My first rough stab at the marketing process as I see it:

1. Determine who we want to market to. For a bunch of reasons mentioned before, I think we should focus on demographics outside of the existing MUD world. Some targets:

a) Existing MUD players. They're already interested in MUDs. We just need to get them to play ours. Website Notes: We should tailor their initial exposure to our website with this as an underlying understanding: they know what a MUD is and know how to play a MUD. They need a quick data dump on how to play ours.

b) MMORPG/MU* Players. They're already interested in online fantasy gaming. We've just got to show them how pretty and shallow their current MMORPG is when compared to CF. We're raw...we're detailed...we're complex! Website Notes: We should tailor their initial exposure to our website similar to a) above. They're probably familiar with most of our interface, but they'll need more of an introduction to how we combine PK and RP. So we'll need to talk them through the character creation process from this perspective, i.e., keeping PK in mind.

c) Fantasy fiction readers. They're already interested in text and fantasy. We offer a never ending story that they can be a part of.

d) Magic: The Gathering and / or D&D players. They're already interested in fantasy and gaming. We offer an in-depth, online framework to play a similar game within.

I'm sure there are other interests out there that we can target as well, but I don't think we need to market to all of these verticals simultaneously. Pick one group that we think will generate players and market to them. Evaluate the results and move on to another group if need be. What's the best group? We'll need to find out.

TASK: Poll our players to find out their side interests. See which interests are the most prevelant and potentially the most useful to market to.

I also think we should try to focus our marketing efforts towards the 18 to 25 age group. I think our product (free gaming and social networking) meshes well with their assets. This age group also usually has more free time to play, as well as what I would term a longer "shelf life", which means they can probably play for several years before RL duties (kids, serious jobs, family, etc.) impact the amount of time they can put into the game.

Remember, we don't need to market to the entire world. Our "niche" requires focused marketing efforts in order to generate the best return on our time investment.

TASK: Determine our target audience.

2. Get our target audience on Stunna's "path" (also known as the sales funnel). Here's how I see the "path":

a) Get them to come to our website. This goal, plus our target audience, should drive our marketing. There are plenty of ways to go about doing this, but we need to identify the target audience and then tailor our message to them before we can figure out the best way to get them to come to the site.

b) Get them to connect to the game. Once they come to the website, we need them to connect to the game. Two phases to this: website content and design. While both are important, I think content is more important than design at this point, for two reasons. 1) Simply put, we don't have anyone that has access to our website that has the skillset, interest and time necessary to revamp the design. 2) The design isn't terrible; given better content, we can move forward with the rest of the marketing plan and rely on the content to draw them in. One upside to this: I have access to the website content and can add/edit pages.

To elaborate: the html code for our pages has this at the top:

require "../config.php";
require $HTML_HEADER;

Then you see the content. Not being an html coder, I assume that 'config.php' is the file that stores the header, the links, the poll, in short, it contains the overall page layout and design. I don't even know how to mess with config.php, but I can edit the main content of the page (go to the About Us page, and you can see that I've rewritten the material there).

Here's a link to something I started a few months ago: http://www.carrionfields.com/welcome/welcome.html. It's new, and incomplete, but I think it represents one way we might modify our page layout and content to help new players want to connect, and once they do, to create a character. I'm open for suggestions on what this should look like.

TASK: Determine the best content layout for getting new players to connect to the game.

Once we've determined our target audience, we can tailor the welcome page to them. Marketing to Magic players? "Here's why CF is a great complement to your Magic skills!"

c) Get them to create a character. Might take a slight revamp of the character creation process. Goal is to make it simple to create new characters and get into the game. The website should complement this as well.

d) Get them to create an account on our website. This gives us access to their email address.

e) Get them to level 20? 30? Hero? This is probably where the CF Instruction Manual would come into play. They've started playing, so they're interested in the game. Now they want to get a bit more detail on things. In other words, I don't think anyone checking the game out for the first time will be too interested in this. This IM should complement the stuff on the website, not regurgetate it.

f) Get them to repeat this process.

4. During all of the above, we need to gather statistics so we can see if our process is working or not.

5. We need to follow up with ALL of our players. My thought: a quarterly email to all www.carrionfields.com registered users that summarizes the in-game changes (i.e., shifter revamp, edges for druids, new areas, etc.) from the past three months and gives a few easily gathered statistics and other relevant information (i.e., list of current Cabal leaders, average players over the last week/month, etc.) Something to try to draw former players back into the game and make newcomers feel like they're a part of the community.

TASK: Determine what information we want to send out, and come up with a means to collect it.

Post your thoughts below and I'll refine this post to include them.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

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