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09:03, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Tips on Successful Game Advertising.

Posted by Talon
Talon
member, 381 posts
Sun 18 Nov 2018
at 15:54
  • msg #1

Tips on Successful Game Advertising

Good morning!

I seem to have a bit of a copper touch when it comes to game advertisements (Not directing toward specific ads so as not to cross pollinate advertisements) Rather than ask for feedback on my specific ad, I wanted to see if I could tap into RPOLs expertise for general advice so I can hopefully craft a bit better ads for the future.

Note: My games all ended up with enough players, so again, not looking to try to garner interest in them now, just hoping to improve my advertising skills for the future, having a larger pool of potential recruits to draw from is always better than a smaller one!

The main questions are:

1) Do you prefer longer or shorter want ads, does longer make it seem like the GM is more invested or too long winded?
1A) Do you prefer the Want Ad focus on flavor to give you a glimpse into the game you'll be playing or would you prefer the ad be 'all business' and focus on crunch/mechanical expectations.

2) How likely are you to apply for obscure/niche games (Not D&D, GURPS, Pathfinder, etc) What would make you more inclined to consider a system outside your wheelhouse?

3) Do you just glance at the system the system will be using and move on ("Oh, not World of Darkness, nope!") If so, what could an ad do to possibly help mitigate that, I know it can't be overcome entirely, some folks love their systems. A sexier ad title, comparing the style in which the game will be run to more popular systems?


Thanks for taking the time to read through this this morning!
This message was lightly edited by a moderator, as it was the wrong forum, at 16:08, Sun 18 Nov 2018.
Syrris
member, 445 posts
Sun 18 Nov 2018
at 16:30
  • msg #2

Tips on Successful Game Advertising

1: You need to hook people in the first couple of sentences or they're not likely to keep reading, and certainly aren't going to read a novella-length description, no matter how well composed. The game pages are better suited to the full version - keep it as short as you reasonably can on the ad page while still getting the basic idea across.

1A: For the same reason, stick to theme for the bulk of it. Mechanics should be limited to things that may change the nature of the game or fall significantly outside of the normal structure and kept as short as possible. (IE: "Z&Z 6th edition, 7th level, no magic classes".) Anything more than that, again, is better suited to the game pages.

2: It will largely depend on whether it's a system that I'm already interested in. I'm not terribly likely to run off and buy/read through/etc one that's completely unfamiliar.

3: This may or may not be the case, depending on the rest of the title (and some system entries aren't very helpful by themselves. "World of Darkness" could mean a lot of things).

  What *is* going to cause me to skip over the thing without reading is an ad title like "Game Needs Players". On the Players Wanted board. (Gee, y'think? Is an actual title too much work? Well then, so is reading the post!) I'm not saying that you do this, but I see it happening fairly regularly. [ /rant ]
This message was last edited by the user at 16:33, Sun 18 Nov 2018.
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