On 6/14/2019 at 4:05 PM, Feenx said:
would you mind sharing with me the typical cost for their service and any other details if able?
Marketing cost are directly tied to what you want to do.
There are games and services that provide tremendous marketing pushes, not just in online spaces but in print, in stores, and maybe even billboards as well. Sports games, for example, will advertise in printed sports magazines, and also advertising at events. Some games coordinate advertising deals across game stores, not just video games but card game stores and comic book shops. Television ads, radio ads, and even product placement all have a place. Online ads range from general mass-market ads to highly focused ads relating to specific sites. Then there is marketing done through partnerships and long-running agreements.
Professional services cost money. Unless you're using an automated self-help site for ads, you're paying actual human beings for their time, so expect to pay fair rates. Professional services tend to run $100-$200 per hour regardless of if you're hiring a plumber, an electrician, an accountant, or a business lawyer. If you need to hire them for 20 hours of human work expect a few thousand dollars, plus whatever costs to run the ads you're planning to run.
Marketing requires relationships with other businesses, and those agreements are made solid through contracts. If you are planning on any significant investments be sure to consider your own business lawyer's cost, too.
As for the budget, for nearly every professional project I've worked on the marketing budget was approximately equal to the development budget, which both represented about 1/3 of the total game cost. The other 1/3 went to pre-production, post-production, and support costs. So if you see a $5M game development cost, expect the total project would have a $15M total cost, and about $5M would be spent on advertising.
