I mentioned I was quite relaxed yesterday, and I that felt really fine in the morning. Well, one marketing meeting later and I felt like I had been hit by a doubledecker bus – but in a good way (lets skip the discussion of whether there is a good way to get hit by a bus though).
It was just a very good meeting, filled with a lot of creativity – and intensity. And after a few hours in that envrionment, that intensity finally got me. Or if it was the air circulation in the room (read: lack of), hard to say.
My morning intention was to give you a follow-up directly after the meeting, but that bus came inbetween. After a few minutes of staring on my screen like a moron, I just gave up. Don’t know if I drooled as well, but it’s possible. I tried to come to my sences and answer a few forum posts, but after a few minutes I just throwed in the towel.
Often when people talk about marketing they talk about where to place ads and banners. We did not. There is nothing wrong with doing ad campaigns, but they just haven’t given that much in return. At least not compared to other things. And there is so much more one can do.
What we’ve done the last couple of months is to set up new communication channels, and use them to provide a better communication with our customers. This blog is one such channel, Facebook and Twitter are others. Naturally we also hope to find new managers this way, especially through Facebook but also Twitter later on.
What we will focus on the coming months on this area is not to attract more visitors to our front page, but to make the most of them who already get there. And then also look at all chains from there, and improve them so that we take better care of our customers – especially in the early stages. I’m talking about a more attracting start page and to test different approaches on the sign-up stage, but also have go on how we remind people that haven’t logged in for a while.
How we welcome and tutur new managers to the game is naturally also of importance here, but that is also a big task. It’s nothing you do on a Friday afternoon exactly. But there is also so many other things, which requires a lot smaller effort, which also can make a difference. Those we will focus on, as well as finding different ways to promote the word of mouth about Hattrick.
But speaking about newbies/tutorials, we will also make a test with users not going through the Manager Licence challenge (the current guide to the game). When the MLC was introduced some years back it really made a difference on the stay rate among new users, but we like to try and see what impact it has nowadays. I’m currently testing this test, and hopefully we can soon roll out the test (which some new users will do, not all). I’ll probably get back on this.
We also think about a totally new guide for new users, including a better game help in general. I’m also sketching on one, as I think this is deadly important even though it’s a bigger project. Just thought I mentioned it, I think you would ask otherwise.
I actually had some more things to share (not about marketing though, about training), because even though my working day ended there – it actually took off again around midnight. But I’ll save that story for next week, this is long enough as it is.
There are local metoring efforts but often these only catch the player after they have spent all their initial cash and thus have an uphill struggle.
Most of us (I hope) will have no idea how the licence challenge looks these days, but there is a danger that isn’t up to date with the game. I also thing we need to remove a few of the beartraps either by providing explicit guidance “A new team should normally spend most of it’s funds on young (17-18yo) players that they will train” or restrictions (a team cannot upgrade it’s arena until it has been active for at least one season).
Still we will always have a fair churn. After I dropped into VI (I had sold up to take a few months away from active management) I have send a welcoem message to each new joiner in the series, but not one (of three) has ever managed to log in more than once.
There will always be a churn, naturally. But there is a lot to do in the start-up process to improve the current situation, that’s for sure. And as I mentioned, also other areas where we can make improvements with very little effort really.
HI Tjecken,
You know, it might actually work if you set up a twitter field in account settings, and a box below to “allow Hattrick to tweet you if you don’t log on for x days” 🙂
You could even work with a “x hours of Supporter for x amount of invite tweets” bonus system, and allowing people to invite others by tweet 😉
Lots of possibilities there with Twitter!
There is indeed a lot of possibilities with Twitter, thanks for your ideas. 🙂
Checked on this again after a week, and there was so much more information to read about 🙂
Nice release, btw!
I have a few interesting proposal:
1 – dressed in teams: for many of players viewing the faces of his team members are very important and this should only be owned Hattrick Supporter. I suggest using a program like Google’s advertising programs for those teams that are willing to allow, in exchange for displaying ads on the shirt companies allow players to view their team members’ faces. Obviously, if the success and further improvement teams can access more features for the Hattrick Supporter teams also considered. It makes more close to real world. Hattrick can personally signs the contract with some companies even view them on their shirt and then ask players to wear the logo of each who want to feel free to choose.
2 – in the field of climate: The reality is that the proposed climate Hattrick play with does not match actual conditions. That really is a very important problem. My team plays in Isfahan and Isfahan in summer hasn’t any rainfall . But my team was forced in two important games this season to play in the muddy ground, it is not very pleasant. I propose using Weather system of Yahoo and link it to Hattrick . Please allow us to play realistic.
Sorry for my Google Translate English;-)))
1. We performed a test in Sweden 1-2 years ago with “team sponsors” (real companies, or creating your own sponsor for the fun of it) displayed on the team page. I liked the idea (and still do), but we decided not to go through with it.
2. For the sake of fairness, all regions have the same weather conditions. As you get more crowd when it’s sunny than rainy, it would not be fair if some regions had more chance of sun than others.
First of all you should watch your first football match … So maybe the game engine will look like something !
I probably watch more football than what could be considered healthy for the record. But you should probably try to separate a game from real life football. We simulate real life football, but we simplify things. And we don’t like that a superior team is guarenteed to win, even though the superior team should naturally win the vast majority of the matches.
“What we will focus on the coming months on this area is not to attract more visitors to our front page, but to make the most of them who already get there.”
YEAH! Since I came in touch with “Landing Page Optimization” half a year ago I always got sad when I saw the front page of HT. I’m really, really glad to hear that you’re going to work on the first steps a (prospective) new manager has to take 🙂
Hey, HTs, you seem to be on a good way! Don’t worry about getting so much bad reviews in the forums!