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Greyfox

Marketing plan timeline

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Ya I know this thread will get locked and deleted just like the last one but since Retro seems to not be bothering to reply to my PMs anymore, here we go again.(Very poor customer service btw)

So,  Timeline on marketing?   As a customer of this subscription based service that has lost 2 of 3 players in the last 2 years I'd like to be reassured that there is a timeline.   Not this vague "there is a plan"  Bull.  As a customer, I want to know that it will be worth my money to keep paying prem and upkeep.  I'd love for Wurm to still be around many years from now, I've put ALOT of time into my chrs and deeds.   I'd like a little reassurance, as a customer, that there is a timeline to bring numbers back up.  More prem players equals more money for Code club equals more money for dev time and longevity for Wurm.
But wait, let me guess "We will not discuss business plans with players".  Betcha Retro still can't call us customers.

For context;
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Not a single company would give you an answer. Go to a local business(where you are customer) and tell them, that as a customer you demand to see their marketing plans, business plan etc. You would be sent to where the sun doesn't shine. Why do you expect any different here? You are a customer, don't act like you were owning a part of the company. Paying for premium does give you only what it promises, premium time in game.

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Ah, I'd also like to see something more than "we need to iron out a few things in the background".

A person is hired full time to work with communication and pr, and one is hired full time to do some work on payments/moneytransactions/something obscure that we don't know.

What is it that two full time staff can't do in half a year concerning this all?

 

And please give a real answer this time, not the "hey, it is none of your bisnis " shade, or the "we need to iron out a few things" shade.

Those shades only make us think that Retro and T are not working with stuff they were hired to work with.

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1 minute ago, rixk said:

Not a single company would give you an answer. Go to a local business(where you are customer) and tell them, that as a customer you demand to see their marketing plans, business plan etc. You would be sent to where the sun doesn't shine. Why do you expect any different here? You are a customer, don't act like you were owning a part of the company. Paying for premium does give you only what it promises, premium time in game.


Actually, for giggles, I sent Netflix(A subscription based service)  A customer support inquiry, just so I could counter your exact argument.   They seemed a little dumbfounded that I'd ask about marketing, but assured me they have multiple marketing stratagies in place.  They even mentioned that includes increasing their Canadian marketing in 2017.  
So, nice try.

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8 minutes ago, Greyfox said:


Actually, for giggles, I sent Netflix(A subscription based service)  A customer support inquiry, just so I could counter your exact argument.   They seemed a little dumbfounded that I'd ask about marketing, but assured me they have multiple marketing stratagies in place.  They even mentioned that includes increasing their Canadian marketing in 2017.  
So, nice try.

So.. tell us  then, what are the marketing plans for Netflix.. don't tell, that "they have multiple strategies in place", give me details of their marketing strategy.

 

EDIT:

I'm willing to bet, that customer service employee doesn't even know much about details. Especially in a such big company.

Edited by rixk
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3 minutes ago, rixk said:

So.. tell us  then, what are the marketing plans for Netflix.. don't tell, that "they have multiple strategies in place", give me details of their marketing strategy.

I already did.

 

8 minutes ago, Greyfox said:

They even mentioned that includes increasing their Canadian marketing in 2017.



Timeline.   All I'm asking for of the Wurm team.   A simple timeline.   As you can see in my PM to Retro, I'm not asking for how much Code Club will spend, I'm not asking for what form that advertising will take.   I'm simply asking for a timeline.
Something to reassure me, as a customer, that Code Club is looking at marketing Wurm, with a serious timeline and not just "We have a plan to make Wurm great again".

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Lol I wouldn't respond to those PMs either to be honest. Try sending a message to Microsoft and ask them about their internal affairs that you have no business meddling in and see how forthcoming they'd be. It's one thing to ask about the concrete plans for a certain aspect of the game, another to ask about things that only concern the employees of a company. If I was working at a company that told the customers about something that concerned my job I'd be pretty pissed off, because what I do and when I do it shouldn't be something that customers poke their nose in. The resulting product from my job and its release dates and functions is what the customers get - Not the schedule so that they can complain every time I take an unannounced crap.

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7 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

What's the difference in players and customers?

 

 


The fact that you even ask that is part of the problem.  
It's more easy to dismiss customers if you euphemize and refer to them as something else.  "Player" is what your customers refer to eachother as.   Just like people who go to a store refer to eachother as "Shoppers".  In any case, those groups are still called, and treated like, customers to the business and the employees of said business should treat them like customers.
Good attempt to "tip toe" out though.  However, being confrontational with a customer rather then simply answering a question, not very professional.  
If you don't know the answer, simply state that you do not know.  

 

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We will be increasing our global marketing over late 2016 and into 2017 through various strategies including social media and advertising.

 

Also, Taufiqkh is contracted part time to work on improving our payment systems and will also be working along with others on the planned account system in 2017.

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Just now, Retrograde said:

We will be increasing our global marketing over late 2016 and into 2017 through various strategies including social media and advertising.


Thank you.  That's a timeline.  All I asked for.   We can look forward to advertising near the end of this year and into next year.  Something to look forward to when those ads launch, something to provide assurance to existing customers.

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"Have multiple strategies in place for 2017" probably applies accurately to Wurm marketing aswell. Even if mentioning "In Canada in it."

 

Netflix provided nothing more than "We do not discuss this with customers." They just used "marketing strategies put in place" to make you feel important as a customer, whereas Wurm team told you the truth.

 

Edit; Apparently Retro already got more cheese to sell and they outperformed exampleflix by many multiplications. ;)

Edited by Raybarg
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Look. I'm a big fan of marketing myself - and I would love to see them quelling the scared and huddled masses by telling us sweet lies about proposed venues for advertising.

 

However, harassing them because they won't divulge their secrets does nothing but make future developers more reticent to talk about this already touchy subject.

 

They said they have a marketing campaign in the works. I believe them. End of story.

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Its not even secrets, Dairuka, its information that shouldnt concern the player, and that no company would divulge, unless divulging it is in itself part of a promotion system.   The thread is making unreasonable demands and should be locked as many times as its recreated.

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Just my two cents. it seems that a game like this, the best marketing strategy is using your existing customers to promote the game.  Sooooo... if we all want the game to progress we can help by spreading the word.  Most businesses grow the most this way. 

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6 hours ago, Retrograde said:

We will be increasing our global marketing over late 2016 and into 2017 through various strategies including social media and advertising.

 

Also, Taufiqkh is contracted part time to work on improving our payment systems and will also be working along with others on the planned account system in 2017.

 

In my last thread about advertisement this is how you could have handled it rather then removing the thread. Players/customers who care about seeing Wurm spring back to life only want to know that there are in fact plans set in motion rather then the silent treatment we get. Most of the time and in my case as well we for the most part don't want to know how you are going to do something but that you are going to do something.

 

You in your position can also take great advantage of these sort of threads just to see what players/customers might have for ideas that you and the Wurm team may not have thought of. Completely free of charge you have a brainstorming team at your disposal. And people like to hear themselves talk it makes them feel better so let them when you have everything to gain from it as long as it all remains to the point.

 

Something that the Wurm team might not know can come from many of Wurms players. Such as the reason why many of us cannot get close gamer friends to even touch the game... They won't even make a free account and log in for a few seconds! There are multi reasons for it and many of the reasons stem from the lack of advertisement showing the many hidden gems Wurm has to offer. The entire Wurm community could provide many many suggestions that you could pick from.

 

All you have to do is ask... Ask for what information you want more comments on, what aspects of the game could be the best advertised in the opinions of the players who try to recruit players into Wurm. 

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6 hours ago, Retrograde said:

We will be increasing our global marketing over late 2016 and into 2017 through various strategies including social media and advertising.

 

Also, Taufiqkh is contracted part time to work on improving our payment systems and will also be working along with others on the planned account system in 2017.

if you guys make it possible to auto pay using paypal you would make me so happy, i keep missing out on loyality rewards because i sometimes forget to resub before it runs out.

so auto paying using paypal please :)

 

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Pretty much any marketing the devs do is a positive move since the only real marketing done thus far was what... bashur? Lol

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Elroth I think that loyalty thing is off, now we only get yellow potions?

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I volunteer to advertise Wurm at the old folks home ( where I work )

 

they have lots of time on their hands but we may need to add a large print GUI option

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Can they not add wurm online to steam? or is that impossible now WU is already out on steam?

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On 10/25/2016 at 9:19 AM, fatads said:

Can they not add wurm online to steam? or is that impossible now WU is already out on steam?

probably not since you are "not suppose" to be able to have multiple clients running with steam. (you can work around this..., but still) Also there will probably be some confusion for someone to choose. 

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Another issue with adding WO to Steam is the monthly subscription would have to be more expensive if OneTooFree is to maintain current revenues per player as Steam takes a cut.

With regards to a marketing timeline, I don't think there is any necessity to have a published plan which customers can critique. I get why people want to know because a good PR / Marketing / Advertising strategy can lead to increased numbers of players which improves the enjoyment of the game for everyone. With a competent plan it will also generate a Return on Investment which would further improve development resources, so it's clear why customers want that information. I just don't think it is necessary and most companies will not release internal business strategy documents like that.

Wurm in particular has always had an issue with PR and Marketing which has always stemmed from confidence in the game among the leadership. This is not to denigrate the game or current and former leaders, but all too often there was a fear of too much exposure of the game because it was "not ready" or "not until x feature is implemented". This always pushed back my own plans for Wurm PR / Marketing / Advertising while I was assisting in this area some years ago.

If I would offer my 2 iron, and this is only intended as advice not as criticism, and you will agree I am making constructive suggestions here, I would urge a press strategy first and foremost. If Wurm has someone internally who has formal experience working with the press, get them to write press releases and to develop a relationship with journalists in the gaming world. Some of the very biggest spikes in Wurm population have been as a result of positive press coverage, which is free to achieve if you are sending out press releases. I can tell you this for a fact.

I have a good very recent example. The cooking stuff is great and is certainly something Wurm needs to shout about. Yet it seems there was no attempt to gather press coverage except by a player - Milosanx - which led to it being covered in Massively Overpowered. The credit is at the bottom and information was gathered from the forums. Really they should have had a Press Release to work from, along with every other games website we could list.

I think this is particularly important given some parts of Wurm are dead and intermittent coverage led by gaming magazines, such as when I was approached by RPS this month, allows those magazines to set the narrative, or at least not know that the one particular server I was on is an exception to the rule - Wurm is not dying. But those journalists can only know that if you tell them in the form of press releases.

Marketing involves analysing a lot of data (which we do have) about audience and customer habits and it would be worth the team looking into but again it requires a little experience. Advertising follows on from Marketing, where you specifically target audiences with advertising campaigns based on your marketing research.

 

Edited by Wossoo
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It's not our business realistically, and generally player feedback gets misunderstood most of the time which seems to have happened here to the OP. My wisdom of the day is to let them run the game how they wish to run it, eventually they might see some error. You could say, "I told you so" but they wont care or acknowledge it probably, being as were players and not shareholders. (Not even sure you can buy shares, let me know if you can!)

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it's none of your business what and how they will do marketing.....you can make suggestions and humbly accept it, if they don't realize your suggestions, thats it.

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