Marketing Flash games: email template

April 28, 2008 • Monetize by Emanuele Feronato • 12 Comments

When you make a Flash game, unless it hits top portals frontpages (like NewGrounds) and spreads virally, you have to submit it to thousands portals in order to give it some decent exposure.

At the moment the best resource about Flash game marketing is Marketing Flash Games: The Other Half of the Battle, but if you’re not into marketing, you will also need a mail template.

I was (heavily) inspired by the creator of Kullors and this is an email template that should work the first time (you’ll understand later why)

[greeting]
Hi

[brief ice breaker]
My Latest game (gamename) has just (been released/completed a 7 day exclusive license/etc) and I am now able to distribute the game freely. As such I would be most grateful if you were to consider it for inclusion on your website/Game Portal.

[brief game description]
(gamename) is (about 20 words to describe it)

[links to play and download]
You can play it at (link) and you can download a zip file containing the swf a txt description and game icons of various sizes in gif format at (link).

[encourage feed back]
If you have any questions or comments I would more than happy to hear from you.

[thank ]
Many thanks for your time and consideration

[close]
Kind regards
(your name)

Now just two or three (well… three!) considerations:

1) The link to the game to play should be the one of an important portal only if the game has good rating/reviews… you don’t want the portal owner going to play your game at Kongregate just to read players don’t like it

2) This, as said, is the template for the first email you will send to the portal. Once they reply, if they do, save the contact of the person who replied and try to establish a contact more… let’s say “human” than a “developer to portal owner” one.

This will help you when you will need to release future games. Remember that good marketers don’t have millions of contacts. They have some good contacts. When I need some information about MochiAds, I don’t look for an invisible “contact us” button… I write to Ada. When I want to show my new game to AddictingGames, I write to Justin… and so on. Make your own priceless contact list and your life will be easier

3) When you managed to have a good contact list, remember they are not your classmates. Don’t bother them with “I have a new girlfriend!” and don’t submit them bad games just because you think they will publish anything you produce since they are friends of yours

Follow those rules and your games marketing will reach a new level.

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This post has 12 comments

  1. Michael Battle - Work & Play » Marketing Your Flash Game - Flash and Actionscript Experiments!

    on April 29, 2008 at 2:34 pm

    [...] [via Emanuele Feronato] [...]

  2. EagleVision

    on April 29, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    Interesting.
    I like this tutorial, it would go well as an article on MochiLand.

  3. Xavi-v

    on April 29, 2008 at 5:46 pm

    hey, I have tried to use Mochiads to use the highscore table, but I am very confused on how to set it up. I tried to download the .zip file, but all i get is a file with a really long number for a name. Can someone leave a comment here or on my website to help me?
    Or you can e-mail me at xavi_villalta@yahoo.com.
    Thanks.
    Oh, and Emanuele, very helpful tut.
    =)

  4. Jonny-bee

    on April 30, 2008 at 12:55 am

    :) Wow you used my email.. great tut as always Emanuele

  5. ActionSick

    on April 30, 2008 at 3:11 pm

    Nice, but when are you going to do some of the stuff on your “On the horizon” thread, i wana see some platform games or the next boxhead tut :D

  6. jeanpier

    on April 30, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    Just in time!
    I´m writing my letters and i found this template.

    Thanks Emanuele

  7. Ada

    on May 1, 2008 at 7:41 pm

    Wait, so why don’t you want to tell me about your girlfriends, Emanuele? ;-)

    Great article, keep up the great work!

  8. Flash Game Fan

    on May 4, 2008 at 11:59 am

    So, promoting your game seems to be easy enough but how do I go about promoting my entire site at http://www.ugoplayer.com ??

    Seems like a considerable amount of manual labor?

  9. addictinggames

    on May 7, 2008 at 1:12 pm

    [...] to give it some decent exposure. At the moment the best resource about Flash game marketing is Mhttp://www.emanueleferonato.com/2008/04/28/marketing-flash-games-email-template/ EconSM: MTVN’s Social Media Challenge: Reaching 1 Billion In Digital Revenues CBS NewsAlluding to [...]

  10. John

    on April 7, 2010 at 12:56 pm

    Hey, this is John, a game addict. Being a lover of online games I spend maximum time on playing various online games. I liked the collection of games at emanueleferonato.com/2008/04/28/marketing-flash-games-email-template – a lot to play this weekend! So do you randomly pick the games or is there any specific criteria? Will be great for your reply. :)

  11. Charlie

    on January 26, 2011 at 9:53 pm

    Interesting idea about contact list. I was always wondering why my contact list is so big?
    I need to reduce it according to the authors recomendations :)

  12. Looking to Buy Top sites email list for Game Promotion - Talk Arcades

    on August 23, 2011 at 8:29 am

    [...] http://mochi.omgames.co.uk/portals.php and one post from Emanuele: http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2008…mail-template/ __________________ Games for your website | My personal DEV page | OWN3D.cz | Random Flash Game [...]

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