How to squeeze the most out of your demo

gamesindustry.biz:

Michal Napora

Friday 25th February 2022

Your game's demo is one of the biggest and most important assets that you'll create during your marketing campaign.

But as you may already know, or at least presume, making a demo costs time, money, and nerves. So it's only natural that you should squeeze out as much marketing goodness out of it as you can. Yes, optimization belongs to marketing too.

Today I will show you my five-step demo marketing plan -- my demo milker so to speak. A step-by-step guide on getting the most bang for your buck and the most whooshes for your wishlists:

As you can see, when thinking about your demo, don't just think about players. Your demo can be of interest to more than just them. You should also think about two other important "stakeholders" of your marketing campaign -- the good olde press and the good olde influencers.

Now, both of these stakeholders have different needs, wants, and attitudes to your preview/demo. So let me go through each step and talk a bit about the needs of these stakeholders.

This one might be a bit tricky depending on your game's "clout" (read as popularity and coolness) as well as your timing on the calendar (AAA season, avoid it like the plague). But one thing is certain: if you want your game's demo/preview to be covered by the press, your best chance is to give the demo to them first.

If your demo is already public -- it's old news. If influencers have shown it -- it's old news. So give journalists and press the demo first. This will give you the best chance of getting coverage from them. They like seeing things first. If you want even more exclusivity, just go to a few selected sites -- 20 max. Mention that to the press and your chances of coverage have just slightly