Practical Marketing

Whether you spent a hundred dollars or a half a million on your virtual world marketing, the odds are you failed. If you didn't, some people will still call it a failure, but that's as may be.

When you're sitting with the team trying to analyze the results (you do that after every campaign, right?) and working on why user-engagement wasn't higher, rest assured that probably the biggest, most important reason isn't even mentioned.

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What is it about new communications mediums, such as virtual worlds that seem to make marketers forget everything they learned about their trade since the 1950's?

There are a number of markets that marketers find difficult to penetrate, one of which is the so-called 'geek market' comprised of generally well-educated, strongly opinioned people of all ages, with high-levels of disposable cash. Marketers jump on new media that are perceived as geek havens, and then crank out the old, old, old messages.

Hint: If your market isn't responding to your message, you don't need a new medium - you need a new message.

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There's a lot of marketing, media and PR going on in virtual worlds, particularly in Second Life. You've probably noticed. We've talked a lot about differentiation, approach, engagement and a whole lot of other factors. Now it is time to talk about actually getting your message out. Your presence in Second Life isn't worth a dime if nobody knows you're there.

This entails a tricky process called talking to the media. Sure, you used to do this, but the media changed a couple decades ago. No really, it did, and the last thing you want is the media ignoring you.

At Massively, we get lots of media and PR contact as you'd rather expect. We've got a more than a few words of advice for flacks who need to get their message to the media outlets.

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Marketing in virtual worlds has had a pretty spotty start. Granted, it is in its infancy, but already you have marketing teams turning away from virtual worlds or strongly urging you not to get involved.

Its boring! There's no engagement! There's no return on investment! They'll never amount to anything! Remember those phrases? That's what your last marketing team was saying about the Web about 12 years ago. Odd that, isn't it? What's really wrong here?

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