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Marketing my indie tools: what's working and what isn't
I started PlayScout on Oct 8 and ComposerScout a few days later, with no ad budget and no audience. This is an honest look at what's working so far and what isn't. I'll keep updating it as I go.
What's working
- Personal DMs beat posting into the void. When you have no customers yet, one real message to someone who actually needs the tool is worth more than ten posts. My first ComposerScout signups came straight from DMs.
- Bluesky. I'm getting more traction there than on X right now. Indie devs share their Steam pages there all the time, so it's easy to find people who could use the help.
- Replying to posts when DMs are closed. A lot of accounts on X have DMs off, so I reply publicly instead. I say one real thing I liked about their game, drop the link and offer a free list.
- Discord, slowly. Join, actually hang out for a couple of days, then share what you're building. That's how I got an intro to a voice acting team.
- itch.io. Both tools have their own itch pages now, because that's where so many indie devs already spend their time.
- Listening when people push back. A voice actor asked me some tough questions about AI and stolen samples. Instead of getting defensive, I built protections and AI-use tags for studio pages the same day. People notice that.
- Giving it away first. The top 10 creators on PlayScout are free, ComposerScout is free, and I hand out promo codes to newsletters and Next Fest devs.
What isn't working (yet)
- Reddit, the way I did it. I moved too fast with links and got banned more than once. Now I'm going slow: comments only, no links, and following every sub's rules.
- Messages that sound like ads. Feature lists and slogans get ignored. Talking like a fellow dev works way better.
- Saying numbers I hadn't double checked. I told a dev how their game had done since launch, but it had been in Early Access for months before that, and they corrected me in public. Now I check everything before I say it.
- Content before customers. Videos and posts are fun to make, but they haven't turned into sales yet. PlayScout is still waiting on its first real sale, so for now I'm putting most of my time into DMs.
What I'm trying next
Steam Next Fest runs Oct 19 to 26, so I'm reaching out to as many devs in it as I can before it starts. On the ComposerScout side I'm looking for founding creators in every craft, now that artists, VFX artists, programmers, writers and video editors can join too. I'll report back here on what worked.