Marketing Plan

James Buckmaster

Brief

• To create a successful marketing plan which will bring Achilles to market in the App Store.

• Create a detailed marketing campaign parallel to the plan.

• Include graphics, calendars, advertisement.

Marketing Objectives

• To raise aware awareness of Achilles, especially to the target market.

• To raise awareness of development company ‘Helios One’.

• To increase revenue for development company.

Product

• The product we will be bring to market is Achilles.

• Achilles is a 2D platformer game set in Mount Olympus in the ancient age.

• There are 3 characters: Achilles, Minotaur and Athena.

• The purpose of the game is to find your way up the mountain without touching the Minotaurs, if you get up successfully you will rescue Athena.

Price

• Achilles is a free app that is on the Apple App store.

• Advertising will provide the revenue.

• Depending on popularity and demand, the app will go from being free to having a small price a few months after the main section of the campaign is completed.

Place

• Achilles is available to download from the Apple App Store which you can access via iPhone, iPad and iTunes.

• A demo will be available on the GameSalad website.

• The app will be stored in the ‘Free App’ or ‘Free Games’ section in the App Store.

Promotion

• Promotion will be covered thoroughly.

• Processes will include: Direct & Indirect Advertising, Promotional Advertising, Viral & Social Networking Advertising.

• All processes will be linked together within the campaign, dates will be set and they will flow into one another.

Smart Targets

• Specific -Target a particular area for improvement.

• Measurable - Quantify an indicator of progress.

• Assignable - Specify who will do it.

• Realistic - State what can be achieved with your resources.

• Timely - Specify when the results can be achieved.

Review Of Target Market

• The target market will be children aged from 8-15.

• Achilles will focus on the Explorers of the digital game market, explorers focus on exploring the map and they drive to discover the unknown - this type of audience will want to play Achilles and play it a lot until they fully experience all of the game.

• Never before has been more easier for parents and children to buy games online - 2013 hit a 22% increase in the sales for downloadable games.

Target Market

The target market for Achilles would have an iPhone screen similar to the one you can

see here.

App Rating

• Although we are aiming for an ‘E’ rating, we felt like we fit into the 9+ Apple App Store rating, we will work on trying to work on getting an ‘E’ rating so it makes the game available for more people.

Target Market Profile

The target audience splits between iPhone/iPad

users & people who like the theme of the game - this profile is about the person

that is both.

Breakdown

iPhone/iPad Users

Adventure/History

Orientated

When we break down the Achilles target market of 8 - 15 year old explorers it spits into two sections. The iPhone/

iPad group like to explore the use of the their tech by going on the app store and looking for games. The adventure history orientated

group likes the genre of the game and will find it by looking or coming across the game.

Stats

• The game would be iOS based, 44% or people play games on their smart phone (almost half of the gaming market) and 91% of parents are with children when they purchase the game. (Apple)

• This means that if the marketing appeals to the parents then it’s a good way in for hitting the target market.

• Achilles will hopefully fall into the ‘E’ rating which stands for everyone - more than 88% of games rated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board received an ‘E’ in 2013. (ESRB)

• The lower the rating for more it stands out as a game with the balance of adventure, this makes it easier for parents to approve.

The Campaign

• The campaign will set off with the indirect marketing side.

• The indirect marketing side of Achilles starts off with the 3 characters coming to life and appearing at popular places.

• This will happen before and during main gaming and social gatherings to raise as much awareness as possible.

Indirect Marketing

• Helios One will hire 3 actors to play Achilles, Athena and the Minotaur.

• These characters will appear in places over the course of the campaign schedule like theme parks, youth clubs, fairs, shopping centres, music festivals and game conventions.

• They will target people from the age range which Achilles is made for but as it’s an indirect marketing approach they will target mostly everyone.

• They will have equipped with them stickers and leaflets: the stickers are for general awareness of the game as they will be of the characters themselves; leaflets will contain links and codes to get the promotional wallpaper offer which is linked with Twitter and Facebook.

• The most important part of this stunt is the Instagram offer.

Instagram Offer

• We are using Instagram to spread the word of Achilles, this will promote the game, characters, company and people will start to ask questions.

• The competition is simple, entrants get a photograph with one of the characters, upload it to Instagram, use the hashtag ‘Achilles’ for a chance to win a free family holiday to Mt. Olympus - they also get a free code to a wallpaper instantly.

• The competition will come to an end on August 18th after Gamescom in Germany and we will randomly pick a photo with the hashtag, this means entrants cannot delete the post until after the competition.

Stickers

• The stickers are fairly basic as they are just the character assets.

• The target market for Achilles would be more appealed to these glossy pixelated stickers than any other age group.

• Brings general awareness to the game; by not including the game title it makes people think about what they mean.

• Stickers will be given out by the characters so the recipient of it will know what it’s about.

Promotion

• The indirect marketing plan will then flow into the promotion side of the campaign.

• Instagram will contain lots of photos of the games characters so people will want to know more, Twitter and Facebook will then take the stage at this point.

• The flyers that the characters handed out will link to both Twitter and Facebook pages via link and QR code, plus Intsagram users will start to hashtag ‘Achilles’ in order to find more information.

• Flyers will mention if followed on Twitter, that account will get a link via direct message for the free wallpaper.

Wallpaper

• The wallpaper is mainly directed at luring in the target market of 9-15 year olds.

• Everyone loves ‘freebies’ but the young people especially as money isn’t a key factor in their life.

• The verified ‘Achilles’ Twitter account will send everyone who follows the account regardless weather they follow them back a link to download the wallpaper.

• The wallpaper will available as a 1024px1280p and as an iPhone background.

Twitter & Facebook• Twitter will run as the main

promotional engine for Achilles; they will be posting witty tweets, links to media, keeping followers updated with the running of Achilles.

• The followers will come from the flyers at first, Instagram will help, company members will follow and retweet and it will gain popularity within gossip on the website and socially.

• Twitter has taken Facebook of it’s thrown becoming more popular in 2014, it will be accessible within Achilles age range but further up in age.

• Achilles has a Facebook page but it won’t be pushed as much as Twitter is.

• Links to the app store will be tweeted and a permanent link will be linked onthe page.

Direct Marketing

• The direct marketing side of the campaign brings in all the other customers who haven’t heard of Achilles.

• Web banners are the main frontier when it comes to direct marketing as it branches out to a wider audience across the world.

• Web banners will be positioned on websites which our target market visit often.

• In the top websites for 7-11 year olds go to are: Cool Maths Games, PBS Kids, Primary Games & Webkinz.

• The advert will open up to the App Store, the page will contain information about the game, ratings, previews, the download free button, etc.

Web Banners • The web banners have been created using

a modern app ad look.

• They are made to draw the attention of all age groups with its simple effective look - it looks modern and for a older age group which will draw the attention of Achille’s young age group.

• They will be positioned of the top websites for 8 -11 year olds and on the top websites for 12-15 year olds.

• Top websites for 8 - 11 year olds are cool maths games, PBS kids, primary games & animal jam.

• The 12-15 websites will be more social network based such as Facebook, Steam, YouTube, Google & Yahoo.

Ad Banner Stats

• The main stat demo shows that large rectangles attract the most clicks, half page ad’s coming second, square pop up’s third and the main Achilles ad the medium rectangle coming fourth - these show us that we should have been more observant when choosing our ad sizes.

• The other stats clear up some general facts we have to be weary of, we have to keep in mind the reasons why people won’t click on our ad - they could not trust the ad, think they'll get a virus or that it doesn’t apply to them.

Flow Chart Link Up

Characters & Instagram Comp -

Early Stages

Stickers, flyers, wallpaper &

competition linking from characters

handing them out.

Will flow into social media, the #achilles will be over Instagram, Twitter & Facebook would be passed about more - a word of mouth system will help a lot. Early/Mid

Stages.

Wallpaper will be offered when

Twitter account is followed.

Ad Banners will come into picture, target’s audience who hasn’t heard of Achilles yet - target market is split into two and are being displayed on websites popular to each age.

Game get’s released over weekend of

Rezzed.

All factors will continue to to work together to help promote the game until mid August - the characters will stop then but

others will carry on. Instagram Comp will stop.

Calendar The blue

line mean’s the characters will be hitting events and

places.

ç√

The red line stands for Facebook, Twitter &

Wallpaper promotions.

Green is for banner ad’s.

Orange is the release date.

Calendar Explained

• The release date for iOS is on Thursday 27th March - the app store gets moved around every thursday so it gives the app time in the same position for a while so it’s easier for the target market to come back to it.

• Twitter & Facebook gets on the way before the indirect marketing to establish itself; it will be fully operational with followers before the game is released.

• The Instagram promotional offer starts on the release day and continues throughout the summer until Gamescom.

• The characters will mostly be making an appearance on weekends and at game venues but will appear in the week for smaller jobs like youth clubs, schools and fairs - there last appearance is Gamescom.

Calendar Explained Further

• We have chosen 6 game venues to hit with the characters: GDC, Razzle, PAX, E3 & Gamescom.

• The thought behind this move is repetition; blogs, people and other games company will see that we appear often and it will bring attention to us.

• The advertising starts slightly before the game comes out, this is because using Google Analytics - we can then adjust our strategy with the data we get from them.

Budget

Gaming Events - £6000 flights, hotels & basic needs.

Web Banners - £250 per week for cool maths games & primary games. £300 per week for PBS kids, Animal Jam, Facebook, YouTube & Google.

Instagram Competition - £1500 flights, £500 hotel, £300 rental car, £500 spending money, £100 insurance.

Flyers - £146.30 = 2000 flyers.

Costumes - 3 month rental = £1500.

Characters - £3000 for their time.

Stickers - £183.50 = 1500 stickers.

Evaluation

The feedback I got was good and praised a lot of areas of the plan, they were pleased with the campaign side of the plan, they thought that the whole thing was structured well and that the audience profiling was good too.

Not all the feedback was perfect though, I still needed to go in and change a few more pieces of work to ensure that everything linked up together - I changed..

• I added a budget to the plan to wrap up all the costs of it.

• I added Ad Banner stats to back up my ads which I had created.

• I added some more information on the target market such as a mock up iPhone screen of the target market.

I should of added something about the World Cup & Greece - this summer is when the Achilles marketing campaign is in it’s peak and having something about the World Cup in the plan would of been beneficial.

Evaluation Further..

In the actual plan I forgot to add any Twitter demo graphics to back up what I was trying to do when it came to dealing with the Twitter side of things.

The statistics for Twitter led me on to finding out wether I make the most out of the Twitter page, the demographics show that adults use Twitter more than teenagers do - I could maybe target the target market’s parents so it would go from winning them over instead of the child doing so, at the end of the day it’s their parents going to be buying the game for them.

In the slide’s following this one, I will show you 2 slides on what I would put in the plan following the Twitter slides.

Twitter Marketing Stats• 51% of Twitter users follow brands or companies, related to this over 80% follow a brand

to get exclusive content. (Stats from Edison & MediaBistro)

• The stats to the right show which tweets gets the most retweets, you can see that having a photograph attached to a tweet maximises your chances in getting retweets.

• You can see that retweets are at their highest during the hours 10-11pm, but saying that they are pretty high constantly - maybe some late night tweets will do Achilles some good.

• These stats show us the gateways in which to take the Achilles twitter account, which time to target our audience and for them to pass the message on.

Targeting Parents

• The chart shows that more than half of these social media users are between 25 and 44 years old & 55% of Twitter users are 35 or older.

• Stats don’t lie and this shows that the majority of people that will see the Achilles Twitter page are the older generation and most likely to be parents.

• Also, a slight majority of people on Twitter are female - mothers are a good audience to try and hit as they are probably with their child more than the father is.