example the genre of your game. Many times at least YouTubers will put keywords like that in the title so they are a good way to find the creators who play similar games but might not have tried the specific game that you searched for earlier.
Tier 3: Find some new semi-popular indie game that was released a few weeks ago. You don’t want it to be a title that everyone knows but also not something completely unknown. Browsing the new popular releases section in Steam is a good way to find a game like this. Once you have found a game, try searching YouTube and other platforms with the game’s name as a keyword. The idea with this is to find the creators who focus on making videos about new indie games.
Tier 4: Feel free to add any additional creators to your contact list that might be relevant for whatever other reason. Maybe they are from the same town as you, maybe they have the same name as a character in your game or maybe you just like their content and feel excited with the possibility of them trying out your game. Whatever you think creates a worthwhile connection to your game.
3:58 Additional Tips
Check the date of their latest upload. If it was a few months ago, they probably aren’t actively making videos anymore.
Check the amount of views their videos get. Sometimes a channel might have a big subscriber count but get only a low amount of views. This could be for many reasons but the bottom line is that views matter, subscribers don’t.
I would also encourage you to approach creators of all sizes as they are all likely to have a positive impact on your game, regardless of the size.
5:00 Influencer Marketing Services
Woovit. I tried the paid version of Woovit at $60 dollars for one month. I was able to reach some creators through it that I didn’t reach manually, so I think the money was well-spent. I am likely to use the service in future also and I would recommend for you to give it a try.
Keymailer. I tried the free version and got quite a few key requests. But on the free tier you can’t see if those people actually made videos about your game so it’s hard to say how effective the service actually was. They are planning on adding that feature to the free tier though. If you want to step up from the free tier, Keymailer can be a bit expensive though. You will need to pay a minimum of $350 per month if you want to reach out to creators yourself through their platform. I think Keymailer is worth trying though, especially once they enable the video delivery tracking on free tier.
Indieboost. I tried the free version of Indieboost, but if I remember correctly, I only received 2 key requests through it. To me it felt like Indieboost was more geared towards being a platform where you could pay creators to play your game. I don’t know if the service has improved since I used it or if the paid version would have been much better, but based on my experience, I don’t think the service was very useful.
Terminals.io. Terminals is a game promotion toolset that can be used for delivering keys among other things. It’s very expensive though at a minimum of $1500 per game. From what I understood, it’s not really a service you will use yourself like the others and rather there will be a person managing it for you, which would explain the price. It was too expensive for my wallet so I cannot really say how effective it is.
