Two Types of Promotion: Credibility & Exposure
May 27th, 2006 by Juuso HietalahtiPosted in Business, Practical Marketing
After writing my GamaSutra article I got some emails and comments here at gameproducer.net about the promotion. I would like to distinguish two types of promotion: credibility and exposure.
The article I wrote has had very little effect in terms of exposure: the website statistics I mention (polycountproductions.com, edoiki.com and gameproducer.net) have received almost no increase in traffic - in fact, week ago the traffic have been slightly higher than they’ve been after the release of GamaSutra article. In this way: writing an article has not have immediate impact on exposure. I expect it to have small long-term impact, and it will propably attract new developers who haven’t heard about these sites earlier. But - it’s not a great way to get immediate increase in traffic for your site. There are much better ways to get people to visit your site than writing an article.
Now, on the other hand: my credibility has got better in eyes of some people. Writing to a well-known and appreciated place such as gamasutra.com is a great way to increase your credibility: people appreciate merits and titles (even though they should listen to what’s being said, not who said it..). In that sense writing the article has given me immediate benefit in terms of credibility. People are more willing to deal with you and believe you.
Both credibility and exposure have important role in game production. If you have high credibility, you will receive more offers from various sources (such as from publishers, other game development companies, magazines etc.) and your connections to outside world are good way to make deals. In this sense it’s important. On the other hand, exposure - getting website traffic - is perhaps the most important issue (after getting sales) in game business: without traffic you have no business.
Depending on your situation your promotion methods should be focused either building credibility or getting more exposure: do you need contacts & deals or do you need more traffic? Choose your promotion based on that.
