How to market your products and services in SL

Yesterday, I stopped by a casino using my TD Dice Cube v0.8 game.

I stood in the back of the room and watched as another avatar entered and began to announce his new business to the casino: he was making entire casino games and as part of the promotion for his business he was giving away a free program. Without asking permission of anybody, he was dropping his free script on everybody in sight. To make matters worse, he then pronounced that his games were better because they had moving parts to the entire open chat channel.

I thought to myself, if all competition was like this, I wouldn’t have much to worry about promoting my TD Dice game. Although sales have been been slow with the cube so far, those who have purchased it seem pretty happy on the whole. Also, there are some really happy players.

While at the casino, I introduced myself as the creator of the TD Dice Cube and would be happy to answer any questions if anybody had any. Also I thanked the patrons for playing. I didn’t spam anybody with where my shop was located. In return, I received some excited, happy feedback that several people liked the game.

My client suggested a couple possible future features, one of which will definitely be going in by v1.0. The cube is at v0.8 currently.

I also rented my first vendor space in a busy area (L$300/month) and so far that hasn’t resulted in any sales. As written about last week, I listed the TD Dice Cube on both SLboutique and SLexchange. Until yesterday when the casino owner and I were talking via IM and I suggested he might want to buy another dice cube and run a high and low game simultaneously, I hadn’t had a single SLexchange sale. He promptly went to SLexchange and purchased a second cube — and he left me some great, positive feedback.

So my trip to his casino to simply introduce myself and answer questions turned into a really positive situation, a sale at SLexchange and my first SLexchange feedback and rating (5/5 stars). For those who create products/services, it can help to visit your client’s lands and mingle with the crowd in a low-key, non-pushy sales manner just like in real life.