Marketing Indie Games on a $0 Budget
summary
95% of indie games never turn a profit and only 25% of iOS indies ever make $30,000, so marketing matters: a small team’s Monkey Labor sells 1,000 copies at launch, then after a TouchArcade review sells 6,000 copies in 10 days; Dustforce cost ~$100,000 to make, got 100+ articles including GameSpot and is profitable within 7 days, netting $44,000 profit. Build five assets (trailer <90s with gameplay and CTA, hi‑res screenshots, press release, landing page, dev blog), research tiered press contacts, personalize outreach, and if paying, hire a video/graphic pro or run tight PPC.
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chapters (22)
- 0:00Welcome
- 1:31Indie games fail without marketing
- 5:48Myth of expensive marketing
- 10:25Creating promotional materials
- 13:17Must-have materials for devs
- 15:45Trailer best practices
- 17:16High-impact screenshots
- 18:41Writing press releases
- 21:34High-converting landing pages
- 24:27Blogs for traffic
- 25:52Press and media outreach
- 30:52Building fan base
- 35:28Q&A
- 36:18When to start marketing
- 38:29Handling press assets
- 41:47Marketing via YouTube
- 43:10Negative reviews and trolls
- 44:56Hostile media trends
- 48:10Secretive marketing risks
- 50:40All publicity good?
- 51:48Limited budget allocation
- 53:15Closing remarks
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