Five questions to ask for a virtual business
Aug 06, 07 | 7:57 am
Yeoh Siew Hoon comes up with a list of questions you must ask if you are thinking of setting up business in the virtual world.
The "Starfish Virtual Reality & Customer Communities Marketing Summit" was attended mainly by advertising and media agency folks but there were a couple of travel and tourism players who were interested to know more about Second Life and were not afraid to ask.
Unfortunately, I think they left with more questions than answers, so I am going to attempt to draw up a list of questions you simply must ask if you are contemplating doing something, business-wise that is, in Second Life. (I will develop a personal list later when I have time.)
1. Why?
This is a good question to ask before embarking on any new endeavour. What will it do for my brand? Will it give me new customers I wouldn't be able to reach otherwise? Is it cheaper, faster and better than any other medium? Or is it because it's new and cool and I simply must do this so I can tell everyone so? Or is it just because you believe in giving everything new a chance? In that case, proceed to Question 2.
2. How?
This is another good question to ask once you've decided to try something new. How will you execute it? Remember, creating something new is fun. But it's the maintenance that will get you in the end. Think of your website and the pain of maintaining, updating and freshening it? Content is king. Well, that's also true in the virtual world. It will need major commitment and resources to avoid creating a half-baked virtual world. Still interested? Proceed to Question 3.
3. Who?
It's a new platform so you'll have to hire a fresh team of professionals to run it for you. And they'll all speak a different language from you. For example, they will all be into MMORPGS - Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Go to www.mmorpg.com to find out more so you can understand the type of talent you will be bringing into your organization. This is critical - remember, people are your best asset, so you have to know how to unleash the talent from within.
4. What?
This is another good question to ask once you get into any place - what the heck do I want to do here? You can choose from three areas - commerce, customer interaction and collaboration/simulation (see, I was paying attention). Ie do you want to sell something? Test a product? Research? Experiment with design? Hold virtual meetings? There's a whole host of things you can do. My advice though is, do not apply old world rules to this new world. Forget "out of the box", think "out of the Earth". Try to do things that are fun, interesting, quirky, wacky because residents in Second Life are in "fun" mode generally. Give them a product to toy with, for example, or get them to create something? Fun, collaborative advertisements have been created in this space.
In fact, I'd offer this free piece of advice to all marketers - make things fun for your customers, whether they are real or virtual. Do stuff that lend meaning to their lives, not yours.
5. When?
Well, there's no time like the present, I always believe. So if you have answered the first four questions satisfactorily, then please pass Go, collect $200 and try not to end up in jail. Oh sorry, that's another game although not quite in the realm of MMORPGS but I reckon it's still a Multiplayer Role-Playing Game.
See you at a virtual store nearby.
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Yeoh Siew Hoon
