Kitely Mentors Group Meeting, 24 April 2013: summary

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

Blady, sorry, but your ad design is not very good.

A boring photo.
Too many words.
An ugly mix of typesizes.
Poor line and letter spacing making the text difficult to read and take in.

And it's only what YOU think the message should be.

The fact that you need others to do a simple thing like put an advert into the correct format suggests that you do not have the skillset needed here. A true professional would recognize their limitations and properly work with others.

Since we do not have any "true professionals" here, and I am the only one that wanted an ad campaign in the first place and made an effort to create one - It's a start at getting this thing done before Monday.

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

[Constance Peregrine]

It's a start at getting this thing done before Monday.

wait, what happens Monday? What did I miss? Is it someone's birthday? Are we gonna have a party?? Who is singing and/or djing? what am i talking about???????

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

By Monday this would have been discussed since February for no apparent reason. At this point, the only ad campaign that needs to go out is one that attracts merchants to the Online marketplace,

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

This should probably point to a blog post explaining how the merchant gets started and how they become eligible for the Featured Merchant Store. Then the blog posting can have a hyperlink there for the merchant to create their Kitely Account.

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

Blady,

The top banner you have now is 640 × 139 it needs to be 728 x 90 for SLU, which means that your current layout just won't work without creating very deformed images.

Anyone can take the compnenets of the banner ad and change the size (since we are "crowd-sourcing" an advertising campaign).

It also makes the text much smaller which, as it is, needs to compete for people's attention on a site where they would rather not see any ads at all (most people filter out ads either mentally or using ad blockers). An ad needs to really catch the viewer's attention for it to get clickthroughs. Tiny text and tiny images won't do that. That's part of the challenge we're trying to overcome. Getting a selling point across with very little text so the text that we do have will be prominent on the page the ad is displayed on.

This banner ad has been running at the top of SLU for the past 6 years:



It's not that professional and it is slightly stretched. But he would not keep paying for it if it did not create customers for him. Since I have been in Second Life and conducting business successfully since February 2005 and a member of SLU since 2007 - I know what works there or I would not have suggested to advertise there.

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Blady,

I've been in the Plaza working with several of the builders on things that were important to our goals, they weren't on the same page heading towards the same design before I talked to them. You know what you did, you don't know what I did when you weren't around.

We started directing people to the Plaza when it was at a state we were happy with. It didn't just happen all by its own.

Volunteers will organize themselves but part of what you asked us to do (e.g. provide a wiki) requires our time to set up things as well. If it's hosted on our site (the wiki and the group activity inworld) we have a responsibility for it, we might not moderate it but we will need to react to complaints about it and monitor its effect on the development of our business.

You didn't just ask me to give a green light, you asked me to commit resources to something, and as I've stated previously when we allocate resources to one thing we need to take them away from something else. We have a fuller picture than you do of what Kitely's development requirements are at any given point in time. You have no idea what is pending the marketplace, what PR we have in the works, where it will be directed to, what it will affect, what our commitments to third parties are, etc.

There are many people who have problems understanding our business model and yet we have MUCH higher conversion rates than the industry standard both from visitors to our site turning into registered users and from registered users turning into paying customers. You can't argue that away, it's the truth. Can we improve it? I hope so, but will changing the homepage positively affect our conversion rates? I'm not sure. That's why this requires testing and can't just be done on your, Maria's or anyone else's say so.

You sent me the ads you created in March but they have many problems which I mentioned earlier. They aren't finished, it requires more work which is what I'm trying to do with the group now.

If you want to be constructive in getting this finished quickly, please try using the correct aspect ratios for the ads and seeing how your designs look at those sizes.

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

Hi Blady,

I've been in the Plaza working with several of the builders on things that were important to our goals, they weren't on the same page heading towards the same design before I talked to them. You know what you did, you don't know what I did when you weren't around.

Yes they were on the same page. Telling people what you would like to see is not getting them on the same page. That's having them create a custom build for you. Having a discussion with the builders and the coordinator of the build at the same time puts everyone on the same page.

Volunteers will organize themselves but part of what you asked us to do (e.g. provide a wiki) requires our time to set up things as well.

Not really. wikis are free- like blogs.

If it's hosted on our site (the wiki and the group activity inworld) we have a responsibility for it, we might not moderate it but we will need to react to complaints about it and monitor its effect on the development of our business.

That is why I always make you the administrator with full powers over every Kitely Calendar I create (without you asking). I see it as a team effort - not over-site.

You didn't just ask me to give a green light, you asked me to commit resources to something,

I did? What Kitely resources are dedicated to community development? Dennis is doing all of the scripting. I am doing all of the recruiting and documentation.

You have no idea what is pending the marketplace, what PR we have in the works, where it will be directed to, what it will affect, what our commitments to third parties are, etc.

You did not give me the impression in January that you would not be advertising for 6 to 8 months.

There are many people who have problems understanding our business model and yet we have MUCH higher conversion rates than the industry standard both from visitors to our site turning into registered users and from registered users turning into paying customers. You can't argue that away, it's the truth. Can we improve it? I hope so, but will changing the homepage positively affect our conversion rates? I'm not sure. That's why this requires testing and can't just be done on your, Maria's or anyone else's say so.

Many have asked, several times, for a process that people understand better. So when we ask then to join us in Kitely, they can do so without aggravation. If you do not want to do that because you are happy with your sign-up rate, then so be it.

You sent me the ads you created in March but they have many problems which I mentioned earlier. They aren't finished, it requires more work which is what I'm trying to do with the group now.

How is a group chatting about various Kitely attributes getting the ad campaign completed? Everyone is all over the place. This is not effective or time-efficient.

If you want to be constructive in getting this finished quickly, please try using the correct aspect ratios for the ads and seeing how your designs look at those sizes.

It looks fine in any ratio. The banner ad on top of the SLU Forum is huge.

[Marstol Nitely]

Since we do not have any "true professionals" here, and I am the only one that wanted an ad campaign in the first place and made an effort to create one - It's a start at getting this thing done before Monday.

I did not want to comment on this, but this very public, very bad display has been going on for hours now. Since I started this thread, I get notified every time there is a post. And now, frankly, I'm very tired and a little angry.

Bladyblue, I'm not sure how you define professional, but I assure you, Dot fits that bill. We are lucky to have someone as qualified as she is working on this. She's not the only one on this thread with "professional" experience.

You had a good idea and you have worked hard to see it through, but that does not give you carte blanche. You haven't paid attention to anyone else's contribution to this thread. You've insulted others and acted as if your opinion (and that's exactly what it is Bladyblue), is the only one that counts. You've figuratively stomped your feet and demanded your way for hours now. You have effectively shut down any productive communication on this thread and made it a venue for your own bitch session. THAT is not efficient.

It's not good for anyone with any concern for Kitely. Including you.

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

Since we do not have any "true professionals" here, and I am the only one that wanted an ad campaign in the first place and made an effort to create one - It's a start at getting this thing done before Monday.

I did not want to comment on this, but this very public, very bad display has been going on for hours now.

Forums aren't always rainbows and bunnies.

Since I started this thread, I get notified every time there is a post. And now, frankly, I'm very tired and a little angry.

As you should be (but you can always turn off notifications).

Bladyblue, I'm not sure how you define professional, but I assure you, Dot fits that bill. We are lucky to have someone as qualified as she is working on this. She's not the only one on this thread with "professional" experience.

Since no one has actually displayed a single banner ad here - I will have to take your word on it. And she is the one slinging insults. Chastise her, not me.

You had a good idea and you have worked hard to see it through, but that does not give you carte blanche. You haven't paid attention to anyone else's contribution to this thread.

The marketing campaign was never suppose to be forum fodder in the first place. If that was the case, then this "conversation" should have taken place months ago.

You've insulted others and acted as if your opinion (and that's exactly what it is Bladyblue), is the only one that counts. You've figuratively stomped your feet and demanded your way for hours now. You have effectively shut down any productive communication on this thread and made it a venue for your own bitch session. THAT is not efficient.

there is no "productive communication" going on here. Just a filibuster so several more months will go by without advertising.

It's not good for anyone with any concern for Kitely. Including you.

If any of you cared about launching a timely banner ad campaign (which you don't because you never mentioned it before) then you would set a start and end time to the discussion and timeline the process to a positive conclusion.