Hub You - Internet and Businesses Online

Listening Techniques For More Effective Meetings, Part I
We all know what it’s like when a meeting doesn’t go smoothly. Discussions get derailed, tempers start to fray, and things are seldom resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. In such situation, the problem is often the result of poor communication—and poor communication is frequently caused by poor listening.Fortunately, there are some simple techniques which can be used to mitigate this problem. The most basic of these is called “active listening.” Now, I know what you’re thinking; this sounds like some goofy technique that simply states the obvious and wastes one’s time. The problem, however, is that most people consider themselves to be good listeners, but very few actually are.An active listener does three important things:First, he looks and sounds interested in the speaker. This requires looking directly at the speaker, maintaining eye contact if possible. By doing so, we let the speakers know that we are genuinely interested in what they have to say. (Admittedly, in many Western cultures, too much eye contact can make the speaker feel self-conscious. The key is to strike a balance, giving the speaker enough attention to convey understanding and interest.) It also helps to use vocalizations such as "uh-huh" and "yes" to encourage the speakers to continue.Second, an active listener strives to adopt the speaker's viewpoint. Try to see things from her point of view—especially if you find yourself disagreeing! Avoid interrupting or finishing that person’s sentences. Even if you disagree, try to suppress your initial reactions and respond from the speaker's frame of reference, not your own. Expressing dissent too quickly can be disastrous, if one has not properly understood a colleague’s point of view. Of course, it may be necessary to express disagreement—perhaps even strong contention—but one shouldn't do that without thoroughly understanding the speaker's point of view.Third, attempt to clarify the speaker's thoughts and feelings. This will help as one seeks to understand the other person. One way to do this is to ask open-ended questio

The indie game marketing plan lists what you will do for your website. Your website's main purpose is to get people to download the demo of your game. That means your plan should include the steps you will take to enhance the website's marketing capabilities. If your site gets visitors that visit only the first page and leave without downloading, then you need to refine your website. The other reason for your website to exist is to get people to purchase your game. Make sure user can access to purchase page within one or two mouse clicks.

Edoiki website
Edoiki website will use a virtual private server to handle traffic and make sure the system is online every hour of day. The website will present screenshots, player forums, contact information, company information and present clear and easily distinguishable download and purchase buttons. The website won't use Javascript or font that would make it hard to use the site. The headline of the site will be tested and the game requirements, features and any other game-related hints & tips will be listed. The site graphics will be polished by the game artist.
The website traffic will be estimated and website specific goals (the rate of downloads) will be refined to meet the download goals after initial number of downloads are received.

6. The Demo - Get Players To Purchase Your Game

Your game demo has only one single goal: to close the deal, to get the player to purchase the game. It's very important to have a good demo version of your game that fills its purpose. If the conversion rate - the rate of people who purchase the game after testing it - is low, then you might need to adjust your demo. Concentrate on following issues:

[1] Demo feature limitations: does the demo have limited features (like less units, levels, powers etc.) compared to the full version? Are you sure you are telling the player what he will get if he buys? Add nag screens to both beginning and the end of the demo. Use those screens to explain the limitations and benefits of purchasing the game.

[2] Demo time limitations: time limitation combined with feature limitations can be advantageous: offer 15 demo launches or 60 minutes of gameplay, or a 30-day period. Or try something in between.

[3] Guide the player to make the purchase: is it easy (within one or two mouse clicks) for player to purchase your game or enter to your game's purchase page? If not, adjust the demo.

7. Measurement - Be Aware of What's Going On

Staying Ahead with Strategy
Industry consolidations, shrinking margins and complex supply chains have industries across the board clamoring to impact efficiency and effectiveness. No stone is left unturned - most especially Internet-related expenses, still seen by many businesses as having "unverifiable" return-on-investment figures.With the right bid-management software, a company can turn that notion on its ear. Tracking and adjusting pay-per-click strategies and expenses to maximize sales result is a cutting-edge direction many successful businesses are buying into.When these number-crunching executives demand hard data to justify sales-and-marketing budgets, they turn to their trusted Internet-marketing partners, firms specializing in strategic pay-per-click and search-engine optimization, to collect the information.These days, any qualified, competent search-marketing firm already has a strong idea of what the client might want and can manipulate a bid-management tool to make it happen.Versatile and comprehensive, these tools can address universal Internet-advertising issues, including:conversion-data confidentiality to ensure the client knows its click-through rate, but the competition does not; return-on-investment-based bidding, which ties a sales- or lead-conversion code back into the bid-management software and adjusts bid prices based on historical conversion data; time savings through enhanced keyword tracking and adjustment capabilities; reduced cost when software spots, and automatically adjusts, bid-pricing gaps; double counting of sales, which can lead to inaccurate ROI figures and faulty bid adjustments, and bid adjustments during non-peak hours to extend budgets and improve competitiveness during peak times.Justifying the investment into bid-management software becomes simple when decision-makers see how accurately they can gauge and alter advertising strategy.Bid-management software provides insight into the entire process, spotting trends that may need to be addressed — and costs that may be out of line — before budget dam

Introduction

A marketing plan might sound something awfully hard to do for a game developer, but to briefly put it: the marketing plan is your flightplan on how to get your game to your players. The contents of a marketing plan can be divided into several sections. A strategic plan or the company's business plan will describe the company's strategic objectives. The marketing plan will focus on those major objectives, and how to reach those goals.

You don't have to have tens of pages long marketing plan that you will never use. It's much better to have a short plan that you use. Use your computer's desktop wallpaper or a one page printed plan where you put the marketing plan: goals, actions and notes. Then use and refine the plan.

Contents of a Marketing Plan

These sections of a marketing plan are listed below.

[1] Goals
[2] Distribution
[3] Product
[4] Promotion
[5] Website
[6] Demo
[7] Measurement
[8] Maintenance
[9] Refinement

1. Goals - Make Sure You Know Where You Are Heading

Goals define where you are going. In an indie marketing plan, you can start by choosing the goal for the desired income. Then, you continue by adding the goals for sales, downloads, conversion rate, and the price for your product. Let's assume your goal is to make $50.000. The pricing of a game may depend on several variables. You might look at what others are using and settle for $19.95. Or you might try a bargain price and go with $9.95. Some people have used $29.95. Depending on your game, the company's profile, target market, you might price your game differently. It's worth noting that you might want to adjust the price later. Maybe you realize that $9.95 is too low and go with $15.95 and still get the same number of sales. But for starters, let's assume you use $19.95 as the price of your game.

The eCommerce provider gets about 10% of each sale, so the actual profit for you per game would be about $18. To make $50.000 you would need about 2800 sales. If you assume that one out of hundred players purchase your game, then game's conversion rate would be 1.0%. The rule of thumb could be that very targeted games receive higher conversion rates, up to 2%, 3% or even 5% while more generic games, or games with severe competition may receive a .1% - .5% conversion rate. That means about 1-5 sales per 1000 downloads. Let's assume you try to get your game's quality to such a level that you receive a 1.0% conversion rate. Now as you do some math you can see that to reach 2800 sales you would need 280.000 downloads for your game.

A goal wouldn't be a goal without an exact date. Have an exact date for the goal. Split the goal in smaller divisions: months, quarters or years - or something that suits you best.

Example marketing plan goals for Edoiki game

The goals for Edoiki are:

* Direct Sales goal: $50.000 (after eCommerce provider expenses)

* Other Sales goal: $50.000 (after publisher/distributor expenses)

* Total Sales: $100.000

Exact direct sales details:

* Initial price: $19.95

* Conversion rate goal: 1.0%

* Downloads goal: 280.000

* Units goal: 2.800

* Deadline: By the end of 2007

The quarterly download & sales goals for direct distribution:

* Q3-Q4/2006 - 600 units, 60.000 downloads

* Q1-Q2/2007 - 1100 units, 110.000 downloads

* Q3-Q4/2007 - 1100 units, 110.000 downloads

2. Distribution - Select the Right Channels For Your Game

There are several options for distributing your game. Indie and casual games tend to follow these main distribution channels:

* Direct website store

* Retail stores

* Portals

* Content delivery systems

* Publisher channels

Depending on your company's strategy, your marketing plan might use more than one distribution methods. An easy choice for direct selling would be to set up a website and concentrate on optimizing your website.

If you have a casual game, you might consider casual game portals. Different portals have different requirements for games. Here are some of the most common portals: Big Fish Games, EA's Pogo, Gamehouse, GameXtazy, GameZone, Playfirst, Real Arcade, Shockwave, Trygames, Yahoo Games. Include the portals you want to target in your marketing plan and check the top 10 bestsellers from each portal. After you have gone through the list, you have a better understanding on what kind of games portals want and how you can improve your product to meet their guidelines. Indies typically sell through portals or through their own website, but retail stores can be a valuable choice to consider. It is possible to contact retailers directly but in some cases, it can be very difficult or practically impossible. However, you can make it so that it's easy for them to contact you. Set up your company website in such way that distributors can easily get touch with you. Arrange the distribution options by country or by some other region. If you want to contact some publishers, then go on and make a deal. There are publishers that can deal with the retail stores.

Besides retail stores and portals, there's always the publisher opportunity. There are many indie game publishers that can get a deal for you: some of the popular ones are Garage Games, Indiepath and PopCap. All these companies provide different terms, and your marketing plan can change depending on the deals you make. If you commit yourself to creating an exclusive deal with some of the publishers, then you might not be allowed to sell the game through your website, thus making direct selling options unavailable. Besides pure publishers, there are also content delivery systems available. Valve's Steam is perhaps the biggest example and could be appealing to indies.

Your marketing plan should tell you which channels you are going to use, and which ones you'll ignore.

Edoiki distribution channels
Edoiki will be sold directly through Edoiki website. Besides the direct websites we'll approach Mumbo Jumbo/United Developers and Tri Synergy to discuss retail channels. There are other retail opportunities: Dreamcatcher/The Adventure Company, Cylon Interactive, Merscom, MWR connected - some of them will be considered in the future, while some of them will be ignored.
We will also contact a few publishers for a non-exclusive deals. The first ones to target are Shrapnelgames, JoWood and Matrix Games. Edoiki will omit the casual game portals, as the game is targeting a different audience.
We'll also approach Valve and discuss the distributing opportunity via Steam.

3. Product - Have Something to Sell

Offer a high-quality product that people want to purchase. If the conversion rate is very low, then it might suggest that your product simply doesn't offer enough quality. Ask what players and other developers think about your product and refine the product until you start hearing that the only problem with your game is that "it's too addictive". Remember: the low conversion rate doesn't necessarily indicate a bad product. Ask people: if you hear comments that say that your product is fine but the website or the demo are poor, then forget polishing the product and move on to the next step in the marketing plan.

Make sure your product offering is in sync with your distribution strategy. If you are aiming for the portals, make sure your game appeals the portals and their players. If you are using retailers to get hardcore gamers to play your game, you need to design your product for the retail store customers.

4. Promotion - Make People Aware of Your Game

The next step in the marketing plan is to choose how to get people information about your product. You need to make people aware of your game and either guide them to your website for more information, or to get them to download the game through various sources. How you make the offer depends on the market segments your company has targeted. There are different types of players, games and needs. "Casual gamers" have different playing habits than "hardcore gamers". 6-year old kids play differently compared to 15- or 30-year old players. Females and males have different needs and wants for games. In Japan , they favor different kinds of games than in Germany. It's your job to define the market segments, and decide which segment (or segments) you choose to target your marketing.

There are several ways to segment the consumer market. The four common marketing segmentation variable types are: geographic (most likely world region or country, but also cities), demographic (age, gender, education, religion, occupation, income, family size), psychographic (social class, lifestyle, personality) and behavioral (casual to heavy user, attitude towards service, loyalty towards company, awareness stage, attitude towards product, genre, favorite games). Also the technical aspects (speed of Internet connection, age of computer) could be included in the segmentation.

After you have chosen the segments, you position your marketing message. Positioning is arranging your whole market offering in a way that it distinguishes your product. If you position yourself as offering the lowest price for young strategy gamers then the market message is much different than if you try to get offer high-quality, non-violent games for very religious players.

After you have selected your target segments, you need to reach those audiences in different ways. Here's a list of promotion efforts you might want to consider: major download sites, advertising, press releases, PAD services, magazine reviews, website reviews, news sites, other major websites, blogs, contests, nominations, affiliates, articles, forums, conferences, banner ads, text link ads, link exchanges and newsletters. There are also very creative options such as advertising banner in your own car back window or leaving demo CDs in busses - so use your imagination.

Depending on your distribution channel options, the promotion could be totally handled by the parties you are dealing with. If you sign a publishing deal, then you can expect the publisher to take care of the promotion.

Edoiki promotion efforts
Edoiki aims to please board gamers and non-casual gamers, players that are addicted to the online multiplayer game experience, and look for games where they can challenge their friends. These gamers don't necessarily have a favorite genre, their main goals is to play with friends - as long as the game is good. They are over 20 and mostly male. Their income level is more than $10,000 yearly and they can spend $20 or $30 easily for entertainment now and then. Our players own a high-speed internet connection (256 KB or better) or at least a fast IDSN connection. Our players have at least basic understanding of the English language, they are interested in Japanese/Chinese mythology and know something about Eastern cultures.
Edoiki will use several promotion methods: Google Adwords targeted directly to board games, banner ads on multiplayer and similar online sites, multiplayer gaming forums, press releases, newsletter announcements, major review sites, article writing, community forums, PAD services, blogs, entering the Independent Games Festival.

5. The Website - Get Players to Download Your Game Demo

Edoiki website
Edoiki website will use a virtual private server to handle traffic and make sure the system is online every hour of day. The website will present screenshots, player forums, contact information, company information and present clear and easily distinguishable download and purchase buttons. The website won't use Javascript or font that would make it hard to use the site. The headline of the site will be tested and the game requirements, features and any other game-related hints & tips will be listed. The site graphics will be polished by the game artist.
The website traffic will be estimated and website specific goals (the rate of downloads) will be refined to meet the download goals after initial number of downloads are received.

6. The Demo - Get Players To Purchase Your Game

[2] Demo time limitations: time limitation combined with feature limitations can be advantageous: offer 15 demo launches or 60 minutes of gameplay, or a 30-day period. Or try something in between.

[3] Guide the player to make the purchase: is it easy (within one or two mouse clicks) for player to purchase your game or enter to your game's purchase page? If not, adjust the demo.

7. Measurement - Be Aware of What's Going On

False Earning Claim Fraud in Business Opportunities
Most business opportunity specialists and practitioners are indeed legitimate. Most business opportunity sellers really do care about their customers and the buyer. However, it is a wide known fact that many Biz Op companies are fraudulent and will lie just to make the sale.The Federal Trade Commission is now onto this and has proposed new rules to prevent this from harming consumers. Below is a copy of the proposed rules that would prevent business opportunities salesman from lying about the amount of money that a potential buyer will make;Proposed section 437.5(d): False earnings claims“As noted throughout this NPR, the making of false earnings claims is the most prevalent problem in the offer and sale of business opportunities. Proposed section 437.5(d) would prohibit sellers from misrepresenting, directly or through a third party, the amount of sales, or gross or net income or profits a prospective purchaser may earn or that prior purchasers have earned. This prohibition would complement the Rule’s proposed earnings substantiation requirements detailed in proposed section 437.4. Thus, both unsubstantiated and false earnings claims would be prohibited by the Rule.”The Federal Trade Commission has done a whole series of studies on business opportunities and taken all the data in their databases to determine how best to solve this problem of fraud. Ethical practitioners in the business opportunities sector will be glad to know that those that give business opportunities being bad name now have new laws can rules to prevent them from doing so. Will this stop all the fraud? No, indeed it won't, as there will always be unethical practitioners in any type of business, however it is a good start in separating the honest businesspeople from the fraudsters. I hope you will consider this in 2006.

i.com/'>Edoiki are:

* Direct Sales goal: $50.000 (after eCommerce provider expenses)

* Other Sales goal: $50.000 (after publisher/distributor expenses)

* Total Sales: $100.000

Exact direct sales details:

* Initial price: $19.95

* Conversion rate goal: 1.0%

* Downloads goal: 280.000

* Units goal: 2.800

* Deadline: By the end of 2007

The quarterly download & sales goals for direct distribution:

* Q3-Q4/2006 - 600 units, 60.000 downloads

* Q1-Q2/2007 - 1100 units, 110.000 downloads

* Q3-Q4/2007 - 1100 units, 110.000 downloads

2. Distribution - Select the Right Channels For Your Game

There are several options for distributing your game. Indie and casual games tend to follow these main distribution channels:

* Direct website store

* Retail stores

* Portals

* Content delivery systems

* Publisher channels

Your marketing plan should tell you which channels you are going to use, and which ones you'll ignore.

Edoiki distribution channels
Edoiki will be sold directly through Edoiki website. Besides the direct websites we'll approach Mumbo Jumbo/United Developers and Tri Synergy to discuss retail channels. There are other retail opportunities: Dreamcatcher/The Adventure Company, Cylon Interactive, Merscom, MWR connected - some of them will be considered in the future, while some of them will be ignored.
We will also contact a few publishers for a non-exclusive deals. The first ones to target are Shrapnelgames, JoWood and Matrix Games. Edoiki will omit the casual game portals, as the game is targeting a different audience.
We'll also approach Valve and discuss the distributing opportunity via Steam.

3. Product - Have Something to Sell

4. Promotion - Make People Aware of Your Game

Edoiki promotion efforts
Edoiki aims to please board gamers and non-casual gamers, players that are addicted to the online multiplayer game experience, and look for games where they can challenge their friends. These gamers don't necessarily have a favorite genre, their main goals is to play with friends - as long as the game is good. They are over 20 and mostly male. Their income level is more than $10,000 yearly and they can spend $20 or $30 easily for entertainment now and then. Our players own a high-speed internet connection (256 KB or better) or at least a fast IDSN connection. Our players have at least basic understanding of the English language, they are interested in Japanese/Chinese mythology and know something about Eastern cultures.
Edoiki will use several promotion methods: Google Adwords targeted directly to board games, banner ads on multiplayer and similar online sites, multiplayer gaming forums, press releases, newsletter announcements, major review sites, article writing, community forums, PAD services, blogs, entering the Independent Games Festival.

5. The Website - Get Players to Download Your Game Demo

Edoiki website
Edoiki website will use a virtual private server to handle traffic and make sure the system is online every hour of day. The website will present screenshots, player forums, contact information, company information and present clear and easily distinguishable download and purchase buttons. The website won't use Javascript or font that would make it hard to use the site. The headline of the site will be tested and the game requirements, features and any other game-related hints & tips will be listed. The site graphics will be polished by the game artist.
The website traffic will be estimated and website specific goals (the rate of downloads) will be refined to meet the download goals after initial number of downloads are received.

6. The Demo - Get Players To Purchase Your Game

[2] Demo time limitations: time limitation combined with feature limitations can be advantageous: offer 15 demo launches or 60 minutes of gameplay, or a 30-day period. Or try something in between.

[3] Guide the player to make the purchase: is it easy (within one or two mouse clicks) for player to purchase your game or enter to your game's purchase page? If not, adjust the demo.

7. Measurement - Be Aware of What's Going On

Attention Real Estate Agents - How to Build Your Listing Inventory
It's a cliche that has been around longer than I've been alive. It has endured for hundreds of years. Why? Because it rings true. Because it is good advice. What am I talking about? How many times have you heard the phrase "Why reinvent the wheel?"Sometimes we become so exposed (some might say overexposed) to things, situations, phrases cliches, writings, etc. that they seem to lose their meaning. I believe the phrase "Why reinvent the wheel" may be one of those phrases. How else do you explain the fact that there are 20,000 real estate agents out their raking in over a half million dollars in commissions per year and 1.3 million who spend little if any time trying to determine what it is that makes them so successful? Most simply trudge on through the muck everyday trying to figure out on their own or from a colleague why they continue to struggle in this ultra competitive field?There are many things that these top agents have in common. And I don't necessarily mean personality traits (though determination is certainly a key factor). What I mean is, what tools and strategies are the real estate sales champions using on a daily basis that the rest of the industry seems blissfully unaware of? Are they secrets? Hardly. Yet, most of the 690,000 of you making less than $50,000 MUST be unaware or you'd be following in their footsteps, no?So how do you go about finding out these "well kept secrets?" You find NEW ways to EDUCATE yourself! Most of the realtors that I know, if they educate themselves at all in the sales arena, spend their time listening to the same old tired tactics that have been around for years. The same tactics that everyone else is using. Isn't the point to be different? Isn't the point to stand out? Isn't the point to change your current results?With the implementation of the National Do Not Call List, the mainstreaming of the Internet (WARNING! Most real estate websites I see are nothing but glorified brochures. Ask yourself this...how many leads have you gotten from your website this month?) and the absolute saturation

content delivery systems available. Valve's Steam is perhaps the biggest example and could be appealing to indies.

Your marketing plan should tell you which channels you are going to use, and which ones you'll ignore.

Edoiki distribution channels
Edoiki will be sold directly through Edoiki website. Besides the direct websites we'll approach Mumbo Jumbo/United Developers and Tri Synergy to discuss retail channels. There are other retail opportunities: Dreamcatcher/The Adventure Company, Cylon Interactive, Merscom, MWR connected - some of them will be considered in the future, while some of them will be ignored.
We will also contact a few publishers for a non-exclusive deals. The first ones to target are Shrapnelgames, JoWood and Matrix Games. Edoiki will omit the casual game portals, as the game is targeting a different audience.
We'll also approach Valve and discuss the distributing opportunity via Steam.

3. Product - Have Something to Sell

4. Promotion - Make People Aware of Your Game

Edoiki promotion efforts
Edoiki aims to please board gamers and non-casual gamers, players that are addicted to the online multiplayer game experience, and look for games where they can challenge their friends. These gamers don't necessarily have a favorite genre, their main goals is to play with friends - as long as the game is good. They are over 20 and mostly male. Their income level is more than $10,000 yearly and they can spend $20 or $30 easily for entertainment now and then. Our players own a high-speed internet connection (256 KB or better) or at least a fast IDSN connection. Our players have at least basic understanding of the English language, they are interested in Japanese/Chinese mythology and know something about Eastern cultures.
Edoiki will use several promotion methods: Google Adwords targeted directly to board games, banner ads on multiplayer and similar online sites, multiplayer gaming forums, press releases, newsletter announcements, major review sites, article writing, community forums, PAD services, blogs, entering the Independent Games Festival.

5. The Website - Get Players to Download Your Game Demo

Edoiki website
Edoiki website will use a virtual private server to handle traffic and make sure the system is online every hour of day. The website will present screenshots, player forums, contact information, company information and present clear and easily distinguishable download and purchase buttons. The website won't use Javascript or font that would make it hard to use the site. The headline of the site will be tested and the game requirements, features and any other game-related hints & tips will be listed. The site graphics will be polished by the game artist.
The website traffic will be estimated and website specific goals (the rate of downloads) will be refined to meet the download goals after initial number of downloads are received.

6. The Demo - Get Players To Purchase Your Game

[2] Demo time limitations: time limitation combined with feature limitations can be advantageous: offer 15 demo launches or 60 minutes of gameplay, or a 30-day period. Or try something in between.

[3] Guide the player to make the purchase: is it easy (within one or two mouse clicks) for player to purchase your game or enter to your game's purchase page? If not, adjust the demo.

7. Measurement - Be Aware of What's Going On

Promotional Mouse Mats And Generating Interest At Home
Promotional mouse mats are a great way to generate interest in your company because they are large enough to hold a decent amount of advertising. They take up a prominent place on your customers’ desks when they are used, and can keep your business in the minds of your customers for as long as they are in use simply by existing. It is in your best interest to make your promotional mouse mats out of quality materials, and design them to be attractive and possibly even useful in other ways to keep your customers using them.Promotional mouse mats can be paired with coasters or wrist rests to increase the interest in them, and you should consider it money well spent if you are getting additional clientele out of your use of these tactics. Another great way to generate interest is to hand them out by hand, but how do you do this without it seeming odd?Promotional mouse mats should be high quality and easy to look at, meaning that they should be good enough for your own employees to use happily. If your own employees are using these promotional mouse mats in sight of your customers, your customers would feel easier about taking and using one of your promotional mouse mats on their own desks. This is where generating interest at home comes in.Your own employees should use as many of the company’s promotional items as possible, from pens to mugs and certainly extending to the mouse mats that the company is handing out. They should also take an active role in distributing your mouse mats to the clients. Each time an employee sits down with a client as his or her desk, the employee should be seen using the promotional products. He or she should start a conversation about the promotional mouse mats, and if the client does not state that he or she was given one, your employee should be quick to offer one to him or her.This does not mean that your employees should keep stacks of promotional mouse mats on their desk, but having them nearby either in a drawer or in another room close by will make it easy for your own employees to talk about how much they like the

or country, but also cities), demographic (age, gender, education, religion, occupation, income, family size), psychographic (social class, lifestyle, personality) and behavioral (casual to heavy user, attitude towards service, loyalty towards company, awareness stage, attitude towards product, genre, favorite games). Also the technical aspects (speed of Internet connection, age of computer) could be included in the segmentation.

Edoiki promotion efforts
Edoiki aims to please board gamers and non-casual gamers, players that are addicted to the online multiplayer game experience, and look for games where they can challenge their friends. These gamers don't necessarily have a favorite genre, their main goals is to play with friends - as long as the game is good. They are over 20 and mostly male. Their income level is more than $10,000 yearly and they can spend $20 or $30 easily for entertainment now and then. Our players own a high-speed internet connection (256 KB or better) or at least a fast IDSN connection. Our players have at least basic understanding of the English language, they are interested in Japanese/Chinese mythology and know something about Eastern cultures.
Edoiki will use several promotion methods: Google Adwords targeted directly to board games, banner ads on multiplayer and similar online sites, multiplayer gaming forums, press releases, newsletter announcements, major review sites, article writing, community forums, PAD services, blogs, entering the Independent Games Festival.

5. The Website - Get Players to Download Your Game Demo

Edoiki website
Edoiki website will use a virtual private server to handle traffic and make sure the system is online every hour of day. The website will present screenshots, player forums, contact information, company information and present clear and easily distinguishable download and purchase buttons. The website won't use Javascript or font that would make it hard to use the site. The headline of the site will be tested and the game requirements, features and any other game-related hints & tips will be listed. The site graphics will be polished by the game artist.
The website traffic will be estimated and website specific goals (the rate of downloads) will be refined to meet the download goals after initial number of downloads are received.

6. The Demo - Get Players To Purchase Your Game

[2] Demo time limitations: time limitation combined with feature limitations can be advantageous: offer 15 demo launches or 60 minutes of gameplay, or a 30-day period. Or try something in between.

[3] Guide the player to make the purchase: is it easy (within one or two mouse clicks) for player to purchase your game or enter to your game's purchase page? If not, adjust the demo.

7. Measurement - Be Aware of What's Going On

Commercial Label Printers
There are various demands that an industry, a company, or a store needs their label printers to fulfill. For such varied types of printing needs, there is a huge range of label printers available in the market. Commercial label printers come in various sizes, types, and costs and possess different functionalities.Among the various needs in any commercial establishment is the need to print labels on various types of goods. Often the label has to be like a permanent mark on the good like the imprint of the name of a company on a steel pipe, but sometimes it has to be removable, as in the case of a price tag. The needs are varied even in the case of removable price tags. Take food, for example. In this case one has to ensure that the gum used on the labels is not harmful, even if consumed. Thus various types of companies have various needs, and though there are many multi-purpose printers that serve a lot of these needs, there are others that are for special purposes only and do not fit into the multi-purpose criteria.A general type label printer is the one that prints prices and bar codes onto things. Such label printers can be found across categories and at various places including the internet and local stores. They print labels on strong steel equipment as well as on delicate plastic toys.Such commercial label printers are also available in different sizes and can also print a variety of sizes of labels. Often, the need is to print small labels and often it is just the reverse, to print huge labels on big boxes. There are commercial label printers for all of them.There are also commercial label printers that are multi-purpose and can print not only various types of labels, but also various sizes of labels on any goods. However, this multi-purpose capability also means that they are quite expensive. Most companies and corporations have to keep different types of label printers for various types of needs.

Edoiki website
Edoiki website will use a virtual private server to handle traffic and make sure the system is online every hour of day. The website will present screenshots, player forums, contact information, company information and present clear and easily distinguishable download and purchase buttons. The website won't use Javascript or font that would make it hard to use the site. The headline of the site will be tested and the game requirements, features and any other game-related hints & tips will be listed. The site graphics will be polished by the game artist.
The website traffic will be estimated and website specific goals (the rate of downloads) will be refined to meet the download goals after initial number of downloads are received.

6. The Demo - Get Players To Purchase Your Game

[2] Demo time limitations: time limitation combined with feature limitations can be advantageous: offer 15 demo launches or 60 minutes of gameplay, or a 30-day period. Or try something in between.

[3] Guide the player to make the purchase: is it easy (within one or two mouse clicks) for player to purchase your game or enter to your game's purchase page? If not, adjust the demo.

7. Measurement - Be Aware of What's Going On

The only way to make sure you are flying in the right direction is to constantly check where you are heading: be sure to measure impacts of different modifications. If you decide to change the price, promotion or demo, be sure to measure the effects. Conduct an A/B split test for your game price: try both a $20 and a $30 price to see which one works better. Offer a money back guarantee and measure how it impacts sales. Do you get more sales with different demo limitations? Test it. Do the sales increase if you offer a better tutorial in game? Does it help to have nag screens in the beginning and in the end of the demo?

Be aware of where you are flying.

8. Maintenance - Make Sure The Passengers Are Happy

Your marketing plan involves maintenance: how are you going to deal with the customers and build such a relationship with your current customers that they come back and purchase from you again. Customer support could include FAQ lists, support databases, and automated emails. Your marketing plan should describe how you will maintain the relationship with your customers. Will you use support forums or outsource your customer support? Will you use customer relationship management (CRM) tools? Will there be an online chat available for those who purchase? Will you use blogs or newsletters to inform the players about your product updates?

Your marketing plan will tell you how you will deal with the relationship: it will tell you whether you let your publisher or portals handle customer support, or use all or some of the methods discussed earlier.

9. Refinement - Adjust Your Flight Plan

The last step in the marketing plan is to refine the plan. Go to step 1 and adjust your goals. If you think your conversion rate is dropping to .5% feel free to double the goal for download number. As you double your download number goal you know that you need to focus on more promotion rather than optimizing the demo, website or product. On the other hand, if you choose to refine the conversion rate, then you know that you should focus on the quality of your game, demo or website rather than promotion.

Conclusions

The indie game marketing plan describes the goals derived from a company's strategic objectives. The main idea for the marketing plan is to describe the goals, decide the actions necessary to reach those goals, measure and eventually refine the plan as the production progresses.

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