Years ago, I put together a little local newsletter (The Wichita Gamer) for the roleplayers of Wichita, KS. It was meant as a communication tool for gamers to find each other, sell stuff, etc. It didn't do too well because it lacked retailer support... though they all said they liked it, half of them wouldn't display it where people could find it and only one contributed any money toward it. (It was free and I was paying for copies out of my own pocket, hoping to get some donations and/or advertising money once it got rolling.) But it was mostly lack of exposure that killed it... in stores where it was displayed, it disappeared. Oddly, the store that stuffed it into a magazine holder full of ads for products that had been out of print for years didn't give away a single one. Now that the web has taken off in a big way, I've decided to resurrect The Wichita Gamer as an on-line service. (I'm already paying for a server, so it won't cost me any more than my time. And if I can sell a little advertising, it might even offset some of the cost of that server.) So what I'm here to ask is... how would you go about promoting such a thing (keeping in mind a minimal budget) and what steps would you take to make it successful? Since it's a local service (it's meant to get people together in person), banner ads on other sites are mostly pointless. I've got my own ideas for promotion, but I'd like to hear others. The "successful" part is challenging... because the Gamer is a discussion forum (mailing list) and want-ad/personals service, there's *nothing there* on the first day. The first user in the door doesn't see anything of interest, or at best, he sees a couple ads of mine. How do you get that user excited about the service and keep him coming back? How do you "seed" the service to make it look interesting before there are actually any users? Thanks! -- Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) GMAST List Owner We tend to judge others by their actions, ourselves by our intentions. -Dr. Ed Cole. ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
