I feel like I'm missing a key reference here.
There are many sites that have spring up that try to get direct marketing farms to join their networks and tend to focus on getting those of us who offer a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) to join their network for a feeand usually 15%-20% of any sales made through the site.
http://www.localharvest.org/thunder-5-ranch-M60595 is one of the very few good and reputable sites, it also has a arsenal of resources and information for both farm and Farm to Fork customers. A few of these networks like Local Harvest generate a limited amount of new business and there is no harm in being listed on them, so long as they are not the ones that jack a signifigant portion of your revenues. But these site can't be your primary connection to the public, as good as local harvest is, it is still only one marketing tool with limited ability to generate business. In concert with local and regional adverts, and attending markets outside of the percieved comfort zones is where the real generation of business happens and of course maintaining the existing customer base. New gains in business are pointless if you can't keep the customers already loyal to you satisfied. Steam looks to me to be very much like local harvest only for games instead of farms
A potentially good tool to add to a multi tool chest, not a tool to hang all of your hopes on.
F2P has it appeal and should be looked at as a lead loss product. Use it to build interest and get a players feet in the water but not as the primary model to operate under. I compare with what I know product wise, every year I make thousands of jars of Persimmon Jelly, it is a oddball jelly that 90% of the people have never heard of and $7.50 per half pint it is a very hard sell. Solution buy a couple hundred plastic spoons and devote 2 cases of it to free samples to the market visitors. The FREE sample even if only spoonfull gets people to try it, once sampled 87% buy a jar of that 87% ... 90% are retained as regular customers that buy at least one jar per week until the mountain of Persimmon jelly is gone and thpse same folks start buying other products and jellys. I offered the Persimmon Jelly for sale for the first time in 1999 and had 100 jars of it and the first month sold exactly one, I cracked one open and offered free samples and the remaining 98 jars sold out in 4 hours. Forward to 2014 we are finishing up persimmon processing right now and have 5,200 jars of it for markets that will be sold out by May 1st 2015, the 2013/2014 persimmon run was 2,900 jars that sold out before Christmas 2013. I still devote around 10 cases (120 jars) $900.00 worth of Persimmon jelly to samples and many see that as a loss, but that one spoonfull free sample seals many purchases of 2-3 jars right after the tasting. The recipe I use and process was first written down by my Great, Great Grandmother in 1873 in the ancient book of T5R recipes, Its old, Many would say its obsolete, the process is unique and very long but yet when marketed in a way that attract peoples interest has managed to grow from 100 jars selling in 1999 to 5000+ selling in 2014/2015.... or $400 in sales in '99 to $37,500 projected for this run with $5,000 in label, jars, sugar and pectin invested, that is a good return. Giving away Free samples is great for generating new sales and growing the product. Giving away the whole jar not so much
If they gave away a F2P taste with the option of buying a whole jar........
I don't care what business you are in or what your product is, there are basic marketing principles that work across the board. In businesses like mine and UO that depends on loyal repeat sales, the customer has to feel like they are a part of the family, when a customer has a sense and feeling of ownership in the venture and being a part of something special and you as the CEO, Team leader,or owner work not only to maintain that sense in the customer base but to grow and expand it to new family members, You are going to build a juggernaught over time. Yeah I am just a small direct marketing farmer with only 40 owned acres and 160 leased acres for pasture........ But if I am pulling $37,500 in sales from wild persimmon trees that grow in the fence rows as side product and succesfullly marketing it ( It btw is top quality great tasting product) Then perhaps I might have some wisdom in th the world of sales and marketing. Most folks look at me and think "Yep ignorant farmer." They misss the MBA, 20 years of diverse experience in every aspect of the food industry from field to managing a 5 star food joint before buying my own farm and returning to what I spent the first 20 years of my life doing and applying what I learned in conventional business to integrate with our traditional family business model and still uphold the traditional values, principles and practices. UO is a great product, it is highly marketable, no not everyone is going to like the flavor of it. But getting a spoonfull of UO into the right demographics mouths will go a long way towards having active shards and no new content needed since as it is there is a massive amount of content already in UO that willl be for all practical purposes NEW content for new subscribers. In turn the Dev team could then focus on fixing broken things, tweaking in game systems and improving the game that many of us already love and are loyal to. Very simple numbers go up, low investment to increase numbers, some breathing room to get age old problems and bugs cleaned up, and then integrating new contentent that does not break or bug old content. As for myself and persimmon jelly....... At some point over the next 8-10 years it will be on store shelves nationally, I am a patient man who believes in consistent, slow, and controlled growth that creates loyal customer bases each step down the path with real and measurable results. UO might be a mature horse but she still has a lot of miles left in her, if she is taken care of and they lead her in the right directions.
