Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Advertising

As the new stuff jets towards Noble Knight, I'll have six things out there: Three proper books and the three Green Devil Face zines. My "marketing" is limited to this blog and the advertisement sections of forums right now. Who reads the advertisement section of forums?

I do have the review copies out, but reviewers are not obligated to actually do anything with them, and certainly not in any way obligated to give a positive review.

So I'm thinking ads. I've contacted a few gaming magazines and websites about rates and such, but I want to run my full-size print ad by you guys so you could tell me what you think. The goal is not necessarily to sell any one product, but just to raise awareness that I'm here and putting stuff out. Critique away!


17 comments:

  1. Very sharp, but my gut tells me you need cover thumbnails. Little covers on the ad say to me "Yes, I really have a product line."

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  2. Thirded. A little about one or two of your products would do more to lure the suckers . . . er . . . customers in with a specific hook where they're more likely to take a bit at some of the other things too.

    Maybe a couple of versions of the same ad?

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  3. Nice, and I agree about the thumbnails.

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  4. I don't like the black going all the way across. I'd frame/border your art, but the black all the way across just doesn't work for me.

    I like thumbnails.

    I'd also drop the "compatable with" to the bottom. It's blah-blah - most people who want to buy stuff aren't going to look at that first, IMO.

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  5. "Ads! Ads are happening here!" ;)

    btw: I actually do like reading the ad section in RPG forums just to see what others are putting out for the public good (or bad). It never hurts to plug if it can get even one guy to give your stuff a shot.

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  6. Some white space under the picture. Not much, but enough to make the text clearly distinct.

    (Arkkikivi? I guessed so, but still slightly surprising.)

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  7. I think it rocks.

    I also like the compatibility section where it is. I hate ads that leave me wondering, “Yeah, but what is your product?” I think this gets the idea across simply and in the right place. It gets straight to the core of what you do.

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  8. I find the black space on either side of the art distracting. I think framing the center art, with thumbmails (with titles) of your products on either side would be provocative.

    Good luck!

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  9. I hope you guys have the comment notifications on.

    Here is a 1.5mb PDF with the changes made based on your suggestions.

    What do you think?

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  10. I like the new one, but would go even further down that road and ditch the central picture and have bigger thumbnails of the actual product. But the product in focus.

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  11. Eh, "Put the product in focus" is what I meant.

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  12. Yeah, I'd go with this second version. Nice!

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  13. The second one looks much better, Jim. If this is going to appear in print, maybe a crisp border around the whole ad.

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  14. For what it's worth I think it's gold. But bear in mind that if I like it then it is probably not going to have appeal en masse. Nevertheless I like it and will buy.

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