We, as I am speaking also for Derrick, are going to try to give a boost to the population of the shard.
As of today, I have to be honest, the financial monthly balance of the shard is in the light red.
Per month, donations are reaching average amount of 150$
- Servers costs & hosting cost about three times the donation costs
- Advertising budget is currently about 10$ / month (basically, nothing)
We all agree on the fact that the point of this shard is to have a free shard, volunteered staff and overall a nonprofit project.
But, as I see the current situation, we could doing some very specific marketing, very well targeted, and on the purpose of bringing in more players rapidly.
So you know, there are about 700+ different IP addresses logging per day on the shard, that’s about 600-650 distinct players I guess assuming the ones logging from work (and I am part of them
). If everyone gives 1$, we multiply by 4 the current donation. I think that enjoying UO all day long for a whole month, worth at least 1$... What we would like to test, is a marketing operation, a onetime shot, to test and see the results. October donations would have to be higher than usual thanks to all of us.
The monthly 150$ will still be used to cover the fees, and any $ on top of that will be spent on November marketing campaign.
I am currently targeting which channels should be used to maximize the benefits of those donations. First priority should be UO fan groups on facebook, easy to target, cheap cost as no one targets them, and mass community effects.
For the moment, I started a Facebook campaign paying by myself. Here are the first results.
http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/1434/adcampaign.jpg
Here is the ad I made:
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/5469/84434157.jpg
Flames in this thread will be heavily sanctioned by staff.
Bigoud
