marketing queston

[Admiral Fisher]

Hi how r u? Could u tell me how to do marketing? I can never sell my products because I can't market enough eventhough I am marketing to death. Thank you.

[GoldenPhysics]

At some point, anounce a release date, then occasionally do a press build and press release and do them more frequently as you get closer to the release date.

[Admiral Fisher]

Originally posted by GoldenPhysics:

At some point, anounce a release date, then occasionally do a press build and press release and do them more frequently as you get closer to the release date.

that is what I do. I do them every month by relase date.

[Leettari]

First things first.

Each press release you do has reduced effect compared to the last one you.
Press releases net you only a small number of followers and your first release lasts for about 2-3 months before you start losing fans.
From there on out, depending on your reputation and recognition on the market your product is aiming for, it may only last a month but spamming it has no real downsides (e.g. lost reputation etc) so it's recommended to do that every month leading to release to give less of a workload for your marketing team with 'hyping'.

Same applies for press build but overall press build still pays off in big numbers*.
Press builds (seemingly) always last for 3 months before the effect is completely nullified.
*Assuming you have a good product so remember to review it many times during alpha and remember you can only review it in alpha.

Ideally, here is how I approach marketing.

Towards the end of alpha (when line and art increments get noticeably slower) and when your last review has netted you at least a solid 9.2 (ideally higher) I announce release date and do my first press release.

Just before I start losing fans from the first press release (2-3 months) I do my first press build.
If I have ideal conditions (check above regarding reputation etc) the first press build will net me an insane amount of fans over the course of 3 months.

The first press build will give you a solid indication and estimation of (roughly) how many fans you can expect to have at release date.

From there on out I keep doing press releases on a monthly basis and aim to release a press build roughly every 3 months.

FYI my month is 2 days long and I usually give about 6 to 9 months for beta build fixes.
In span of this time I do 6 to 9 press releases and 2 to 4 press builds.


Works very well for me every time.

tl;dr
- Review your product in alpha
- Don't promote to beta before you get either 9.2 (Great Quality) or 9.5+ (Outstanding Quality)
- Promote earlier if in dire need for $$$ otherwise wait it out
- Just before you promote to beta announce release date + do your first press release
- Do press releases on a monthly basis
- Do first press build 2 months from first press release
- Do total of 3 to 4 press builds throughout the beta phase
- Ideally (depending on how long your month is, mine is 2 days) give 6 to 9 months for beta phase
- If done correctly and your product is great you'll get insane amount of fans by release date

[Ab]

I get my game to Alpha, and get it to a state where reviews show yellow faces, indicating it's mediocre. I then write a Press Release (PR) and get some fans. I then wait until my game is better, and reviews show green faces, and I do another PR. Then I take it to bug fixing stage, fix a tonne of bugs, and about 3 months before selling it, I send out a Press Build, which - if the quality of my product is good - gets me an insane amount of followers.

Once the game is released, just start marketing it. Set a budget depending on how wealthy your company is, and how good the product is selling. There's no point giving your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 3/10 game a budget of 50,000 for marketing when it's barely getting you $1,000 in sales. For products that are received very well and sell a lot, you give it a budget of 20 or 30k. There's a bunch of factors determining how much money to sink into it: 1) how big is your marketing team 2) how skilled are they

If you've got a large, very skilled marketing team, they can blow through your 50,000 budget in no time. So scale it up to ensure they're always working to sell this amazing product, but don't overdo it to the point where you're spending more money on marketing than you're getting from sales!

Also, your marketers will work every day to keep the amount of sales profit up. It's the little green bar you see being filled up. The faster they fill it up, the less money you lose on sales each day.

[LST Theunknown]

Originally posted by Q8ee:

Once the game is released, just start marketing it. Set a budget depending on how wealthy your company is, and how good the product is selling. There's no point giving your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 3/10 game a budget of 50,000 for marketing when it's barely getting you $1,000 in sales. For products that are received very well and sell a lot, you give it a budget of 20 or 30k. There's a bunch of factors determining how much money to sink into it: 1) how big is your marketing team 2) how skilled are they

ehm i have always set the marketing budget to 0(= no limit) but I guess it is limited depending on the available money written in the right box ... Now I have lots of money and superior Software but if I set the marketing budget to 100k it is filling up but at next days it is climbing down till negative numbers :O

[Proteus]

What you see actually is hthe revenue of your program.
If the marketing budget rises over the revenue for the program at this day, the number becomes negative (and grows even more negative, as the marketing team accumulates aditional costs over the course of the day).

When this time has come you should think about setting a limit to your marketing budget that is lower than the current daily revenue of your program (or,if the revenue is extremly low (after the program has beeen out for several months/years), maybe even canceling the marketing project altogether)

[LST Theunknown]

That make sense! Thank you for the tip!

But there is no way for reviving old releases with marketing in order to sell the last 20k of copies in the store or?

[Proteus]

Originally posted by LST Theunknown:

That make sense! Thank you for the tip!

But there is no way for reviving old releases with marketing in order to sell the last 20k of copies in the store or?

The only thing you could try is, to port the pogram to another popular OS. Sometimes thhis improves diminishing sales (if your program was programmed for an OS that currently gets out of fashion).

Don't know anything else you can do.

[LST Theunknown]

Originally posted by Leettari:

tl;dr
- Review your product in alpha
- Don't promote to beta before you get either 9.2 (Great Quality) or 9.5+ (Outstanding Quality)
- Promote earlier if in dire need for $$$ otherwise wait it out
- Just before you promote to beta announce release date + do your first press release
- Do press releases on a monthly basis
- Do first press build 2 months from first press release
- Do total of 3 to 4 press builds throughout the beta phase
- Ideally (depending on how long your month is, mine is 2 days) give 6 to 9 months for beta phase
- If done correctly and your product is great you'll get insane amount of fans by release date

If I press release monthly , the press is saying , that I am annoying them D: Is that bad?

[Proteus]

Originally posted by LST Theunknown:

Originally posted by Leettari:

tl;dr
- Review your product in alpha
- Don't promote to beta before you get either 9.2 (Great Quality) or 9.5+ (Outstanding Quality)
- Promote earlier if in dire need for $$$ otherwise wait it out
- Just before you promote to beta announce release date + do your first press release
- Do press releases on a monthly basis
- Do first press build 2 months from first press release
- Do total of 3 to 4 press builds throughout the beta phase
- Ideally (depending on how long your month is, mine is 2 days) give 6 to 9 months for beta phase
- If done correctly and your product is great you'll get insane amount of fans by release date

If I press release monthly , the press is saying , that I am annoying them D: Is that bad?

Yes it is. The more frequently you do press releases (or press builds), the less effective they are.
The frequency of press builds and prss releases btw. is counted independently from each other ... so, if you do a press release at this month and a press build the next one, the press won't complain

[LST Theunknown]

I know I know it is less effective and independent from eachother.

I worried about that annoying because for me I'll get negative followers :S

Thats why I am confused why Leettari says he monthly bring out press releases ;)

[Proteus]

Dunno, I for myself try to not anger the press too much, therefore I will usually only do 2-3 press releases over th course of the evelopment cycle.

On the other hand it is easily testable by yourself ... after each prss release you (usually) see the number of followers of your program rise.
Well, do it on a monthly schedule and then look if, at one time, the number of followers doesnt increase anymore ... or even falls.

And then report the findings in the thread, so that everyone here will be able to profit from this knowledge :)

[LST Theunknown]

Ay ay ! I will do it! :)

[yes]

i do a press release when i promote to beta to announce my software and one a month before final release - the 2nd one is mainly fluff though, or so it feels, as the most followers seem to come from press builds anyway.

[LST Theunknown]

The Software Time:

"Aperture Science won't stop sending out press releases about their antivirus program Snifferwatch" XD

*next month*

"Yes, we know, SnifferWatch is coming soon, could you stop writing about it?"