The Power of Podcasts for Marketing Your Games

In the last few articles, we spoke at length about marketing your indie games on a budget - and how to tackle the challenge if you’re a solo developer or small studio.

But posting to social media and attending the odd event aren’t your only options - especially if your game has an interesting story to it. Alongside more traditional marketing approaches, podcasts have undergone a bit of a resurgence in the past few years - with millions of people now regularly tuning in to catch the latest episodes.

So how can you leverage podcasts and make them a fundamental part of your marketing strategy? Let’s dive deeper into it together in the next few paragraphs!

🏔️ Understanding the Podcast Landscape

Before you can include podcasts in your indie game’s marketing strategy, you should try to get familiar with what the podcasting landscape looks like in 2024.

In part due to the Covid pandemic, the popularity of podcasts has skyrocketed across major listening platforms in recent years. By the end of 2023, for example, Spotify had seen over 100 million regular listeners for podcasts alone — a 10x increase since 2019.

In addition, just like other kinds of content, podcasts come in all shapes and sizes. Depending on who you’re trying to target, you’ll likely find someone either catering to your specific niche or creating content that you can contribute your knowledge to. And just like their video-centric counterparts, most podcasters will follow current trends and real-world events — adapting their content to reflect what’s happening around them.

Furthermore, because of their nature, podcasts also tend to be much easier to consume than video or written content. This encourages people to listen for longer periods, often while doing other things, returning to their favorite podcasts to catch newer episodes. As an indie developer, this would allow you to craft deeper connections with listeners as well as with the various podcast hosts you’ll end up working with!

Last but not least, using podcasts to promote your indie game can be a very cost-effective way to boost your title’s visibility. As long as you have an interesting story to tell, a lot of podcasters will be happy to have you on just to share it with their audience. This makes podcasts a viable option for smaller studios, who might struggle to reach a wider audience with more traditional methods.

🎤 Getting Started With Podcasts

After getting a general idea of how podcasts work, you should now be ready to approach podcasters to promote your indie game. Just like you’d do with the press, your next step is to get out there and start pitching your story - making it interesting enough that people will want to hear about it. At this stage, you can boost your chances of success by making sure to:

1. Identify the podcasts that best fit your game 🔎

As we saw before, not all podcasts cover the same topics. Before blindly targeting every podcaster you can find, consider whether their audience would be interested in your story and the game you’re developing. At the same time, you’ll want to check whether you’d be a good fit for the podcast itself.

If you don’t know where to start, some of the most popular indie games podcasts include IGA’s Indie Game Lunch Hour, the Eggplant Show, IndieQuest, the Indie Game Development Podcast, and more! A quick search for “indie games” on Spotify or Apple Podcasts is also sure to return some interesting results!

2. Craft a compelling pitch for your story 💬

For all intents and purposes, this will be the same as pitching to the press or getting influencers to play your demo. Above anything else, you’ll need to convince them that what you have to tell is both interesting and unique enough.

To achieve that, you’ll want to craft a pitch that highlights the main elements of your story, but also mention why you think the podcast’s audience will love it. Once that’s ready, approach your selected creators and share it with them as a suggestion. Don’t forget to make yourself available for further questions or an interview!

3. Prepare for the big day 😅

As you’re about to join your first podcast, consider it more of a fireside chat between friends than a promotional opportunity. Focus on storytelling, discuss your journey, and try to share as many interesting anecdotes about what you’re working on while refraining from promoting your game directly. While this might sound counter-intuitive, doing so will allow people to engage with your project without feeling like you’re aggressively pushing them to buy it.

4. Foster Long-Term Collaborations 🤝

Unlike most other forms of content, podcasts force you to interact directly with the host for extended periods of time. This, however, lets you build lasting relationships with podcasters that could lead to long-term collaborations - including multiple features, additional invites or even mentions outside of the podcast itself.

If your first appearance in a specific podcast goes well, consider following the host on social media and interacting with their content. Taking care to not overdo it, you could eventually offer them exclusive content, a sneak peek at your game or early access to a demo. More often than not, the ensuing friendship will turn these hosts into both great advisors and staunch advocates of your title within the wider podcasting community!

📈 Measuring Podcasts’ Effectiveness as a Marketing Tool

Just like with any other part of your marketing strategy, measuring engagement remains a fundamental element to ensuring that your podcast appearances are effective.

As each episode is technically a piece of content, looking at stats such as listener engagement levels, social media mentions, comments, and interactions should give you a pretty clear picture of how things are going. If you want to go one step further, passing any traffic the podcast has generated through a UTM link also lets you understand exactly how many people checked your project out.

Unlike most social media and content sharing platforms, however, statistics aren’t usually readily available for you to check. While a few tools out there let podcast owners track their shows’ performance, little can be inferred by simply visiting a podcast’s page. More often than not, asking the host directly remains the easiest way to acquire valuable data for your marketing strategy.

That, however, isn’t the only way to track your podcast appearances. As part of a recent update, our Coverage Bot now tracks podcast mentions - alerting you whenever your game is discussed in a new episode. While it won’t provide you with specific audience-related data, this new feature tracks how often your game is discussed, in which contexts it is mentioned, and how people are talking about it - all valuable insight to fine-tune your strategy!

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In Conclusion

In conclusion, podcasts have evolved from occasional gatherings to talk about games into a powerful marketing tool for studios of all sizes. Alongside more traditional tools such as social media and events, including podcasts into your marketing strategy could drastically boost your game’s visibility - allowing you to reach wider audiences and tap into new niches.

So, are you planning to include podcasts in your marketing strategy? Let us know on Discord and don’t forget to check out the rest of our indie games marketing guides!