Promoting your VN with the customer journey

[droo_radley]

Hi everyone!

Promoting and marketing games are usually the last thing we want to think about as VN devs, preferring to spend time writing or fixing bugs. I feel this way too, even though my day job is actually in marketing!

Anyway, one of the talks I've given a few times is about the application of the Customer Journey to campaign and content strategy, using the Hero's Journey as a template. I've adapted my talk to be based on video game marketing (especially VNs since my own game is a VN) and cut down the run time from 1 hour to 10 minutes.

The basic theory is that the Hero's Journey works because it takes note of the audience's emotional responses during each step of the journey and channels them down to an emotional state where they're invested in the story and desire a satisfying resolution.

The Customer Journey can be looked at the same way, where each phase uses content designed to be relevant to the customer's perception of your game at the time.

Hope you guys find it useful as a thought-starter!

[YossarianIII]

Interesting theory! I've seen similar-ish flowcharts in other videos but this is one of the clearer versions of it I've seen. It also definitely helps to see someone focusing specifically about VNs, since even though they're kinda part of the indie game market, they're also simultaneously kinda their own thing.

That iPod example in particular is helpful for explaining how a trailer should work.

[droo_radley]

Hey thanks! It's really kind of you to drop the feedback, and I'm taking your feedback with extra care because I really liked that article you wrote about choices in VNs.