Your email list is the one audience that's really yours. The app store, the feed, the algorithm: all rented, and the landlord changes the rules whenever it fancies. Your list doesn't. Ship an update, a new game or a paid tier, and you land straight in the inbox of people who already care.
Most teams start theirs far too late, usually the week before launch, then wonder why the launch lands with a thud. Here's how to build one properly, from nothing.
Give people a reason to sign up
Nobody joins a mailing list to "stay updated". They join for something specific. For a game or app, that's usually one of:
- Early or beta access
- A free asset, level, preset or in-app perk
- A launch-day discount
- A behind-the-scenes devlog
Pick one, make it good, and put it everywhere people meet your product.
Put the sign-up where people already are
- On your site, somewhere visible. Not buried in the footer where nobody scrolls.
- Inside the app or game, at a natural moment: after a win, at the end of a demo, when someone hits a paywall.
- In your content. Every devlog, trailer and post can point back to it.
- On your launch platforms. Steam, the App Store and Product Hunt bring a rush of attention. Give it somewhere to go before it evaporates.
Set up a welcome sequence
The moment someone signs up is the moment they care most. Leave them in silence and they'll have forgotten you by launch. Three emails covers it:
- Send what you promised straight away, the access or the asset, and say what's coming next.
- A day or two later, introduce yourself: who you are, what you're building, why it matters.
- A few days on, bring them in. Ask what they want to see, point them to your community.
Email the list between launches
Teams kill their own lists by only emailing when they want something. Send devlogs, progress, the occasional what-went-wrong. People like watching a thing come together. By launch, the people on your list already know you, which is the entire point.
Keep the tools simple
You don't need much to start. ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp and Klaviyo all handle a sign-up form, a welcome sequence and the odd update. Pick one, set up a form and a welcome, and add more when you have a reason to. You do not need a fourteen-step flow to email a few hundred people.
Common mistakes
- Buying a list. It doesn't work, and it quietly wrecks your delivery to real inboxes.
- Only emailing at launch. The list goes cold and half of it forgets who you are.
- Skipping the welcome. You lose people at the exact moment they're keenest.
- Writing like a press release. "We are thrilled to announce" loses a reader faster than almost anything.
Start early, give people a real reason to join, and write to them like a person would. By the time you've got something to sell, you'll be announcing it to a room that already wants in.
If email's the thing you keep meaning to sort and never do, it's what I set up and run for small teams. See how I work with games and apps, or what a freelance email marketer does.