Zynga Shows the Way for Online Marketing pt.2
The ultimate lesson: Social Media Marketing = Market Success From its inception in 2007, Zynga achieved its status as the #1 online gaming company in so short a time thanks to Facebook and the power that social networking has in creating the proverbial market reach and brand awareness advertisers have been eternally pinning for. On hindsight, Facebook users can remember how annoying those FarmVille solicitation incessantly appearing in news feeds and posts. But the annoying truth is, it worked extremely well for Zynga. It didn't take long to say "let me see what this Farmville is about" and you clicked the ads. After that, you were hooked to the game.
Hitching an unknown product to a rising star confirms what just about everyone know but rarely practices. It is more widely used in politics. At a time when Facebook was just in its infancy from a 2004 launch, Zynga latched its future on what it saw was a promising sunrise business in cyberspace. The period saw the golden age of social networking when advertising was free and going viral for any advertising message on a massive scale was fast and easy. Zynga took advantage of this and entered into a preferential symbiotic relationship with Facebook that gave them first hand information on how best to make their online games fit into the evolving Facebook technology. It a;lso allowed them to exploit the emerging social media distribution circuit. This effectively created a barrier to future entrants in online social games. The rest, as they say, is history.
A lot has been said extolling the value of social networking that went from a mere campus trend into the global phenomenon that has defined 21st century online landscape. More significantly, social networking has spawned a new way to market new products and services in what is now called Social Media Marketing. Zynga's market success is about social media marketing. Consider what they did with it
Engage in ruthless customer acquisition Apart from an extensive and purposive campaign right within Facebook pages as well as emails, Zynga maximized every advertising opportunity to create online gaming awareness and develop interest among Facebook users. Never mind that it was easy and free and Zynga took advantage of it. The social network allowed Zynga to harness your own friends and relatives on the network to interest you in their games. Once hooked, you become an advertising mouthpiece on the social network. Imagine this multiplied across Facebook that now has almost a billion users on the planet.
Retain your customer To a large extent, Zynga was able to stem the slide in player interest for any one game with incentives. They offered free this or that gaming element that extended the gaming delight beyond boredom. CitiVille, for instance, offered the player free batteries and new buildings to get you to the next gaming level via email prompts. And if you missed to play for a long time, you get email notifications with even more freebies. But what stood out was Zynga's customer relationship management by opening up communication between Zynga's game developers and its game players. This ensured that the games got constantly better with enhancements the players themselves want. Nothing could be more customer-driven that this. In fact, after a short time from their launches, what started as bare games are now among the best online games with their rich features sourced from their own players.
Resources: http://www.chipsdealer.com/ http://ezinearticles.com/?Zynga-Shows-theWay-for-Online-Marketing&id=7522209
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