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[akoluthic]

Best of luck with the launch Ramos! I watched the SplatterCat video and everything looks fantastic - congratulations! Thanks for voluntarily sharing so much data with us, it has been a great help.

[Ramos]

Best of luck with the launch Ramos! I watched the SplatterCat video and everything looks fantastic - congratulations! Thanks for voluntarily sharing so much data with us, it has been a great help.

Thank you for the kind words Akoluthic!
I will try not to disappoint



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Now on to marketing.

The organization is important for me.

When I start the campaign I want to use my time to respond and adjust to all responses so all promotional material will be done ahead of time in order for me to be more efficient.

I will concentrate all the marketing funnel on the Steam coming soon page. And from there I plan to redirect already existing fans to my Discord to keep growing my community.




I split the campaign plan into 2 parts: Critical & Secondary

Critical

These are tasks that I consider to be essential in the overall release campaign, without them I think the chances of success are considerably lowered.

1. Email list updates

Target: my old custom email list needs an update, some of the content creators may no longer be active and some new content creators may have appeared

Type: part of email marketing

2. Email marketing

Target: youtube content creators, journalists, streamers

Type: slow-burn/fast-burn according to the video release timing and userbase flow.

3. Twitter

Target: Journalists / Curators / content creators - networking

Type: fast-burn campaign, regular/constant posting

4 & 5. Gamejolt and Itch.io

Target:  exposure

Type: early access release one day before the Steam full release. And full release on Itch.io and Gamejolt one month after.

Secondary

These tasks I consider to be secondary, the campaign can still do decently without them but surely they can give that extra boost(especially the Discord MK).

Also on some of them, I am doing an experimental approach so I don't know the exact results and some are more aimed toward Branding.

1. Facebook "Chromosome evil"(game) page

TARGET: for people who already know about the game but search for more information, the extra story presentation will boost the prelude element/slow-burn and can be viewed even after release for extra lore

Type: slow-burn campaign / Branding - Story (close to comic book aproach, extra lore, episodic) hints/artistic/atmospheric marketing campaign.

2. Facebook Pixelart groups

TARGET: extra audience

Type: Indirect Marketing / fishing for audience / fast-burn campaign

3. Facebook "16 BIT NIGHTS"(company) page

TARGET: experimentation/Branding - I want to experiment a bit with minimal investment in some facebook Adds campaign

Type: official news of the release, fast-burn campaign

4. Gamejolt (similar to Twitter mechanics)

Target: The aim is to gain extra exposure from Gamejolt closed community + there are many small/medium size YouTubers on GJ that will also boost this effect.

This campaign is meant to also draw attention to the Gamejolt version release.

Type: both slow-burn and fast-burn, includes regular posts that will end in a  release

5. Deviantart

Target: extra audience + old DeviantArt subscribers fans refresh

Type: fast-burn and slow-burn, one round, post 10 picture art from game in one day in order to get all new submission section 100% covered. This also helps with Branding.

6. FORUMS

Target: extra audience

Type: slow-burn, I made a post about the game on aliens forums, 40k forums, and other external community forums and now I will bump all threads for a refresh

7. Keymailer & Indieboost

Target: extra audience

Type: fast-burn, The demo will be available for most content creators one day before release to increase exposure.

8. Discord

Target: extra audience, target entire gaming communities

Type: fast-burn, will mostly post links from other campaigns in art, self-promo, and other allowed rooms

9. Itch.io

Target: extra audience

Type: fast-burn, release free version 1 day before Steam release to increase extra exposure and full release 1 month later

10. Reddit

And there is also: Reddit although I do not have much experience there so I will need to improvise along the way

11. Steam news/annoucements

Target: This campaign main goal is to "resuscitate" older wishlist players that forgot about the game and to show activity before release

Type: fast-burn campaign

12. 16 BIT NIGHTS official site

Target: community

Type: Branding, official news


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I cannot enter into details on all points in just one post but for example, I will take:

3. Facebook "16 BIT NIGHTS"(company) page

TARGET: experimentation/Branding - I want to experiment a bit with minimal investment in some facebook Adds campaign

Type: official news of the release, fast-burn campaign

This is meant just for official news to already existing fans and JOurnalists that are interested in our projects.

https://www.facebook.com/16BITNIGHTS/

I will make an announcement post on the official Facebook page of my Company regarding the release and other critical news only. I will also make an event countdown for the release.

Example of content that I will be posting(please note that I am not 100% sure I will release in March but I made this so you understand what I mean)



and


1. Facebook "Chromosome evil"(game) page

TARGET: for people who already know about the game but search for more information, the extra story presentation will boost the prelude element/slow-burn and can be viewed even after release for extra lore

Type: slow-burn campaign / Branding - Story (close to comic book aproach, extra lore, episodic) hints/artistic/atmospheric marketing campaign.



This is a bit experimental.

https://www.facebook.com/ChromosomeEvil/

I did not enter this page in any of my marketing funnels but I noticed I get some new views from time to time, mostly I suspect that after people hear about the game and they are interested they do an additional search for it on social media and they stumble upon this page. My goal here is just to solidify already existing fans by posting lore-related content. For example, I took the intro cutscene images and modified them a bit to fit the Facebook criteria and when fans enter this page they will have a nice story to read in order to be more informed by the game's lore. In a long term, this can also help with the branding but this will not cause additional exposure unless the already existing fans are impressed and they do a bit of organic exposure to their friends.

And these are the promotional material that I will be posting for this task, 1 post per day in order not to mess up with the Facebook algorithm






















Now if you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer.

Also I am sure that my plan is nowhere near perfect so if you have any suggestions please x 2 tell me so that I can improve, I still got time until February to do so.



Thank you for all your support! 

[Alain]

The organization is important for me.

That is an understatement, it is amazing how structured you approach your marketing endeavors. I am sure you will nail it!

[Beastboy]

Very detailed work plan.
I am interested if you can expand a bit more the email marketing topic. And what is deviantart, i never heard of it, is it any good?

[oldblood]

Love how thorough and detailed your approach is to marketing. Its definitely inspiring and I hope when its all said and done you'll come back to talk about what aspects of this plan worked/or didn't. Nothing like a good post-mortem. Best of luck as you begin ramping up the marketing efforts!

[Dinomaniak]

Marketing plan is sound.
Will you update on how it envelops and how successful it is ? would be great to see.
Best of luck ! 

[AdrianMI]

Great plan, hope it works for you. 

[Ramos]

That is an understatement, it is amazing how structured you approach your marketing endeavors. I am sure you will nail it!

Thank you, Alain! I sure hope so because I only have one shoot at this

Very detailed work plan.
I am interested if you can expand a bit more the email marketing topic. And what is deviantart, i never heard of it, is it any good?

Thank you Beastboy!
I will try to expand all those steps in detail but for now, I only did 2 of them.

Deviantart is not something critical but I included it in my MK plan because I do have an old account there with some people who follow my art updates although I think I should have moved the Deviantart step into the 6. FORUMS category

Love how thorough and detailed your approach is to marketing. Its definitely inspiring and I hope when its all said and done you'll come back to talk about what aspects of this plan worked/or didn't. Nothing like a good post-mortem. Best of luck as you begin ramping up the marketing efforts!

Thank you for the encouragement oldblood!
I always forget somehow to do post-mortems (the first one on the list is TAURONOS which keeps getting delayed) but I will surely share the campaign results to a decent extent.

Marketing plan is sound.
Will you update on how it envelops and how successful it is ? would be great to see.
Best of luck ! 

Thank you Dinomaniak!
Yes, I do plan to update & share as much data/info as my limited time and motivation allow me to.

Although if you don't hear of me in a long time assume that I got bad results and I went bat-shit crazy ending up in some asylum hahahahaha

Great plan, hope it works for you. 

Thank you Adrian for your constant support of my marketing endeavors.

I am still waiting for you to start your dev blog of your new project








Gentlemen, I salute you 
  

[Beastboy]

Thank you for clearing that out, so if i understand right, deviant art is more of a personal choice than a recommandation. Looking forward to see the results

[mera]

nice marketing plan

[Ramos]

Thank you for clearing that out, so if i understand right, deviant art is more of a personal choice than a recommandation. Looking forward to see the results

Np, I am looking forward to seeing the results as well he he he

nice marketing plan

Thank you Mera !

[Ramos]

UPDATE TIME



this one is regarding marketing.

What did I do last week while my partner was fixing the last few bugs left? I did a bit of email marketing.

And this is how I split & organized my email marketing priorities until 24 March:

List 1 (past) - for Exclusive Beta footage (I think I posted about these results in the past, I only sent the press kit to 5 YouTubers that I have been following and genuinely engaging in their communities for some time such as Nook, Frazz, Splattercat, and so on) aim here was to create quality branding, not quantity. This list got converted 5/5


List 2 (present) - here I aimed for YouTubers that do upcoming indie games announcements, my list was custom made, again with engagement in time but unfortunately from the 5 YouTubers I aimed, only 2 responded but still, I consider this a success. Please note that for this category I haven`t sent the game only the trailer, release date, and a gameplay video from one of the YouTubers that did one during Beta.

Because indie games fans:
 



Because strategy game fans:




List 3 (Next) - Here I will target game Journalists, again my list will be small(5-6 Journalists) but I will do solid research first and active engagement. I will also include here a game version with locked content(I don't want too many spoilers out there + I am still doing the exclusive approach not just because I want better chances at bigger people but because I aim for quality in branding)

List 4 (after) - Here I will target very big Youtubers, it will be a 50-50 shoot in the dark because I did not have time to research and engage in all their communities, this list will probably have 10-15 people and if even 1 of them will make a video the goal will be reached.

List 5(after) - here I will target medium size YouTubers, this list will probably consist of around 30 YouTubers, I will also not have time to do many engagements but if branding from List 1 and 2 worked then this should not be a problem and should increase the exposure more as we are getting closer to the release date

List 6(same time with the release) - here I will target the people who subscribed to my site with their emails, ofc here will be just an announcement so there will be no actual game press kit attached. I aim for a big boom so I will try to synchronize this with the Gamejolt & Itch.io free vertical slice release and probably I will also give some keys on Keymailer and Indieboost although tbh in the future I plan to stop using those sites entirely, exclusivity works so much better than paying YouTubers and risking your keys to end up on third party sites on sale.

List 7 (removed) - here the aim was people who do Streams, unfortunately, I will skip this one because I am lacking time & I am exhausted, I hope it won't bite me in the ass at the end but I do hope some streamers will pick it up organically

As an extra note:
I will be using Gmail when sending out the pres kit because it is most likely not to get into the spam folder.
If you have anything else do check your email chances of reaching into the spam folder here: https://www.mail-tester.com/test-kc6vi0zve or just google for any mail testers.
After you send your email I also recommend dropping a message or a tweet politely asking if the email reached in good condition and if they need additional info, mostly this works best if you already established engagement in their community or a Twitter account. On my list 1, I had this luxury but for future lists, I did not have time to establish a basic engagement with everyone.


What do I scan when creating my email lists for YouTubers:
- the number of subscribers
- the amount of engagement per video(likes and comments) in the report to the subs
- the flow on which videos are released
- the type of content must include my target audience
- the quality of his videos
- last time he was active



This being said, I had a long chat with my partner Sergey who does the programming and brings my design to life(I have huge respect for this man, in 4 years he ALWAYS provided 2 updates per week, no breaks no computer broken no shit excuses) the chat was in regards to the future after release. For me, it is too much to do both A. art, design, testing, story and B. PR, marketing, community management, so after this project I want to choose just one of them, either A or B, I personally incline more for Marketing and PR but we shall see, the decision is not final yet.


I hope you Gentlemen found some useful information through my post.

I salute you!  

[Alain]

That was another great insight into your marketing work, thank you! The successes you have had with your meticulous approach so far speak for themselves.

[logophil]

Very generous of you to share your marketing expertise like this, thanks very much! I can see why you might incline towards that in the future.

[Beastboy]

Thank you for sharing this! I think marketing is a lot about trial & error

[Ramos]

That was another great insight into your marketing work, thank you! The successes you have had with your meticulous approach so far speak for themselves.

Very generous of you to share your marketing expertise like this, thanks very much! I can see why you might incline towards that in the future.

Thank you for sharing this! I think marketing is a lot about trial & error

Thank you guys for all the kind words and support!

A lot has happened behind the curtain last week, my partner might go indie full time sooner than expected because of various reasons but I will let him post about that when the time comes.

Meantime a small brief of my past week tasks

- Press kit / Landing page update/polish: https://16bitnights.com/chromosome_evil/
Because next week I will be on List 3 - Journalists, I need to have the press kit at its best quality, Journalist require a more polished approach when coming to press kits.
My aim here is to get 3 Metacritic approved Journalists in order to get a Metacritic score. I will probably search for similar games reviews and contact those journalists, I only need 3 but TBH my hopes are very low, they are mostly already bombarded with many emails and have very little time + many of them require early engagement and scanning for their preferabilities, this translates into time, time that I have a very limited amount of. I used to be in contact with Owerpowerd noobs but unfortunately, they lost the Metacritic approval a few years ago.
This step is not critical but it is a very solid addition for branding & can help open doors easier for the next steps from my email marketing list.

- Steam Developer Page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/25256606?snr=1_5_9__2000
I also managed to establish my Steam developer page, I should have done this a long time ago but better late than never.

- Update official site news: https://16bitnights.com/
Just a simple update, I created entries regarding things I already posted here, such as a case study on "How to evaluate a publisher", case study on "Email marketing" and the first gameplay video of Chromosome Evil.

- Social media posts regarding my latest entry. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=73024.0
Since I made this email marketing template I decided to share it in some places like Tigsource, Itch.io, yoyo forums(game maker), and Reddit.

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/16bitnights
I did some posts regarding CHromosome Evil, I also engaged with other people's posts with some likes and minimum comments and I had a few private conversations with some people in the market, basically a bit of networking.

- Discord https://discord.gg/J2E2YWK (PS: feel free to join)
I did a bit of chat with people in the industry(not related to chromosome evil) just for more networking & engagement on external Discord rooms + some community management on my own Discord(I do have a nice level-up system on my community that I will probably also share the template in the near future)

- Tiktok
Yea I installed TikTok, it is very toxic if you ask me but I want to experiment with marketing, I know that most people there are very young and my target audience is mostly 20+ but I still want to try it out.


And that`s it for now gentlemen 

[mobilelast]

Impressive. I know nothing about marketing, but it was fun to read about it. Got to respect the effort you’ve put into this.

The game looks interesting. There’s definitely no abundance of horror strategy games. At first glance, it reminds me of Darkwood, which makes the game look deceptively a survival game instead of RTS. Not necessarily a bad thing at all.

About the horror aspect: to me, horror and suspense don't arise from battles, but from anticipation of unpredictable events. Prelude maps might be used for this; to give the player a hint of what's coming up without revealing too much. Procedural levels are usually good also. Their challenge is not about HOW you’re going to win the mission, but CAN you win it. In some cases, you just have to give up and pull your troops out.

It’s actually kind of funny how many Lovecraft-themed battle games there are. In Lovecraft’s stories, the monsters are something humans specifically cannot battle with. So panic mode and creatures having psychic effects (as in XCOM-games) suit the theme well. The overlapping texts are a funny way to visualize chaos where everyone is shouting at each other.

Each team member should have a unique personality, traits and attitude towards other members. They could get attached to each other, argue, even hate and refuse to cooperate. Fear should change the character and affect their relationships. This would automatically make a story, and losing a member would always be a loss.

But I’m probably wandering off the point. This dev log was a quite thought-provoking story in itself, and now that I have finally read it through, I’ll be following.

Good luck with the release.

[vdapps]

Hi Ramos!

This is very impressive (I'm referring now to your marketing post). It's nice to see a post about marketing with same detail and focus as about development itself (as marketing IS equally important as development itself).

Cheers for you mate!

[Alain]

Your marketing progress was a good read as always!

- Steam Developer Page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/25256606?snr=1_5_9__2000
I also managed to establish my Steam developer page, I should have done this a long time ago but better late than never.

Following

[Beastboy]

I like the presskit layout, very clean and informative