We're pondering trying something - a new feature. (And some marketing talk.)
Hi all,
I have a couple of items to discuss with you.
Item 1 is a new initiative we're looking into.
As you can probably guess, we need more players to fund the site and the annual costs of acquiring data.
Our marketing challenge is that this game is not a casual football game. As you all know, it's a game for knowledgeable and discerning football fans. You all are the type of knowledgeable people who enjoy the game, and you're a small subset of the general population of football fans who, like Brett Favre in the early 1990s, don't know what a nickel or dime coverage is. As a result, our general mass marketing on social media (mostly Facebook and Instagram) has produced some customers, but also a negative return on investment for us, because most football fans aren't interested in the intricacies of building and maintaining a 53-man roster. We've also tried working with influencers on a commission basis to promote Sandbox, but most influencers have a relatively small following and face the same problem that most of their followers aren't our market.
So this is a conundrum for us from a business perspective. We're not going to get rich off of this game, and we don't even really need to get paid for it since it's a hobby. But we do need to cover our expenses, and for that we need more players.
We also think that if we get the right type of players (like you), they'll enjoy the game and renew and we'll build momentum to cover costs.
Therefore, we want to try an experiment. I think it'll benefit both our current members and also hopefully bring some new members aboard.
cdcox is looking into the programming, but we'd like to repeat last season as a "special exhibition". Think of it as the 2022A season. It would keep the rosters from last year and would run in a parallel universe. We'd just replay the season in a parallel universe from our current teams.
Our marketing goal would be to fill up some of the bot teams by giving away temporary memberships to new players, via some ads on social media. It wouldn't be a full experience for them because they'd just take over the existing bot-team rosters, but they could get into the game and build depth charts and game plans and play the season. Our hope is that some/many of them would renew as paying members to keep their teams once they saw how awesome the game is.
This exhibition season would be free for them. If they don't renew, they go away. If they do renew, that's great.
We want to be sensitive about giving anything away for free when you're our paying customers, but you would also get to play in the parallel universe system at no additional cost, so we think it's a win for you and for the site. It'll also give you something new to do while your main-universe team is bidding in free agency.
As I mentioned, cdcox is still looking into the programming for this. It's possible that he'll identify some fatal roadblock, but our initial thinking is that it won't be hard to implement. I wanted to share it with you so we don't catch anyone by surprise with the new feature, and also not to confuse or anger anyone if you see ads that we're giving away free temporary memberships.
Item 2 is short-term marketing, and I'll ask your help on this.
We'd like to ramp up marketing efforts again, but trying something new. I'll ask your help on a couple of things.
- First, I'd like to make some promoted posts on Facebook, and I need content. I'll start an "Annual Review" thread where we can summarize last season for our teams. I'll provide an initial example. You can make it as cursory or detailed as you want, but I'd like to put these in some promoted Facebook posts. I won't use your real name or username, just your team name, but it'll give readers a feel for how the league works. So if you can check out that thread and add to it, I'd appreciate it.
- Second, word of mouth is very valuable marketing for us. If you like the game, it would be awesome if you would let others know about it, by posting stuff on social media or telling other football-knowledgeable friends about it.
- Third, if you happen to know influencers in your football circles who would be interested in interviewing us (or you) about the game, we would appreciate referrals. We need to get the word out.
Like I said, we're not expecting to get rich off of the game, or even to get paid for it. That would certainly be nice, but realistically our goal for the foreseeable future is just to cover our costs. So ... a little help?
Thanks, all! I hope this season was fun for you, and good luck in free agency!
a new feature. (and some marketing talk)
I did a comment on facebook under Edmund Notheabert a few week ago to tell people what I thought of the game you can look it up under on facebook. I know we had a bad start to the new season and that did not help out at all. And I know there are other thing that need to be done to make that game better. Just my opinion alot of times we ask question and it take a few days or a week to get to the answer. Some people want a answer right away and if they don't get it they don't stay and we lose people and I know it take some time to get to it. Maybe cdcox need some one to try and answer them when they come in. That would help cdcox work on what he need to do to keep the game running. That person could keep cdcox up to date with what other owner are look for or the complaint that come in. When all the bad thing happen this year all of us just want to know what was going on and that is call communication and when cdcox had time he would let us know what was going on. But that didn't go over good with some of the owner and we lost some of them. It wasn't cdcox fault because he was working on making thing right. But we need to work on that. that why I think someone should help him out. I like to see one league that would just be a league that would be a test league were if someone came up with a idea they would try it and see how it would help out with how it would help the game. We all ask for think we would like to see and if it would make the game better down the road. So if it work it would be add in each year to make the game better.
