Advice on Advertising in SL

Okay, I know this is really more of a discussion forum than an advice forum, but it's not like this question fits better in any other forum.

For those of you who use advertising, how well does it work? I've bought a couple banner ads, and the click-through rate has been abysmal -- well under 1%. And none of those people has bought a thing. Would it even be worth it for me to try to improve those numbers? I know a lot of business in SL is drummed up through word of mouth; if advertising doesn't work especially well for anyone, I may just drop it.

well I will tell you this, I only post 1 ad a week in the classifieds, and my location is so packed that it gets to where people can't get into the sim. unfortunately this annoyes the other people living in that sim, but how much worse off is it than if I was a club doing it?
I spend roughly 7K a week on the classifieds ad to get it close to the top 5 displayed ads. Advertising in SL is very difficult, and sometimes you need to be creative. I believe there are 2 types of advertising, active and passive.

Passive advertising is such as posting classifieds ads, buying bilboard space, advertising on SLExchange, or buying slradio space for a commercial.

Active advertising is actually holding events at your place where you give away some free items or money. getting people to your location to begin with is the key. once they are there and see what you have to offer, then your word of mouth advertising begins, and people just start showing up. If you really have what people want or need, then you will continue to get repeat and word of mouth business.
I really don't even advertise my original location anymore. People just come.

I hope this helps you out a little bit in understanding advertising. Also as for shops, I have people buying land next to my casinos and setting up shop because they are high dwell areas, and you get more visual attraction to your store. Good Luck!

In the 'real world' a click through rate of 1.5% or 2% is very, very good.

When it comes to mailers, a response rate of 1.5% from existing customers (those who know you, and regularly buy anyway) is normal.

I've also heard commentary from 'marketing experts' that a customer has to see your ad something like seventeen times before it really sinks in. True? This one just sounds like more nonsense to me, but it's considered wisdom by some.

For my business in Second Life, I use 'find' and 'classifieds' and the Metaverse Messenger (a small ad that needs some graphic rework, I need to get around to that!).

I can't say enough good things about the Metaverse Messenger (and no, I'm NOT affiliated with them). Though I suspect a small ad is worth almost as much as a good one. Might be dependent upon business type; I don't know.

I've also found that well-timed releases to the web-based shopping venues work powerfully effectively. If I need a quick splash of $L (often because I've converted too much to USD) releasing one or two items on these venues does the trick (via follow-on business within hours usually, then it's gone). That's worth anywhere from $L 1k to $L 10k, just depends. The effect fades rapidly.

Timing seems especially good to release during United States afternoon working hours, Thursdays and Fridays, but then I haven't done it so much to get good stats. I'm too complacent.

To be honest though - I suspect over half my business comes in from the $L 30 "Find" feature. So simple, and so obvious for new people. Pure gold.


Edit: Good point, what Games Prototype is saying. I had a relatively soft sales weekend during the tulip thing, but I come back to look at my account just a moment ago and... yes, to my great surprise, a solid jump in sales by new customers. Nothing earth-shattering but clearly there. Apparently there are a LOT of lurkers on the forums.

I wish there was an easy way to measure ad impact - with banner ads, at least you get the clickthrough rate, with Find or in-world classifieds, no such data-gathering

That said, I have found the forum classifieds to be the most effective way of advertising - I see a direct impact on sales in the hours / days following a post. In-world classifieds (mostly 50L$ ads) seem to work ok too, I notice a drop in sales whenever they run out. I also run an ad in the Metaverse Messenger more or less regularly - again, difficult to gauge the impact, but at least there I can place a high-resolution graphic of the product.

Have you tried sponsoring your favorite venue / event host with prizes? That's a nice and inexpensive way of getting exposure, and even if it doesn't get you a direct sale, it gets the product out into the world for everyone to see.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I do list myself in Find and in the Classifieds (though since I don't have the money for the top few spots, I just pay my $50 rather than forking over more for a spot in the middle), and I've also noticed that the forum classifieds seem good. I am already buying a Messenger ad; don't know how well it will work. I don't think holding events is allowed in my rental contract, though I do have free flowers on site (nothing so popular or cute as Desmond's tulips, though!). Sponsoring something with prizes is a good idea that I hadn't thought of.

Two things:

1) I have some limited and rather anecdotal evidence that high find is more important than a classified, so you're close to the top in find. I also have some rather more limited and very anecdotal evidence that any appearance ($50) in classifieds is worth it - I always assumed this was people noticing it on the map rather than finding it in the classifieds.

I've never tried the bigger advertising, but I have forum advertised, it seems to work moderately well at least sometimes.

2) I've seen the "You must see it 17 times" quoted before and asked about it. The number is widely regarded as pretty inaccurate, but memorable and useful for a different reason. People might be exposed to, and see in the sense of photons hitting the retina, hear in the sense of sound waves hitting the tympanic membrane, an advert several times over before they become consciously aware of it. They need repeated exposure so they will finally consciously engage with the advert and become aware of the subject of the advert. That's how it was explained to me, and it seems to make sense. As a slightly silly example I travel to work by train as does someone I work with. I commented on a particular advertising campaign from the train operator to them (it was relevant to my lessons at the time) and they hadn't even noticed it. Again it's a small data set but it does show that people have different awareness of posters and things.

I can't find the source for the '17 times' thing; it might have been Seth Godin.

I'm a fan of what he has accomplished, but not necessarily the ideas by which he claims to have done it.

http://www.reveries.com/reverb/marketing_strategy/godin/



One interesting thing about advertising - there is no 'proof' that anything works better, worse, what-have-you. Just tendencies always up for debate. It's not like we can re-run January and find out how things would have been different had we advertised differently. And market conditions change rapidly.

If there is any rule, it is that more money is lost doing worthless marketing than any other legitimate business activity.

I hate tooting my own horn, but... advertising in the M2 is very effective. Some advertisers have even said that advertising in the M2 increased their sales by 40%. Of course, it can't be proven where that traffic comes from.

There are proven ways to get advertisers the biggest bang for their buck, so to speak, and I implement them all. Research shows (and this is well known), that since people read left to right, their eyes are naturally drawn to what is to the right of text. That's why in the M2, all ads are adjacent to text (not "buried" as in some rw publications).

I've been using classifieds with some success - I don't spend a fortune on it - but I've seen improvments in sales while I have.

I don't have 20k to spend just to have my name on the top when I open find.. so I just think 'how does a person USE find'... keepin that in mind I type in the things I would expect to find at my store - then look up how much THOSE people are advertising for..

I make up my classified using those keywords in the text - pay my money and off I go.

For individual products as they come out I make a classified for them when I put them out for release - I keep it running for 2 weeks and only have it for 50 - 60 bucks.. Again - I think of the keywords.

So far its been good for me and hasn't cost me a fortune.

You can measure conversions from the classifieds by parcelling off a small square and setting the landing point there, and making that the location for your adverts.

When people pop in at a certain place, you know where they came from.

Furthermore, you can add a transparent box inside a box at the landing point that IMs you on a collision, and then you can match that up with your transaction history if you really wanted to get detailed.

Here's the code I use..

string lastname="";

default {

collision(integer d) {
  string nm=llDetectedName(0);
  if (nm==lastname) 
     return;
  llInstantMessage(llGetOwner(), nm + " - " + llGetObjectName());
  llSetTimerEvent(5);
}

timer() {
llSetTimerEvent(0);
lastname="";
}
}

That is a really nifty idea. Thanks for sharing *runs off to shop*

Hi Miriel, I tried banner advertising, too (at Snapzilla) and I am getting similar results: CTRs of around 1% for one banner type and only 0.2% for another.

As I am working with online advertising a lot in my day job I was not too surprised and not dissatisfied at all. For simple banner campaigns you can rarely expect more. Of course, you can raise CTRs to 10% or more with cleverly done campaigns. But that is not a question of the campaign alone - and not one of the "surrounding" either. You really have to offer something special, to get these kind of CTRs.

And please don't forget that you have a huge media break with banner campaigns for SL products. The Web and SL are not that well integrated yet. This might get better when SL will finally get "HTML on a prim"; at least I hope so.

I tried advertising with the MetaAdverse net, too. But ... lets say that the coverage you get with those tiny inworld billboards leaves a lot to be desired, customer service is kind of non-existent and the setup of a campaign is a bit complicated. The CPC and the CPM I got there was much higher than with the banners at Snapzilla. There is no real alternative to MetaAdverse, though. Most other billboard advertising is tasteless and unprofessional.

I have not tried out inworld Classifieds (because I never use the Classified myself; probably a fault) or adverts with the Metaverse Messanger. But this has got to do with the fact that we are in the land business. Advertising for land is a bit special. Inworld classifieds might work for classic SL products like those you are offering.

I found the forum Classifieds to be very effective. You don't get a huge "reach", as only a few residents read the forums. But the cost is just five minutes work to do the post and we allways get a few sales from every post.

All in all: I would say that advertising is still very much undeveloped territory in SL.

When and IF the advertising will be easier and well taken care of in SL..

I am sure that the usual ones will ”winn”... the rich..and the filty rich... .the ones that can put a lot of money in advertising.. .. will be seen all over.. The small new ones will never make it....

When and IF we will get notecards sent out to groups.. we will live in a world of spam... and IF ( I am sure that it will not happen).. our IRL telephone numbers and adresses are let out we wil be spammed at home as well...



I belive in marketing - I work with it - my family work with it to (Not my clever sis) - but I am also aware of the bad parts.. as above...

I myslef has used classified - I cant use find as I have no own land.. and when I was in Ansheland I was not allowed to sell things at my land so... I have used forum.. and I havent got a crowd visiting my stores(((...

Changes wil for sure come but in what way I cant even dream of right now...


/Tina

Do you announce your new stuff in the forums classifieds? Some peeps who don't read anything else, religiously follow that.

Nim

This is a great way to do it. The classifieds have been an excellent tool for me. I get some fantastic ROI from my L$50/week. I think one week I paid L$5 per conversion. That's awesome. The cool bit about the classifieds is that you don't need to be in the top position to get results. Just make sure your listing contains the keywords your customers are likely to use to find the products you sell. There's no better advertising mechanism than search-based marketing, because you're connecting with a customer at the exact moment that he or she expresses a desire for your stuff.

(And in case you're wondering, I track conversions from my classifieds by sending customers to a sealed store at 550m when they click through the classified ad. It's not a perfect means of doing it, but it gives me a great idea as to the effectiveness of a campaign.)

So you trap your customers in your store making them a captive audience. I was wondering why there were so many skeleton bones sprawled in front of your vendors.

On a positive note, they did appear to be wearing your merchandise

Yeah, seriously. Don't be fooled into thinking that paying thousands upon thousands for a classified is required. L$50 can work fine. I pay L$600 every week simply because that's what my most popular stuff goes for. A lot of other people will actually pay into the classifieds what their product or most popular product sells for.

Customers will like you better if you're not shoving your advertising up their asses at every turn. I personally won't buy anything if it has the company logo splayed shamelessly across half the goddamned product.

If your product is good, a lot of people will see your product sitting out in the world owned by another resident and click through the creator to peek at your picks, to see if they can find a store where they can get it.

If you provide authentic, friendly customer service, you'll gain a *lot* through word of mouth. I simply cannot stress this enough. People will recommend your store if they like you. Setting up an AbandonVendor(tm) and telling any inquring customers to fuck off (or ignoring them) isn't exactly the best way to go about things, unless you like seeing sales decrease.

The online stores work well on their own merit, provided you placed sufficient information and screenshots of your products. The thumbnail is all a shopper sees, it can dictate whether they'll pry further by clicking on the link to take them to more information.

I use a combination of approaches - classifieds, find places listing, signs, integration with my other businesses, landmark givers, word of mouth.

Regardless of what method you use, you need to figure out what your average lead time is. Others have said that a person needs to see an ad 17 times or something. While the number maybe of interest, I think the time between seeing an ad for the first time and the purchase is of more interest (this is also known as lead time). While I cannot directly measure the lead time for my business, I estimate it at around 2 months (based anecdotal evidence for my products and services). That can seem long for the first, and perhaps only sale; however, word of mouth takes about that long to make its way through the grapevine and that is a fantastic source of customers for me.

Here are some details of my advertising methods:

* Classifieds: I pay the minimum amount for my classifieds listing and that works well for me since I'm in a rather specialized market. It is often the case that people are looking for something very specific and will by from you regardless of what position your ad is in since they're browsing through all of the ads anyway.

* Find Places - great results because it is consistent - no need to renew manually.

* Signs - I post signs on my properties (nothing intrusive though) and place a small vendor too. I also recently started buying small parcels of land near popular places for some advertising signs. I am very careful about where I buy the plots of land so I don't end up putting it in a neighborhood or some other place - I want to attract business not upset people. I'm not convinced that established advertising services can help my business and feel that this is a better, long term approach.

* Integration with my other business - Not giving that one away here This adds value to one business but costs me only a little bit of time (5-10 minutes) for very happy customers that get a lot of value.

* Landmark givers - I use innovative forms of landmark givers at my stores. If you're not gonna buy something, you can still walk away with a little something that's fun and free (along with a landmark to my store - which has it's own, long lead time - but at least someone has a location to my shop in their inventory)

* Word of Mouth - Your reputation follows you. Keep customers interested by releasing new products, rearranging your store, taking new photos of your items, etc and get people talking about you and your wares. If I am at one of my stores and a potential customer pops in , I'll start a short conversation and sometimes get a lead to someone else or have the privilege of making a sale right there by helping the customer. That in itself results in very good word of mouth advertising.

-2fast