A little love ... to marketing

Disclaimer: This is just my personal opinion. Feel free to add yours in comments, especially if it's another opinion than mine.

I am a creator. I dislike going around, spreading the word, shaking hands, establishing and maintaining contacts, and generally finding fancy words about my projects to get people interested. BUT ...

I do create for others. It's my joy to see others using it and getting something out for themselves. But though I offer my creations for free, if nobody finds my creations, they cannot enjoy it. And even if they find it, so do they do with plenty of other, different creations, often as freely available as yours.

There's a nice little analysis by EEDAR about the revenue of console games. Those with high ratings and high marketing spending make the most revenue. Those with low ratings and low marketing spending make the least revenue. No surprise. But, high rated games with low marketing spending make significant less revenue than low rated games with high marketing spending.
Translated, if you do a wonderful creation plenty of people would love, but you don't care to get those potential fans' attention, then they will instead find and stick to crap being bragged about. Such a pity and a shame!

Therefore, I recommend that if you love your creations and your fans, then care about reaching them and getting their attention. I know you prefer to create. So do I. But you achieve the most effevt by the minor actions with the least effort:

- Think twice about the placement and title of your creation. How can potential fans recognize it as their favorite?
- Sort and tag it. Did you know you can create folders to put your blog entries into folders your readers can access? You can even put the same blog entry in different folders at the same time. You can also easily give your blog entries and threads up to five tags. The more often you use these, the more useful that search criteria and tool becomes for your fans.
- Use meaningful links. If you refer to a former thread, blog post or album picture, ask yourself, was a link to it meaningful here, or would your whole text become links? Links are very comfortable for people who like your contributions and want more of them. Link your most recent creations in your signature. It's easy and then you automatically hint towards what you offer.
- Contribute the normal stuff. Post meaningful contributions in threads, comment blog entries and album pictures with your appreciation. Why should people care for your contributions if you don't care for theirs?
- Update. Old stuff gets less interesting. Give up pointing out the same stuff all along. And then old stuff gets interesting again. Especially if you or someone else picks up the topic again. Just look up which of your creations you currently point your fingers at, and see if it's time for a little or big change in what you point out or high. Change things once in a while.
- Help others. Your creation isn't the only intersting one out there. It may sound counterintuitive, but think and care about others, do it without any expections and genuine, unconditional love, and you'll get it back twice.
- Keep it up. Nothing is more powerful than doing something longterm. You learn to do it better. You experience what works and what doesn't. People get to know you and recognize you and your creations. They get curious. And you build up a reputation.

And don't forget to keep up creating. But at least, give a little love of that passion to marketing. It's totally worth it.