The Internet Marketing of an Online Game Development Company - Assignment Example

Executive Summary The online gaming industry is being used by different companies as portals to ensure that they are able to recruit people based on it. This is especially the case with defence forces that have ensured that the website is designed in such a way that it helps them to recruit prospective future personnel. The report looks into the fact that the armed forces want the website to be designed in such a manner that it makes the players who come in contact with it feel as if they are in a real war place. The website should increase the interface and ensure that the player is able to visualize all the things he might face when he joins the defence forces. The report also presents the importance of making the website simple and ensuring that all information like contact person name, address, support staff address, past views of customers through wikis, blogs and networking sites are provided. This will help to increase the level of customer satisfaction and ensure that the customer is able to garner maximum experience from it. The report also presents the minute of aspect i.e. color palette and branding which needs to be considered and ensured that it matches the requirements of the game so that customer satisfaction enhances. Table of Contents Introduction 3 Purpose of the report 3 Online Gaming Industry 4 Target Market 4 Marketing Strategy 6 Website Development Strategy 7 Objective of Website 8 Home Page Layout 9 Information Assessed from Website 10 Branding 11 Color Palette 11 Conclusion 12 References 13 Introduction The orientation of people towards online gaming industry and using it as a portal to develop an interface with the customer by providing them situation which they will face in the real life will ensure that customer experience enhances. This has made organization develop portals and website which helps to improve customer satisfaction. A major factor contributing towards the growth of the online industry is that the technology has grown thereby enabling people to shift from the use of consoles to online games. The online gaming industry helps the player by enhancing their experience as they feel that they are present themselves by making visuals in such a way that it gives real feel. This has made people shift towards the industry and provides an opportunity for the defence industry as they can recruit defence personnel based on it. Purpose of the Report To identify the marketing plan for the online game industry especially for the armed forces who can use it as a portal to recruit defence personnel To identify the customer base for the gaming industry To draw a marketing strategy by designing the website in such a way that it helps the armed forces to recruit defence personnel by using it as a portal To present the different information that needs to be present in the website like address, phone numbers, helpline, past experiences of customers and other details To look into the aspect of website by ensuring proper branding and color palette that will enhance customer experience and satisfaction Online Gaming Industry The development in technology has made rapid changes in the gaming industry as people are moving from the consoled to online games. This provides opportunities for the different organizations like World of War Craft to tap the wide potential the market has. This has also made the defence forces look towards designing portals which provides an interface similar to the one that any person joining the army would face. This has ensured that people are more prepared and with growth of different sites like Facebook has made it easy to look into the marketing aspect of the same (Online Games, 2011). Playing games through an online mode has been very interactive and has ensured that the experience that people get enhances. The manner in which interactive online games has grown over the years provides ample opportunity for the defence forces to ensure that a portal is developed which helps to ensure better recruitment. The online gaming industry is witnessing rapid growth rate as it has grown from $18 billion to $ 64 billion (Online Games, 2011) and is bound to move in the same direction. This has ensured that the different players are able to use the different directives that the online gaming industry provides and use it to ensure better results for the future. Target Market The online gaming industry attracts everyone who is fond of games and irrespective of the age group has received customers from all ages. The target market for online gaming industry which will help the defence forces is people in the age bracket from 15 to 45. Online gaming industry has defined a target market for itself by concentrating on age groups who spend a lot of time browsing though different online games. The target market for online gaming industry has further being divided into two where the core target customers are students in the age bracket 15 to 24 as their strength is growing and is more prone to join the army and provide services to the defence forces and the other category is the working segment constituting of 24+ age group who have a role to play in the growth of the defence but is limited to a large extent due to ageing factor. Demographic: The population of Australia is around 22.4 million people. This presents a huge opportunity for online gaming industry as it can cater to 49.4% of the entire population 11.07 million. (Statistics, 2010) The working population which falls from 15 to 64 years is 68% in Victoria, 69.2% in Melbourne, and so on. Children comprise around 18.5% in Victoria and 19.4% in Melbourne. This thus helps to identify the target market better as Cadburys Dairy Milk Silk will look towards the working and children who are the remaining lot. (CIA, 2010) This thus helps to identify the target market better as online gaming industry will look towards people in the studying group age group giving a huge market to cater to and provide the armed forces an opportunity to recruit the correct talent. This thereby presents a bright future and prospects for the company to grow in the future. Psychographic: This will help to identify the target market based on attitude and personality formation. This will be achieved by eyeing the people in age group 15 to 45 as they have the potential to repeat their purchase. Also this will help Cafe Coffee Day to ensure a better strategy for this group in regard to promotion. Geographic: The geographic factor makes Australia an important hub due to growing population. Online gaming industry thus will concentrate to eye major cities like Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and Brisbane and so on presenting a huge market to cater to. Marketing Strategy The online gaming industry has looked towards marketing the games by a strategy which helps to increase the customer interface and ensures that more and more customer look towards purchasing and playing the games online. The widespread use of online games and the use of website and internet to market the products have various advantages for the business units. Devising a mechanism will help to ensure that they benefit maximum from their marketing strategies as The marketing can be directed in such a manner that there is a one to one approach. This could help in direct selling and also solving the problem of the customer on a one to one basis. (Crocker, 2010) The marketing process can be designed in such a manner that it arise specific interest of the customer. This will thereby enable to tap a wide market at the same time give the customer an opportunity to look at the different products being offered. (Crocker, 2010) The usage of internet marketing is cheap and can appeal to a lot more customer if the marketing program is designed in such a manner which gives maximum leverage. (Crocker, 2010) Thus, the usage of internet marketing for the online games will provide opportunity towards exploring newer alternatives that can increase their business and use these marketing tools to their advantage. Website Development Strategy Strategy related to development of the website portals which provides games and helps the armed forces to recruit personnel will be collected through the different stores to understand customer perception about the games. This will act as primary data. Secondary data will be collected from books, magazines, internet and newspaper which will help to understand the consumer perception and develop customer relationship strategy. Perception about the gaming industry and the quality of its product will be established by asking the frequent visitors who regularly play the game thereby enabling the developers to consider the important points that needs to be included in the website. This will help to understand the areas online gaming industry needs to work on. This will also help to highlight the different areas of consumer relationship and will guide the management to take steps which will help to improve their relationship. On the secondary front data regarding the customer will be collected through magazines, internet and blogs which will help to increase the relationship as certain aspect which the customer is not willing to disclose will be collected through this medium. This will help online gaming industry to take the requisite steps to improve customer relationship. This strategy will help to collect details about the customers and will act as a guide for future development of the chain. (Lee & Yen, 2010) Online gaming industry can also look forward towards online surveys. This will act as a primary data collection method and will provide the developers with vital information that should be included in the website as it will look into a proper evaluation about the customer requirements and their desires. (Fisher, 2010) Collecting data based on surveys will provide real inputs and will help the gaming industry. Online gaming industry thus by using both the primary and secondary methods can gather useful information which will help them develop their marketing strategies and strategies to ensure that their relationship with the customers improves. Objective of Website The online gaming industry needs to ensure that the website is designed in a manner which increases the effectiveness and ensures that the website helps to increase the interface between the computer and the user. The website developers thereby need to concentrate on the minute aspect of the website and ensure that the website contains all the information that helps to improve the customer experience. The following are some of the objectives that the website looks to achieve Ensure that the website is user friendly so that the experience of the customer using the website enhances Ensure that the website is not cluttered with information thereby helping the user to find the information with a few clicks (Poladia, 2009) Have an effective brand associated with the website so that leverage is created and helps to achieve the objectives of the website (Poladia, 2009) Ensure that the vital information is presented easily and the user can get those quickly (Poladia, 2009) Ensure that the site is not bulky and easy to navigate thereby giving an edge over others Home Page Layout The website designer for the online gaming industry should be such that it makes the customer play the game and arouses interest. The website should be designed in such a way that it provides maximum leverage and helps the customer to ensure simplicity and usage of the information contained in the website. The website can look as follows (Web, 2011) The above website is an example in which the website can be developed as it is simple and looks towards providing the valuable information that the customer looks for. Having a website as simple as the one shown above will ensure that the customer is able to gain maximum interface and will make it easy for the customer to ensure higher customer satisfaction. The website should also ensure that all information is provided so that customers are able to use it to their advantage. Information Assessed from Website Customer looks towards gathering a lot of information from the website as it helps to determine their future actions and guide them towards procuring the games. This is an important aspect which the defence forces need to consider so that all information helps them to recruit people for the future. The following should be provided in the website In Context Analysis: This will help the user to gather valuable information regarding the past trends and the different aspects which have made customers choose it. This will help the defence forces understand the perception of the people better. Blogs: ensure that the customers are able to look at past experiences directly from the customer which acts as a helping hand in deciding the future actions. This helps the customer understand whether one wants to purchase the game or not. Wikis: provide a lot of information regarding the company and the way it has grown thereby reflecting on the popularity of the game. Social Networking sites: will ensure that customers are able to gather maximum information about the games as more and more people are prone to games which has resulted in people using the sites and gather information which helps them to decide the course of action. Branding The online gaming industry needs to look into the aspect of branding the games so that they are able to garner leverage and ensure that customer experience enhances. This will help to bring about a change in the working of an organization and will make the online gaming industry to bring about the modifications that will help them in the future. Color Palette The gaming industry needs to look into every aspect while designing the games and ensure that the website provides maximum leverage. This makes it important that the gaming industry considers that Color Palette seriously and chooses one which matches the game they are looking towards marketing. The online developers need to ensure that they use the following (Johnson, 2009) Using the above will help the developers to ensure that the color palette matches the requirements of the game thereby enabling the customer to have a better experience and will help the defence forces in being able to extract the correct talent for the forces. Conclusion The report thereby presents the manner in which the developers need to consider the different aspect of the website designing that should be looked into. Special care should be taken to provide all the information at the same time ensuring that the website doesn’t become bulky. The website should provide all valuable information and should ensure that the customer experience enhances by working on all aspect like blogs, color palette and branding. This will help the defence forces and the gaming industry to ensure that the effects help the customers and results in increase business for the gaming industry. References CIA. 2010. The world Fact book. Retrieved on September 14, 2011 from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ Crocker, S. 2010. E- Business and marketing. Free Marketing Zone, The Ney York Times Company Fisher J, 2010, “Data Collection for consumer based on purchasing habits”, Market reader Pro Johnson, J. 2009. 25 Awesome tools for choosing a Website Color Scheme. Retrieved on September 14, 2011 from http://designshack.co.uk/articles/inspiration/25-awesome-tools-for-choosing-a-website-color-scheme Lee H & Yen M, 2010, “Factors influencing the intention to redeem online gaming coupons in Korea”, International Journal of Business & Management, Volume 5, Number 7, pg 1-7 Online games. 2011. Online Games in Guerrilla Marketing. Retrieved on September 14, 2011 from http://www.guerrillaonline.com/cs/Online-games-in-Guerrilla-marketing-42.htm Poladia, P. 2009. 10 key objective for designing the website. Retrieved on September 14, 2011 from http://www.projectmanagers.net/profiles/blogs/10-key-objectives-for Statistics, A. B. o. 2010. Australian Demographic Statistics. Retrieved on 14 September 2011 from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0 Web. 2011. Snapshot of website. Retrieved on September 14, 2011 from http://www.google.co.in/search?q=action+packed+games+website+snapshot&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=608&gbv=2&tbm=isch&ei=8lFwTtPQD4KeiAeH-Jy3CQ&sa=N&start=60&ndsp=20 Read More