You need money to market products. This includes both paper and digital materials. There are many ways to market cheaply, and I can show you the many ways we have marketed our products.
Social media
Presence on Twitter and Instagram have been the most common way to spread our word. Liking tweets and posts were the way to get our name into users’ notification boxes. In fact, this inspires many people to follow us through both platforms. This is probably the main reason why we have been successful through that medium.
Drillimation at one point tried to utilize Twitter Ads to gain followers, but it wasn’t successful. The above method eventually stopped us from using Twitter Ads following the influx of followers. Don’t ask us how we went from just 30 to 1,000 followers in just six months. Drillimation at one point ended up in Twitter jail for three days because of the excessive liking sprees he goes on every day. There are limits Twitter imposes on how many tweets users can like within a one-hour period.
Dream Logos/Fiction Wiki
Back when Drillimation headed the Dream Logos and Fiction Wikis on Wikia, the game was mainly promoted through there. However, this had to be dropped because it was against their standards due to spam. This was the eventual reason why Driller had to resign his position as CEO there. Drillipedia on Gamepedia was founded as a backup plan as a result.
The Chuhou Joutai duo was regularly featured on the home page and in monthly update cards from January 2018 until December 2019.
YouTube
Drillimation found Sprizzy through a Google search and has used it since September as a way to market the trailers for the game. According to us, the ad cost more than $200 to run seven times on YouTube and has garnered an estimated 10,000 views as a result. The most recent trailer, Arcade Legends, has had the most clicks out of any trailer to date, probably because of the fact the game had a legit ESRB rating (was rated through IARC by the way) and many players thought it was an actual game. The Steam and Windows store pages aren’t up yet and we still have to make another trailer to succeed.
SmashErie
Drillimation is an active participant in the SmashErie series of Super Smash Bros. eSports tournaments, and we have allowed players to try out the game and even meet the Prophet Driller while they’re waiting for their bracket to start. One player who tried it got as far as stage 3. Tryouts are the best way to get a game out into the world, and this was theoretically the only convention I could showcase the game.
Other methods
The image above was an ema slab I drew while at the Meiji Shrine during my first trip to Japan. Eventually, another player noticed it and tagged me on Twitter. You should try this the first or next time you go to a Shinto shrine. Just go up to any shrine maiden and ask for one (you still need to pay though).
Novy Unlimited played a big, big role in helping with promotion. We originally contacted them in June of 2019 for help with marketing, back when the demo was brand new.
Know any other methods?
Have you tried any other low-cost marketing methods? Drop them in the comments below or shoot us an email.
Drillimation Systems 