Once you have identified a target segment, your next step is to learn as much about that segment as you can. But how do you even know where to look? The first step is to imagine a person who embodies that segment, in the form of a buyer persona.
Management
Video Game Market Segmentation
One of Sun Tzu’s most quotable lines from The Art of War is “Know thy enemy and know thyself and in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.” And while you should never think of customers as the “enemy,” it’s still crucial to understand them in order to wage a successful marketing campaign. Understanding your customer means figuring out who they are, what their needs are and how you can serve those needs. And the first step in that journey is video game market segmentation.
Game Marketing Strategy: Mapping Out Your Path to Success
Sun Tzu once said “All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.” In order for your tactical marketing decisions to be effective, they need to be coordinated around a central strategy. Your strategy is your guiding light for more than just ads. It impacts your target customers, your choice of platform and publisher, and how you respond to competition. In this post, I’ll walk you through the fundamentals of establishing a video game marketing strategy.
Monday Menagerie, October 17th Edition
In “Monday Menagerie” posts, I share the most interesting articles I’ve stumbled across in my roamings around the ol’ series of tubes. This week, the science backed reason negative people are killing you (literally), why engineers HATE open floor plans, and how an editor at the Atlantic keeps his email inbox at zero.
Monday Menagerie, October 10th Edition
On Monday Menagerie, I share the best articles I find around the webnet. This week, how to improve work-life balance at your company, how to tame negative self-talk, and the dangers of pushing employees to go the extra mile.
Business School Mini-Lesson: What Is A Synergy?
In this post, I tackle one of the most maligned – but, ultimately, vital – terms in business strategy: the infamous synergy. It’s an awful, awful, AWFUL word. But understanding what a synergy is and how to leverage it is crucial.
Monday Menagerie, October 3rd Edition
In “Monday Menagerie” I share the most interesting articles I’ve seen around the interwebnets. This week: why diversity leads to better decision making, 9 rules for building a successful business, and the value of improving the quality, not quantity, or your working hours.
Friday Short Stack, September 30th Edition
Friday Short Stack posts are shorter, more bite-sized pieces – a little nugget of buttery knowledge before you head off for the weekend. Because everybody love pancakes! This week, it’s three of my favorite books for developing your “soft skills” – those esoteric abilities that help you work with (and in some cases around) people and their hang-ups, quirks, and egos. These are the three books that have provided me with the most utility, personally and professionally. If you find yourself struggling managing up, managing down, or just getting along, you could do worse than these weighty tomes.
Sunk-Costs and Ugly Babies: On The Value of The Scientific Method – Game Planning With Science! Part 8
It struck me one day that “Game Planing With Science” has a glaring omission: the value of scrapping a plan. The goal of “Game Planning With Science” is to forecast, not predict. It’s to estimate and understand, but not to codify. You can’t codify the creative process, or the future for that matter. Just as important is the fact that life doesn’t care about your plans. Reality is going to be what it’s going to be. You can’t change reality to fit your plan, so modifying your plan to fit reality is the only path forward. As Dwight Eisenhower, one of the most immensely quotable people ever, once said, “Plans are useless, but planning is everything.”
Monday Menagerie: Sept 26th Edition
In “Monday Menagerie” I share the most interesting articles I’ve seen around the interwebnets. This week: the two simple questions you should be asking (but probably aren’t), the four signs that outsourcing can be your best friend, and the one biggest secret to making great hires.