Read part I/III here:

https://tempointeractive.itch.io/protohunter/devlog/142354/marketing-your-first-game-from-a-marketers-perspective-part-iiii

Part II: Your First Sale

Ok, its time. You are finally ready to launch your game. You packaged it and compressed it enough so people don't have to sacrifice too much hard drive space. You pushed it to Steam or itch.io and you are finally ready to put your hard work in front of everyone. You wait for a second and take it all in. *Click* your game is live.

....Now what? You wait for your first sale of course... Or do you? No! If you want something, you go and get it. That is where marketing enters in full force. Given, you should have been marketing & sharing your project for some time already, but it is understandable that YOU as a game dev are in full force polishing your project.

Put Yourself & Your Project Public

But to get your first sale, you need to at least share it with people. How are people going to be interested in your project if they have never seen it? You have to get some eyes on your game if you want people to purchase & play it. Look for communities that are willing to share what you have made. Email, DM, call, knock on all the virtual doors, or whatever. But make sure, as we mentioned in our previous post, this takes time and effort.

Learn, Learn, Learn...

Make sure you use all available resources. And prior to launch, make sure you take some time to at least learn the basics of these things. Most are free. The big ones for social media marketing are the Google Ads training, Facebook has various ones, and Twitter has "Flight School" and they are provided for free. The links will be provided below. You can also get some pretty good info from Hubspot, SEOmoz, and others. 

https://skillshop.withgoogle.com/

https://www.facebook.com/business/learn

https://www.twitterflightschool.com/student/catalog

https://academy.hubspot.com/

https://moz.com/learn/seo

Time

Leveraging these resources and taking the time to promote and share your project will pay dividends and hopefully bring in your first sale. And the most important thing about this is time. Time is the most essential aspect of this process. The amount of time you dedicate to marketing your game, just like when you are creating it, is what dictates the outcome of having your first sale.

So take your time and learn. And if you can't learn and have the money to pay an agency or a marketer like myself to market your project, go ahead and do it. Ultimately, it is like we previously mentioned, the time you dedicate is what dictates how successful you become.

Check out ProtoHunter here for PC: