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Tezcatlipoca · 11-13-2004, 01:11 PM

Something I haven't seen in this thread yet, which I think is something everyone either can or has thought of, is maybe a bit of statistical work. I'm not a marketing professional or even a student of one, but economics and marketing usually go hand in hand, and a lot of it is comprised of good old logic and common sense.
Statistically, we need to find out what our current audience is; who plays these games already? Then find out where they are and what the best way to contact them.
Without a real statistical study, my initial guess (from the years I've played and seeing who else is playing, granted on small "local" muds only) would be that the large majority of players are students, mostly collage age students, but with a good dose of high-school students (I think we can chauck up a large percentage of the "problem players" to being high-schoolers).
IF that non-scientific observation is true, then it's reasonable to assume that most of the players that any campaign would target, would be more students. So, it would be best to target them directly.
So, IF the students are the best people to target, then I'm not sure newspaper ads are your best means of communication. As mentioned previously by Matt I believe, online advertising *does* work, but unmentioned is you need to find the right places online. His techTV add worked as he mentioned, but I think probably because it tends to be targeted at younger inquisitive minds.
So, we need to find locations that students frequent in order to maximize our return on that target audience, which is our maxium usage group. So find the locations they frequent the most. Most students end up living/learning/playing at Universities scattered around the county. Fairly cheap flier campaigns at your local University (check the University rules before going at it though) probably can be fairly effective. Again, the majority of mudders may very well be students, so if each posts at their university of choice, we've covered a lot of ground.

There's a lot of assumptions in here, I know. That's why it calls for a fairly decent statistical investigation. I get the impression that most of the people that frequent this board, and even TMC arn't these common-student-players, but instead are more along the lines of the administrative folk, which tend to be post-student hard core gamers that play/run muds as a sideline hobby, and then the few minority that run it as their full time job. So doing a survay on the boards won't tell you much. Doing them on our individual MUDs can. Once we find out who the current target % is, we can start marketing to their peers. Once we've covered that ground, start on the next highest minority group, or start to explore (a more risky venture I think any good marketer will tell you) those that we can't difinitivly say are a good target group, but one we *think* could be. The most obvious here are "gammers" (of all ages) that might not know about MUDs. That in itself will take a larger more expensive statistical campaign to find those more... financially dangerous target groups; ones we arn't too sure of. Then probably another campaign to find out how sure we can be of them.

I applogize for the length.. I tend not to write in short bursts, but try to explore all aspects that I can at the time.

Note: the "gammer" targeting audience might not yield as much as one might expect. Many of these people have heard/tried MUDs, but are just frankly not interested, since they either don't like to have to work off a computer, or don't like the restricted world they find themselves in (table top is *much* more flexible in terms of what can be done, and always will be until we can interface direectly with human brains. Yes, there are some things a MUD can do that table top games can't--in depth player kill for example--and that in-itself should be a marketing ploy; find the differences and exploit the benifits that can't be executed in table top games.

Note 2: I've made a lot of generalities. I know I have. These are not definitive facts or professional survays. They're "guesses" as to what the outcome might be like, and guesses that disreguard a lot of possibilities. But that's why you do survaying; to generalize the playing field *properly*.

11-13-2004, 01:11 PM	#33
Tezcatlipoca Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 46	Something I haven't seen in this thread yet, which I think is something everyone either can or has thought of, is maybe a bit of statistical work. I'm not a marketing professional or even a student of one, but economics and marketing usually go hand in hand, and a lot of it is comprised of good old logic and common sense. Statistically, we need to find out what our current audience is; who plays these games already? Then find out where they are and what the best way to contact them. Without a real statistical study, my initial guess (from the years I've played and seeing who else is playing, granted on small "local" muds only) would be that the large majority of players are students, mostly collage age students, but with a good dose of high-school students (I think we can chauck up a large percentage of the "problem players" to being high-schoolers). IF that non-scientific observation is true, then it's reasonable to assume that most of the players that any campaign would target, would be more students. So, it would be best to target them directly. So, IF the students are the best people to target, then I'm not sure newspaper ads are your best means of communication. As mentioned previously by Matt I believe, online advertising does work, but unmentioned is you need to find the right places online. His techTV add worked as he mentioned, but I think probably because it tends to be targeted at younger inquisitive minds. So, we need to find locations that students frequent in order to maximize our return on that target audience, which is our maxium usage group. So find the locations they frequent the most. Most students end up living/learning/playing at Universities scattered around the county. Fairly cheap flier campaigns at your local University (check the University rules before going at it though) probably can be fairly effective. Again, the majority of mudders may very well be students, so if each posts at their university of choice, we've covered a lot of ground. There's a lot of assumptions in here, I know. That's why it calls for a fairly decent statistical investigation. I get the impression that most of the people that frequent this board, and even TMC arn't these common-student-players, but instead are more along the lines of the administrative folk, which tend to be post-student hard core gamers that play/run muds as a sideline hobby, and then the few minority that run it as their full time job. So doing a survay on the boards won't tell you much. Doing them on our individual MUDs can. Once we find out who the current target % is, we can start marketing to their peers. Once we've covered that ground, start on the next highest minority group, or start to explore (a more risky venture I think any good marketer will tell you) those that we can't difinitivly say are a good target group, but one we think could be. The most obvious here are "gammers" (of all ages) that might not know about MUDs. That in itself will take a larger more expensive statistical campaign to find those more... financially dangerous target groups; ones we arn't too sure of. Then probably another campaign to find out how sure we can be of them. I applogize for the length.. I tend not to write in short bursts, but try to explore all aspects that I can at the time. Note: the "gammer" targeting audience might not yield as much as one might expect. Many of these people have heard/tried MUDs, but are just frankly not interested, since they either don't like to have to work off a computer, or don't like the restricted world they find themselves in (table top is much more flexible in terms of what can be done, and always will be until we can interface direectly with human brains. Yes, there are some things a MUD can do that table top games can't--in depth player kill for example--and that in-itself should be a marketing ploy; find the differences and exploit the benifits that can't be executed in table top games. Note 2: I've made a lot of generalities. I know I have. These are not definitive facts or professional survays. They're "guesses" as to what the outcome might be like, and guesses that disreguard a lot of possibilities. But that's why you do survaying; to generalize the playing field properly.