Clarity on the Marketing Survey Idea

[TwoCrows]

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Brad,

Why do you think a marketing survey would be beneficial to Indie designers? I can understand why companies who have employees and more upfront costs would benefit from a market survey as they are serving a market. That is what they need to do to be financially responsible to themselves and their employees. As an Indie designer I don't need to serve a market and it's possible my products could introduce unidentified customers into a  market. As an Indie designer I can also "publish" without any upfront cost via Lulu if I have good editing, Art, and layout skills. I can also publish a game with upfront costs that are so small I can personally write them off. These means I don't feel I need to identify what the market wants and I'm free to be as absolutely experimental as I like. I also feel I'm more likely to benefit by purposefully doing things differently than those who are serving an already identified market segment. I likely can't beat those guys, as they have more money to spend and more paid brains working on their product.

I also don't understand your angle. Who would pay? How much would they pay? What would they receive? Can we talk actual numbers and the way you intend to pay for them?


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

[pells]

Hi Brad !!! Unlike you, I'm quite convinced in the use of a survey, but really as a tool. My comments are as I see it.

These means I don't feel I need to identify what the market wants and I'm free to be as absolutely experimental as I like.

You have a market there. People who likes to try new things, experimental ones. There exists for the cinema and music fields, an underground, independant movement looking for indie product, for new things, outside of the "common market". There exists a strong subculture, with its author, its revenue, but at a different scale. This is our case. But, the subculture of indie gamers (be it video games or rpgs) still struggles to emerge.

So, I believe there is an indie market. And we sure could benefit to know it better.

Why do you think a marketing survey would be beneficial to Indie designers?

From what I understand, this survey would specifically adress the issues of the indie rpg community. We have a different market than, let's called them the big boys, so it is natural that we want to know different things about it, because we have different issues at hand.
I guess that's the kind of things we need work around. Things like "how did people get in touch with our product ?", "how did they discover the indie publishers ?", "how did they apprend this community at first ?", "how do they perceived it now ?", "what made them make the first buy ?", "what would they to see more ?". Well, I don't know exactly. I guess this will take some time to build. My point is, I'm convinced this could be useful.

A quick note (I've discussed thru PM with Brad the last few days) : there is one thing I understand about this survey thing. It is a trade, it needs expertise. I don't have it. And, I never work with those. So, what exactly can you do with them, I don't know. In my day to day job, I'm working something very specific that needs a very specific expertise, and it delivers a service (I'm a consultant for mobile phone billing SI). It's useful as a tool, but if you want it to do something for you, you'll need a couple of explanations first if you're not familiar with it (as a real example, people who comes from the marketing of those big companies, asking us to do things).

I also don't understand your angle. Who would pay? How much would they pay? What would they receive? Can we talk actual numbers and the way you intend to pay for them?

I agree with Clyde on this. And even more. If I understand this right, who would pay for data specific to the indie rpg ? Just as we need more or less a survey done by WoTC, since it targets a completly different market, who, beside us, needs the information retrieved from this survey ?
And, what exactly are you expecting from us, in exchange (for free as I understand it) of the analysis of this data ?

[TwoCrows]

quote author=Clyde L. Rhoer]
I can understand why companies who have employees and more upfront costs would benefit from a market survey as they are serving a market. That is what they need to do to be financially responsible to themselves and their employees.Quote from: Clyde L. Rhoer

[TwoCrows]

quote author=Clyde L. Rhoer]
I also don't understand your angle. Who would pay? How much would they pay? What would they receive? Can we talk actual numbers and the way you intend to pay for them?

[TwoCrows]

[TwoCrows]

[TwoCrows]

[TwoCrows]

A MOPI Prospects Marketing Survey Clarity QRE¹

Hi All,

Nothing significant to update, just a few thoughts that came to me during self-review (a process that a wise old boxer gave me some clever tips on once).

In reading over this thread, and its kindly quarantined parent over in First Thoughts, it dawned on me that my narrow focus, and technical mindedness could very well represent a hindrance to general understanding at the very most basic level.

Geekiness of all sorts has a way of sometimes creating a forest for the trees phenomenon, and even though I took a business seminar2Example<Clue<³

<The Basic Marketing/Research Survey Template

• Someone wants to know something enough to employ research specialists
• The research specialists conduct an interview with the curious party
• This process is repeated multiple times to insure survey design goals are met
• The questions are then made into a sort of mock survey
• Programmers look at the survey, solve any issues, and put it into code
• The code is analyzed for problems, and handed off to other programmers
• The code is put into a form that can be used to interview people
• A selection of people who are pertinent to that survey are selected
• The survey is given to the people, and data is collected
• The data is analyzed, re-analyzed, and put into a wide array of formats
• A presenter puts the analyzed data into a presentation for the curios party
• A Presentation is done, and a question & answer session with the CP follow
• The work with the CP either ends here or more analyses are done
• Sometimes a followon survey is done to get even more specific information
• The CP can ask to have the raw data so their own analysts can work on it

All for now, more as it gels

Regards, Brad

Notes
¹²Management Problems of the Technical Person in a Leadership Role<³

[TwoCrows]

b]Special Thanx<Last Update

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