Promoting Dead Men Walking

[Gone_Away]

Hi Everyone...

Just for my understanding, can the Head Admins and the Community Admins please advise what the collective strategy is to continue to market and promote Dead Men Walking?

That's TL, Pen, Gandalf, Smilo, Benny, and Whitey.

I'd like to know what your continued stragegy is to market the dMw community?

As a game leader, I've been given very limited guidance on what the continued strategy is and also as a game leader what my remit is with respect to marketing the game etc. It appears that when we try to take initiative and look at alternatiive marketing strategies for the game I'm met with controls and ney-says instead of guidance and support.

The community has several competent and capable GL's who are active in their own games and working to promote them. What is lacking is a strategy which includes growth strategies as well as continuation of the community as a whole. Over the last 5 years, dMw has stagnated where I see other communities moving forward and gaining popularity (and numbers).

Where do the Head Admins and Community Admins see the Community direction in the next few years and what is the plan with continued growth and success of the organisation?

Thanks for your insight and guidance, 2012 has a potential to be a great year for all of us..

NF

[TeaLeaf]

It appears that when we try to take initiative and look at alternatiive marketing strategies for the game I'm met with controls and ney-says instead of guidance and support.

I think if this is happening then I'm unaware of it.   Can you provide examples of where this has happened?   To the best of my knowledge we welcome and support initiatives so long as they actually promote what we stand for?

[Penfold]

Aye, what he said.

Following the last LAN we think we were missing a trick with not getting servers up and out there as soon as the game is available.

To that end we've proactively tried to get servers up and running as soon as a game is available. Often this won't have any dedicated leadership in place so a current GL or Community Admin will look after it as a whole until a GL and admin team can be appointed.

We don't guide GL's as, ultimately, you all know what we do, how we do it and what we're looking to achieve. Outside promotion is hard but it has to fall down into the routes already discussed. Social Media is the obvious one and things such as vid's are great (so long as they promote us and our standards). Personally I was down on the BC2 ones as they didn't nothing to promote us or the way we play. A bit of fun, possibly, but not the right sort of endorsement imho. However the right vid, showing what can be accomplished with teamplay would be perfect.

Ghosty's business card idea was great and that's proved popular. Impossible to judge on deliverables but that's something I'm always battling.

Really we're happy to support the GL's in whatever way and however we can.

To me, as I mentioned in the other thread about BF3, the core way to attract new players has always been getting pubbies on the server then cultivating them a picking off the best. Half the battle is won. You've found someone looking for a server who plays the game we're recruiting for. It *should* be a no-brainer. Granted if the server is empty it's not going to help much

So long as EVERYONE is prepared to do that then we should have no problem in propagating. It's boring, yes, but it's necessary. I demonstrated it in BSGO online a few weeks back. I went on a drive, helping people asking questions, inviting them to join in our squads and it resulted in a three or four new recruits. Now we'll lose some along the way (and *want* to lose some) and people will drop out but it's all a numbers game. If we lose 50% of two new people that sucks. If we lose 50% of 100 people then it's not a problem.

Everyone needs to get on board for it to work. The admins need to admin properly and effectively and fairly without it being too draconian or heavy handed. the players need to encourage, invite and welcome new players. if someone joins the squad explain that you're all using TS and invite them to the forum to join you. Otherwise they'll think that they're on a server full of mutes.

Over and above that, we need to look at the website and I guess SEO's. This is something we'll look at and come back on

[Benny]

Afternoon, another busy day at the office for the mugs who have to work.

Anyway, I'm not sure that we have the right question here. I'm concious that having a collective strategy (for what amounts to ~10 very different games and community sections) is a question that requires more than a forum discussion and quick closure. It's more of a collective responsibility as to how each individual game needs to be approached.

If, for example you take Arma (a while back now), the take up was bolstered, albeit on a small level, by posts in the one forum that *all* arma players go to (at Bohemia) and creating our own tailored missions. Now that model doesn't work for BF3 as I understand it. BF3 is more a ranking game? (I genuinely don't understand how seeding/ranking etc works for BF).

So to wind up my rambling, is the question not more two pronged in that;
1. How do we promote the community as a whole?
2. How do we promote individual games in line with the community ethos that everyone has worked hard to achieve?

The second is a tough call (and we've been down this road a lot), do we want volumes of players and high web presence only to find we dilute our core values, or do we want strong core values and a smaller response...or a mix that sits somewhere in the middle?

Do we want a facebook, twitter and youtube channel? Will it achieve the right results, more importantly, will it be born then not run with the vigour it needs?

Sorry, more questions than answers, but as I mentioned, a forum is a tough place to have a discussion as it's difficult to convey the right tone in words.

[Gone_Away]

Thank you Pen and Benny for your reasoned responses.

The struggle with quality v quantity will always remain in my opinion. As to a large extent, quantity brings flexability. It also requires more structure and certainly more depth in structure than we currnently have. Not to say that the structure wouldn't evolve naturally as the numbers grew but it would need to be planned out. Of course the numbers would dilute some of the ethics initially but I think the benefits would outweigh the negatives. For example, if we had increased numbers, launching servers and new games would be a breeze. I'm not just refering to my own game but all of our offerings. It's that saturation that we're missing.

One of my concerns is that the level of diversification that the current user base is "demanding" out-strips the size of the membership. It's diluting the quality of the gameplay. It was easy when there was only one or two games dMw supported, but now we're trying to be all things to all people and I don't think it's working. However, it's a catch-22, if we don't move with the times and support new games, we lose the membership. However, with the number of games we support we are suffering from our own internal compettition between gameleaders which results in games dwindling or sitting idle in some cases and not supported for long in others.

Promotion of the community as a whole is something that we don't do very well at all. While the GL's are given some freedom to promote their games, we're not given any tools to do so.

What about a YouTube promotional video template? What about a general promotional video for the community? What about seeking out other clans to merge with?

The ideas are many but ultimately the expectation has to be on yourselves as Community Leaders to determine the direction and course of action (or inaction) for the Community.

I look forward to Gandy, Smilo's and Whitey's responses as well.

[TeaLeaf]

Sorry to have not supplied a response yet, but I was waiting for your response to my initial reply as I felt that seemed quite an important point to have resolved.

I'm also aware that this is not a simple topic, there are many 'details' that impinge upon strategy and formulating those in a forum response is fairly tricky.  This is precisely the sort of question that best suits the GL meetings we do twice per year, so might I suggest that would be more productive to hold a TS meeting if we establish a suitable agenda?   We can talk through an issue far more completely and with a better understanding of it if it is done verbally in my opinion.

[Gone_Away]

Thanks TL. I think that is a really good idea (TS chat).

I think some genuine consideration from the CL's is in order as well. It would be better if you guys were all on the same page beforehand to make the meeting more productive.

My Agenda ideas are:

Membership Drive - How many active members are we?
Number of Games to support - What should be the limit? Should their be a limit?
Marketing tools for GL's - YouTube template?
Ideas for general promotion of dMw.

[TeaLeaf]

Well, I don't mind chairing, so what we need is a quick round robin on who can make which nights.  Assuming we avoid the New Year, let's please see who can NOT attend on the following nights:

Monday 2nd Jan
Tuesday 3rd Jan TL: wow raid but can be in TS channel
Wednesday 4th Jan
Thursday 5th Jan TL: wow raid but can be in TS channel
Friday 6th Jan
Sat 7th Jan

Timing of the meeting, let's say 8pm UK time and aiming to last maximum one hour.   We can finalise the agenda in the mean time and select the date/time at which least people are unavailable.   If too many peoplke can't make something next week then we'll bounce this to the week after, but let's try not to let this slip.

Draft Agenda: (will be tidied up as responses come in)
Membership Drive - How many active members are we?
Number of Games to support - What should be the limit? Should their be a limit?
Marketing tools for GL's - YouTube template?
Ideas for general promotion of dMw.

[Benny]

Happy to join, makes more sense in chat. Can't do Sat or Weds, should be alright other than that. If I get pulled around the country on another firing spree then I'll submit my notes before hand and discuss directly with TL.

ta

[Whitey]

I'd rather avoid raid nights (Tuesday/Thursday) but can be available any of the other evenings.

[GhostMjr]

I can jump in if you want me to unless it's a community leader only thing.

I think one thing to really add to the agenda is when is a game considered a dead duck?

We have some games that are no longer being played, still have ts channels and GL's.

If these GL's are free then they can be actively helping me as game development to find a new game.

We need to come with a way to actively welcome people to suggest ideas within our community and essentially get them involved.

Over the last month there has been decline in some game's server levels and this I think is due to people being occupied with the festive season.

However I think we need to be breaking the mould and mixing things up a bit.

Our lan's for instance desperately need a new solid base for online games.

Were TL and Pen able to visit that new place I found?

If we get people to come up with things they need to be followed up.

I guess what I am trying to say is providing we  are looking forward with their interests in mind they will keep coming back.

We are a volunteer community though although some would argue they are paying a subscription fee.

One of our biggest draws is our people, what we say do and our banter. This is coming from the why you joined thread I created.

Hopefully we can build on things we already have as there all there we just need to continue forward.

[Penfold]

I'm not free any evening until after the 9th January, sorry. (I'm helping backstage at the local panto (oh yes indeedy what an  exciting life I lead) and the performances are all next week)

By all means have the meeting without me.

[TeaLeaf]

@GhostMjr - can I ask you to talk to me separately on TS please so that I can answer the elements of your post which are OT questions and you can also then fill me in with what you meant by the 'volunteer' sentence please as it makes no sense to me!

[Gone_Away]

I'd prefer:

Monday 2nd Jan or
Friday 6th Jan

[Gone_Away]

In addition, can the other GL's please confirm their attendance? This concerns all of us and I'd really like your thougths and opinions.