Outsource or increase effectiveness marketing?

[Hunterosity]

Hey everyone, so I've been playing Software Inc for a couple of hours now, and I'm facing one issue: my marketing team is not strong enough to market my products.

I use 3 days in a month, and I'll take my OS as example. I want my marketing team to spend 5m a day (15m in a month) on marketing, because my OS has a big reach and I earn a lot, though I feel I can earn more if I spend more.

I have 3 marketing teams (totalling 287 employees) working different hours a day (21 hours of productivity every day). Team 1 has 138% compatibility, team 2 has 158% compatibility and team 3 has 196% compatibility. Most of my marketing employees have (nearly) maxed out stats in design, art and programming.

I have big rooms, lots of space, but only between 10 and 15 employees per room. Each room has 200% environment. The temperature is proper as well, regulated and stuff.

However, over the duration of a day, my teams manage to spend 950k on one marketing project (they're not working on anything else).

So, long story short, can I outsource my marketing (like a game function or perhaps a mod) or can I somehow increase their effectiveness?

[Stealth]

Why do your marketers have skills in prog, design and art? I think they just need marketing unless something changed in A10?

[RoxiSinister]

287 employees just for marketing a single product?? Marketers need to have high marketing skills. Design, Art, and Programming skills are only useful if you're doing one of those tasks. Also, 15m (assuming that means million) is quite a reach for marketing a single project. I"ve not tested in A10, but in A9 you could really only expect 15-20k from a single marketer with maxxed out MARKETING skills. Using that number you'd need close to 1,000 marketerrs to everr hope to achieve your goal. There isn't a vanilla way to outsource marketing. I don't remember seeing anything as a mod, but I don't keep up that closely with mods. You can check the marketing skill of your employees by ticking the checkboxes at the top of your employees window and the stat will be found on the far right side.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198185505159/screenshot/919170173584533471

I get about $65k from these four marketers on 3 seperate projects, so it seems the 15-20k is still relevant for maxxed marketing skill.

[Hunterosity]

Originally posted by 07CobaltGirl:

287 employees just for marketing a single product?? Marketers need to have high marketing skills. Design, Art, and Programming skills are only useful if you're doing one of those tasks. Also, 15m (assuming that means million) is quite a reach for marketing a single project. I"ve not tested in A10, but in A9 you could really only expect 15-20k from a single marketer with maxxed out MARKETING skills. Using that number you'd need close to 1,000 marketerrs to everr hope to achieve your goal. There isn't a vanilla way to outsource marketing. I don't remember seeing anything as a mod, but I don't keep up that closely with mods. You can check the marketing skill of your employees by ticking the checkboxes at the top of your employees window and the stat will be found on the far right side.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198185505159/screenshot/919170173584533471

I get about $65k from these four marketers on 3 seperate projects, so it seems the 15-20k is still relevant for maxxed marketing skill.

About 75% of my marketers (who've been around for a decade or so) have very high marketing skills. What's the optimal budget I should give each project? Currently, I'm just assuming that more money = more reach = more sales, am I wrong in thinking so?

[Maevon]

You can outsource marketing in alpha 10, however I'm not sure how efficient it is. You can buy out a company and have it as a subsidiary. But I'm not sure how good they are at marketing, I usually just give them support work.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Joe:

You can outsource marketing in alpha 10, however I'm not sure how efficient it is. You can buy out a company and have it as a subsidiary. But I'm not sure how good they are at marketing, I usually just give them support work.

When you buy a company, do you have to pay their running costs (salaries etc.)? Or is it an initial purchase and then you can use them for support free of charge from then on?

[RoxiSinister]

Originally posted by Hunterosity || Moun10:

Originally posted by 07CobaltGirl:

287 employees just for marketing a single product?? Marketers need to have high marketing skills. Design, Art, and Programming skills are only useful if you're doing one of those tasks. Also, 15m (assuming that means million) is quite a reach for marketing a single project. I"ve not tested in A10, but in A9 you could really only expect 15-20k from a single marketer with maxxed out MARKETING skills. Using that number you'd need close to 1,000 marketerrs to everr hope to achieve your goal. There isn't a vanilla way to outsource marketing. I don't remember seeing anything as a mod, but I don't keep up that closely with mods. You can check the marketing skill of your employees by ticking the checkboxes at the top of your employees window and the stat will be found on the far right side.
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198185505159/screenshot/919170173584533471

I get about $65k from these four marketers on 3 seperate projects, so it seems the 15-20k is still relevant for maxxed marketing skill.

About 75% of my marketers (who've been around for a decade or so) have very high marketing skills. What's the optimal budget I should give each project? Currently, I'm just assuming that more money = more reach = more sales, am I wrong in thinking so?

Ultimately more money does equal more reach, however, the audience has a limit and there is always a point of diminishing returns. The population who can buy your product is finite. If it is an operating system (or CMS), the reach is the entire population as shown in the develop software window. You have to compete for them, however. If the product is OS specific, the reach is the number of users using the OS's on which you can run your software. This can be extended by porting your products to new pplatforms, of course. As for optimal budget, I have no answer. I try to keep mine under 10% of total sales in a given month and normally it's probablyh around 5%. Exceeding monthly sales obviously is pointless affter a few months, as you'd just be bleeding out the company. Simply put, once you reach "Unavoidable" for your marketing strategy descriptor, you shouldn't go higher.

Originally posted by Joe:

You can outsource marketing in alpha 10, however I'm not sure how efficient it is. You can buy out a company and have it as a subsidiary. But I'm not sure how good they are at marketing, I usually just give them support work.

I didn't have much luck with doing that. It seemed ridiculously inefficient to me.