It would therefore seem prudent to open up a discussion on how this effort might be reasonably be directed. My preliminary thoughts on this are as follows:
In our message we should emphasise the OPPORTUNITIES for and BENEFITS of locating oneself in Neualtenburg to our selected target groups.
Our selected target groups could include but need not necessarily be limited to the following in order of priority:
1) Large scale businesses of a nature as suggested by Frank ("BUSINESS"
2) Professional content creators operating on an individual, independent basis ("ARTISAN"
3) Purveyors of quality goods and services using vendors to reach their customers ("VENDOR"
4) Dedicated SL'ers without any systematic content production or service delivery plan ("DWELLER"
In practice these distinctions are of course to some extent artificial and surely there will be overlaps between the groups.
Category 1/BUSINESS would be serious businesses with demonstrated earning abilities, which until now may have been driven largely by the acumen and reputation of a single individual but with thoughts of setting up a more structured framework for their business operations and maybe wanting to combine this with the acquisition of actual, representative business facilities.
Category 2/ARTISAN could be architects, designers, artists, scripters, event hosters, thinkers and similar - individuals who put emphasis on the possibility of setting up proper facilities for a workshop and perhaps also wishing to be part of a community of inspired peers.
Category 3/VENDOR includes individuals and businesses who run a shop or service with a demonstrated ability or a clear potentail for high sales volume. They have no desire for residence but are always on the lookout for new locations with high volume traffic of affluent users with purchasing power.
Category 4/DWELLER are those users who have decided to stick around in SL and devote a significant effort to make a home, which can serve as a functional and aesthetical environment for the social interactions they like to carry out in here. They are searching for something beyond the cheap unregulated Klondykes of first land - ideally a place where you'd actually want to talk to your neighbours and perhaps also something that offers avenues of potential for developing your in-game presence.
It seems to me that the message unifying these groups is how Neualtenburg provides a COMMUNITY that can encompass all of their desires. Of course each group will put emphasis on a different aspect of our community:
For BUSINESS the aspect of our community that will appeal the most is undoubtedly the legal framework that we are developing to ensure a stable and trustworthy environment in Neualtenburg for securing the successful exectution of business-to-business transactions with the opportunity for legal recourse when disputes arise. A potential hurdle may be that the workings of the framework can be complicated to communicate and that the inherent benefits may not be immediately obvious unless you've already been burned.
For ARTISANS I imagine the aspect of our community that will appeal the most is probably the ability to participate in a creative exchange of ideas and experience with qualified peers socialising and helping each other out with specific technical/business issues. Our potential achilles heel may be however as pointed out by Traxx that the current city houses may not be the best way of representing your business to potential customers. Also I think there is some confusion as to actual impact of the commercial / residential distinction in our zoning system. Some people seem to regard it as preventing the setting up of corporate headquarters in the 'residential areas' whereas others happily install large workshops in their homes. I am not saying either party is right I just think we need this clarified before approaching this target group.
For VENDORS the attractive thing about being part of a community is that we're able to attract a steady flow of wealthy, recurring visitors or residents to the central areas of the sim. I think this should be manageable keeping in mind our School and Museum initiatives for example as well as the general attraction of the Neualtenburg city centre, the ice rink and the self-reinforcing effect of building the marktplatz as a commercial hub. We may be able to further strengthen our profile even further in this area by developing an events strategy/plan and appointing somebody to be the overall responsible for planning and executing regular events in the city. Our achillees heel in this area is the current problems we are experiencing with performance and script lagging.
DWELLERS will probably like being part of a community because they can have reasonable assumptions about how their neighbours intend to decorate their land and in any case they will be able to address the issue with them more easily here than on first land since most people who decide to join here do so out of a reflection on the advantages and responsibilities of being a citizen in a community. Furthermore, there is the attraction of being able to participate in the decision-making process and in the longer term hopefully also be able to find a vnue for one's SL aspirations in terms of getting entry-level jobs or finding some like-minded individuals who are willing to help one into the established crafts. Our potential weakness for Dwellers at the moment is that there really isn't that much land left in our sim. Possibly the city dwellings may not be that attractive to people wishing to put their own touch to their land and also we do still to some extent lack the level of activity in the city that would make the prospect of forming a SL experience centered on social life in Neualtenburg outside a bit difficult outside of the political / decision-making bodies. In other words we need more institutions able to provide enticing career paths for this group.
In summary of the above I'd say that a marketing strategy to promote Neualtenburg for the above four groups of prospective residents should take into account some of the following lessons/observations:
- We need to be able to communicate the benefits of establishing corporate headquarters in Neualtenburg clearly and easily - possibly through a FAQ-type document supplemented by targeted marketing at and consultancy for select businesses. This activity should have the necessery resources allocated to it. We do of course also need to implement the proposed legislative changes such as SC dispute resolution, commercial escrow / reputation bank, prim plots available for vendor citizens and the like.
- We need to emphasise the attraction of Neualtenburg as a hub for creativity and professionalism to those in the artisan community. It is my impression that the new service role of the guild in putting up a Warenhaus and underground workshop will fit in nicely with this aspiration. Possibly the Guild will in time develop to be a forum promoting creative interchange of experience and ideas between artisans. The MoCA surely will also have a role to play in this setup. We need to encourage these efforts and make sure that they progress in parallel with our other initiatives.
- We need to clarify the commercial/residential zoning distinction and decide what the limits are for activity on plots located in residential zones.
- Emphasis in our marketing could suitably be tied in with our plans for expansion into a new sim. This will however also necessitate a discussion on zoning considerations for this sim.
- We should consider devising an events strategy and plan and allocating some resources to execute it. The events should be carefully thought out, aimed at specific target groups from those listed in the above, advertised both on the home page and in the events listings and deal with issues relevant to Neualtenburg or contribute to strengthening our social ties as a community. What about a regular meet and greet for new residents at the schloss or the biergarten for example? We could have a quiz with questions on Neualtenburg history and small prizes of either cash or Neualtenburg souvenirs/building materials.
- We need to get to the bottom of the script performance issues currently plaguing the sim.
- We should perhaps look into the possibilities for enticing more new residents to devote more of their in-world time to carrying out tasks in Neualtenburg. A strategy for establishing more micro-jobs for new citizens should be considered (paying perhaps 100 - 200 L$/week).
- An active funds management policy should work to produce revenue from the management of the funds that Neualtenburg has access to through our reserve and escrow holdings. This revenue might feasibly be spent on initiatives in support of the above.