Fun with Marketing

My game making skills are still in their infancy but already marketing has pulled up a chair alongside me and started gently rubbing my leg. Coming from a technical background, marketing to me is like an encrypted double Dutch wrapped in a +4 cloak of obscurity. Unfortunately it is an essential consideration.
Imagine you have released the next Flappy Bird. Its amazing, chock full of manatees, endlessly re playable and unique etc etc. Its getting maybe 1 or 2 downloads a day. If you get lucky the game can organically pull in some downloads through word of mouth and positive reviews. Its a bit of an anti climax after months of development,bug bashing and umpteen gallons of coffee.
Your game didn't gather momentum like its a boulder chasing Indy out of a hidden cave. You didn't become an overnight millionaire. Surprise, surprise this is where our delightful,mysterious friend marketing comes in useful.

The first game I released was Super Farting Jump Boy. Which was in essence a fairly generic procedurally generated infinite jumper game. I was concerned about the game disappearing in the flock of similar games. I have a childish sense of humour and came up with a silly theme for the game as a marketing tactic. I decided to target the game at boys(ie males of all ages). I figured boys of a certain age find farting funny and may search the play store for a fart based title. I would find a game where the main character farts to propel himself skyward worth a whirl. So I themed the game on this.

The game is free and there is just one advert. I included an advert to my paid Memory Monster game on the  main menu. Super Farting Jump Boy is by far my most popular game. Its been downloaded around 6 thousand times now. Which in android play store terms is an abject failure. But its a success for me. Imagine, six thousand people around the world have downloaded and played my game! I've had some lovely reviews from people and some not so nice reviews. All the work I put into making that game was worth it. I put the majority of the downloads down the theme of farting. Had the game been a generic jumping game I wouldn't have a fraction of that download number.

I wont go in depth on marketing simply because I haven't really done much.I didn't pimp out the game on facebook. I put a store link up on twitter and a few android forums here and there but nothing really worth mentioning. I haven't yet reached a stage where I'm happy enough with a game to write up a press pack or try and market in earnest but I do know that writing the game isn't even half the battle.  Here are a few places to get started with marketing : here,here or even here.