Marketing, Demographics, and Personas

The blog post referenced in this video is this one: Weird Solo Patreon?

I think there are three lessons to take from this video.

  • Write social media posts/create videos the match the platform and audience to you looking for, or don’t blast the same message out everywhere.
  • Play to your strengths, if you don’t like Twitter or Facebook for example, then using those networks will come across as false or forced.
  • The path of least resistance is to write for people like you, that like what you like. If you do that, then just being yourself on any social network should reach the right audience.

I also suggest you look up Marketing Personas. Here is a link to get you started Beginners Guide to Creating Marketing Personas.

When it comes to marketing, any marketing effort is better than no marketing effort. If I walked outside and just shouted for people to buy my 13th Age solo rules, I would probably get zero sales. That is no surprise. If I did that every day, every week, I would probably get a sale or two eventually. At some point, someone would get curious about what I was shouting and would buy something, or by chance, a roleplayer would eventually hear my shouting and you check out what I sell.

13th Solo cover thumbnail

Is this a good marketing strategy?

For me, selling something as specialized as solo roleplaying rules, no. But, it works for newspapers, they have/had people on street corners shouting out the headlines every day, it worked for decades. It worked for Christianity, you cannot say that isn’t a brand with ‘household name’ status.

I still don’t think it is right for roleplaying books and supplements.

I was once told, by someone I respected, that being a big fish in a small pool is not an achievement. Anyone can find a pool small enough to be a big fish. Success is when you are a big fish in the ocean.

My marketing plan was always to become the big fish in the small pool, but every week I try and make the pool a bit bigger. What that means in practice is rather than focusing on one game system and writing all kinds of supplements for it, building a reputation within that systems subsculture, I am trying to transcend all the subcultures.

The first method works really well if your chosen subculture is big enough. The Adepts on DM’s Guild are proof of that, as is Old School Essentials.

Off the top of my head, I do not know know anyone who has successfully done what I want to achieve. I am not sure if this is a good thing or not. It could be that I have set sail on a course to ruin. It could be that what I want to do is not possible for one person. I generally do everything, from writing through layout and marketing. At some point, I can imagine the burden becomes too much to do every function in a business. As it is I am already buying in skills as and when I need them.

Only time will tell, and so far it is fun trying. Do I think marketing personas can help me achieve this? I certainly do.

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