Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Our game is called With Your Destiny Global (WYD Global). An international MMORPG game that has similarities with Diablo. Our company is new and we can't afford expensive marketing methods yet.

My plan:
1. Viral Marketing - this is our main focus (as of now)
2. Banners/Ads - To be posted in forum sites that we have good relationship.
3. Events ingame - In relation to my no.1 plan, we will post in forums our ingame events. I will create storylines that may attract more users.
4. Referral System - will offer credits/items/premium items ingame (our game is Free to play, by the way) to people that can attract other users to join.

Other methods I'm thinking are still a bit shady, so I think it's better not to post it yet. I want to post the link of the game but I want to ask permission first. I just need some opinions that might help me in making an excellent marketing strategy.

Dear Ray,

You've got the bases covered. So now we need to start thinking out of the box.

I've got some thought processes going on that I'm going to throw at you. I'll leave it to you to polish them up to executable ideas.

Start by doing everything a real world brick and mortar company would do, but in the MMORPG world. Press releases, sponsorships, the works... we all know this works, with the advantage that you'll be targetting your exact market and you can pay for it all in Linden Dollars.

You could also setup something like a gaming parlour in one of the bigger MMORPGs like Second Life, your game of choice being WYD.

These are just a couple of examples, but I hope you get the general gist of the idea.

Hope this helps.

Clive Fernandes
Clive Fernandes Consulting

I would like to thank everyone for your kind suggestions! These really helped me a lot in making my plans/strategies.