How to market your server - Tips & Tricks

[Clairmont 11]

Hello guys!

Being in the Metin2 P-Scene for quite some time, I've seen one issue that most of the "Metin2 Entrepreneurs" have - advertising. It's either cringe, either spammy, either non-existent and it's understandable - opening a Metin2 server is not an easy peasy task.

Based on my experience as Promotion Manager for almost 2 years on a well known P-Server (World of Metin2) and also from my marketing and public relations experience, I've decided to write this guide - some small tips and tricks to start a marketing campaign as close to professional as possible.

 

1. Don't be kitsch!

Your design is one of the first things a player will see. Try to avoid kitsch. Use simple and clean designs. Pick only two or three colors and use them as your brand colors in all of your assets: website, presentation, forum, banners, logo, social media images.

Try as much as possible to hire professional designers for your Website and Presentation. Banners, logo and Social Media posts can be easily done by yourself. If you don't have enough money to hire a full time designer for your server - use Canva. I won't enter in details about Canva, but it is one of the easiest and most used design apps by companies around the world. You can create with it simple designs and animations.

2. Be active online!

In my day to day job I can't stop telling clients about how important it is to make use of Social Media. Create three acounts (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube) and be active. Additionally, you can also create a TikTok account. Add your logo and covers, and start posting about your server (Metin2 related memes do work as well).

• Keep your social media images clean
• Write small descriptions (100 words maximum)
• Make use of emotes to increase text's readability
• Add a link of the full post when it comes to Changelogs or important announcements
• Try to post at least once a week.

3. Start Facebook and Instagram Campaigns!

Even if you've heard that "Hire Youtubers, that's the only promotion you want" line, it is not entirely true. Facebook and Instagram Ads are some huge tools that might help you increasing your brand awareness and players.

Speaking of which, there are two types of campaigns I recommend for a Metin2 P-Server:

• Brand Awareness
• Conversion

A Brand Awareness campaign is highly recommended a good time before server's launch, maybe a month or two. Use a low Daily Budget and keep your campaign running for a longer period of time (maybe even a month). It'll help players to hear about your server. When you'll launch your server, it's not gonna be just a random server out there, but an already known one.

A Conversion campaign should come prior the launch (a week before) and everytime you have new content that is worth being promoted. A conversion campaign is quite simple - it tries to get real players registrations for money. A well built campaign can go as low as 0,08€ per player (and that's good). Ask your Developer to build a Facebook Pixel inside your Website. It is not a hard job and it'll help you contorize and analyze more the players that come from your Facebook/Instagram Ad.

Before you say "Yeah dude, but is hard and I have no idea how to create a campaign", it is not as hard as it sounds. Facebook Business platform is easier than ever to use and you can find thousands of guides on Google on how to do that. I won't enter in details here, I think you can found the basics on your own, but I'll suggest a few things:

• Pick your demographic well
  • Age: 16-40
  • Countries:
    • Germany, Poland and Hungary - *Focus on them if you have a Middle or New-School server
    • Romania, Turkey and Italy - *Focus on them if you have an Old with Middle-School influences server
    • Spain, Portugal and Greece - *Good for most of the server types
    • *when I say to focus on them, I don't mean to ignore the other communities

4. Youtubers - be aware!

Sadly, from my experience, a lot of promoters are boosting their views, comments or likes and it makes your job a lot more difficult when you want to hire or pay someone. Having this in mind, I personally recommend to start with a bigger number of promoters and cut them one by one in time - remain only with a core of Youtubers that will give you most of the results on long term.

Try to avoid:

• Short term promoters
  • They're usually jumping from server to server and their subscribers will follow them - don't lose your money for nothing
• Small amount of subscribers but a really high number of views
  • Check their "numbers" in the first 60-90 minutes after posting a video. Normally, a big part of those views should come in the first hour.
• Low interaction in the comment section
• "Giveawayers"
  • Try to avoid promoters that built their communities from giveaways only
• Toxic characters
  • If your image is important, don't break it by associating yourself with anyone

Reward your "own" small Youtubers from your community. Give them a couple of DC's per video or just reward them from time to time, it'll make a difference in time and you can build a nice network.

5. Discord Server

You know how important it is, your friend knows how important it is, your players know how important it is - basically everyone. Promote it, engage with your players there, give them some sneak peaks of the new content that is about to come - in a word - communicate!

 

 

I might have missed something and I'll update the thread if I remember. It's maybe not a 1-1 guide step by step on "how to have Aeldra's players", but it is a more professional approach than what most of the servers are doing right now.

 

Thank you and I hope it'll help some of you!

[lime 247]

Thank you for taking your time and create this little "guide"! Sometimes, the ability to communicate in social media doesn't really come with good programming skills to keep your server up & updated and then posting the updates on your discord/tiktok/instagram (maybe).

Edited November 23, 2021 by lime