Giveaway Marketing – Case study

Hello Gentlemen,

I would like to talk a bit about Giveaways Marketing and Giveaways in general within the indie game development industry.

First of all, I do not wish to give false expectations, Giveaways do not bring huge amounts of wishlist, exposure, or direct sales … BUT … they do bring some wishlist, exposure, or direct sales on a light amount so as long as they generate a positive outcome even if in small amount, I consider it worth it of being mentioned.
Also please note that I will mostly talk from personal experience so there is a possibility for this Giveaway to also have outstanding results that I have not yet encountered myself.

What NOT to do

1. Each time I release a game I receive requests for game Steam keys from various Steam Curators and Content creators, and whenever I see that some of them ask for more than 1 Steam Key I almost immediately mark the email as spam.
Why?
People who ask for more than 1 key either want to re-sell the key on a third-party site or want to do a giveaway in their community.
These Giveaways are the worst because those Curator’s communities have only players who expect free games with giveaways, they have no real interest in buying the game or supporting the developers. (target audience matters)
And the worst part is those people also want to re-sell the key, very few of them are actually interested in those games.
Overall having Giveaways in those types of Steam Curator communities will only end up devaluing your game and brand.

2. Do not giveaway a huge amount of Steam keys, this will only devalue your game, There are some exceptions to this but mostly I recommend doing a giveaway with 3 – 20 keys per community/depending on community aim.

What to do

1. Thank you giveaways – these are very good for branding and it’s a nice way to reward supporters and fans.
Here are a few Examples:

– Around 2 weeks after the release I made this announcement for long-time fans from our Discord that supported us during the development. We offered them all free Steam keys. I think only 1 or 2 people actually asked for keys since most of them were already devoted fans.
This type of giveaway is very good for branding and consolidating the existing fan base.

– External giveaway in a Content creator Discord room.
Nook has an awesome Discord community and it so happens he also got a giveaway room and also made a video first impression on my previous game so this giveaway for his community was my way of saying thank you, It is always good to give something back and also gain a positive branding for the developer team.
You can find his Discord here: https://discord.gg/ny7S6hp3GV and his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Nookrium

As an extra note: do not spam content creators’ communities with giveaways, it’s not nice, only post if they have a specific room for it as Nook does.

– Facebook community giveaway.
Finding your target audience community is very important, For example, the Facebook Xcom groups have always been supportive of my projects(strategy/tactical games) so it is a nice way of rewarding their support with a Giveaway, also on the long term you establish a healthy connection with external supporters.
Examples

Link to those groups:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/XcomPlayers

https://www.facebook.com/groups/901107623338399

https://www.facebook.com/groups/377290309473141 (This third one is a lot smaller but very supportive)

Also note: do not mindlessly do giveaways, you must have already an established presence in order for this to work the right way.

2. Collaborative Giveaways – This type of Giveaway is good for both branding and exposure with the condition of having a similar target audience.

This is best done with other people who do PR / serious Curators who have an established fan base(that is not mainly based on giveaways).
For example, I donated for a Giveaway to StrategyInformer (he is very cooperative and mostly drunk but harmless, you can find him on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/TheStrategyInf1 ).
My game is a strategy game and his audience is a majority of strategy game fans + he also has some nice contacts of other curators/content creators who deal with strategy games(+ networking bonus) so it’s a very good fit.
Please note that this would not work if the target audience is not similar.

I totally recommend reaching out to him if you are a developer who makes strategy games or if you are a player interested in the latest news on strategy games and even if you are another curator/content creator based on strategy games. ( link to his Discord: https://discord.gg/ZtrvRyjxPX )

Link to tweet:  https://twitter.com/TheStrategyInf1/status/1697588161247867017?s=20

3. B2B giveaways – This is also a nice way to do giveaways with the aim of branding, exposure, and direct sales.

You only need another developer with a community of similar target audiences.
You donate a few keys of your game to him and he donates a few keys of his game to you. Both make announcements of giveaways in the personal community and that`s it, cross promo at its finest.
This is also a nice reward for the community to get a gift of other developers’ games and surely when no more keys some will buy the other game and vice-versa.

LAST WARNING: Always pay attention to the target audience.

That`s it for Giveaways

If you have more suggestions about giveaway marketing please do share them with me, I am very interested in learning new things on this underrated topic.

Also if you have any Giveaways proposals send me a magical email or contact me on Discord.

Gentlemen