So that you lack main funding, a huge selection of staff, or a nation-wide brand name. You are producing do with what resources you have received and trying to maximize your customer conversion charges on uncomplicated downloadable content that it seems like everybody must want. But people are not flocking to get your e-product! Why not?

You’ve received the traffic, you have received the well-designed internet site, and you have received the fundamental marketable concept. That’s all you will need, correct? You are lifeless incorrect! In case you truly want these gross sales, your item wants to have the TRAPPINGS of a severe item.

What does that mean? The trappings of a item are such as the clothing you wear. They do not say something concerning the person inside, but you wouldn’t want to go out without any clothing on, now would you? This is the most effective component: you may make your personal components to garb your item in. You do not will need to spend a lot of dollars or employ a whole niche marketing software, team. All you will need is a small time and power.

Begin by making use of movies. Tutorials and item demonstrations are a great place to start. Think of them as useful, cheap commercials that do not annoy the people who observe them! Obviously, as quickly as you have received sufficient movies for it to become worthwhile, you may setup a Youtube channel. If your item isn’t that naturally visual, then you must look at making use of Flash or similar graphics software program to style animated diagrams and charts that can appeal visually.

So you have received your movies all put in place… but what about a blog to go together with that? Right after all, people will want to know when your subsequent video is up! Blogs are fantastic for climbing the ranks in Google, because it enables you to jam in keywords and links as real content. Don’t be ashamed to put inside your regular internet marketing basics; after all, everybody else is doing it.

Now you have received a blog, and like a blog author you must have a profile. Your profile must in flip result in other social media websites, creating a cohesive professional identification for spreading consciousness about your brand. A caveat, having said that: be cautious not to use your professional profile for personal rants. It is just not… well, professional!

And final but not least among these e-product internet marketing tips, doll your downloadable merchandise up with a bit of fancy graphics shine. If you’re promoting e-books, bundle faux cover pictures. If you’re promoting music, bundle fake CD album covers. Make it appear as significantly such as the ‘real thing’ as you may.

Place all these ideas to operate for you, and you’ll get the gross sales. Why? Mainly because you appear just like the prime industry gamers, even if you’re paying a fraction of their budgets.

There’s been so much push for digital, downloadable content lately that we’ve almost forgotten about our old friend, the compact disc. Even though CD sales are plummeting each time our little planet makes another orbit around that bright, flaming thing in the sky, the big boys don’t seem to be willing to throw in the towel just quite yet. In fact, UMG is working to implement a new pricing structure that will hopefully bring CD prices down to a maximum of $10 a pop.

UMG plans to make up the difference with more units moved, and with a push for “deluxe” versions of albums that will cost a bit more, but come with all sorts of fun and exciting extras.

“We think [the new pricing program] will really bring new life into the physical format,” Universal Music Group Distribution president/CEO Jim Urie

The new structure plans to keep a 25% wholesale profit margin. So an album you pay $10 for, wholesellers will get for $7.50. We’ll see if that’s enough to get everyone on board with the move. People already behind it include Newbury Comics CEO Mike Dreese and Trans World Entertainment CEO Bob Higgins. The rest of the music industry doesn’t seem too excited though.

But they’d better do something if they want to get CD sales out of their current nosedive. 2008 saw 360.6 million units, barely over half of the numbers in 2000. iTunes and other retailers seem to have set 10 bucks as the magic number people will buy albums at. Granted, if people are willing to shell out $10 for a digital album, a little more isn’t so unreasonable for a physical copy. With art, liner notes, and all the rest.

Universal’s move here seems to show the music industry is finally starting to look into some longer term solutions that just suing everybody left and right. We’ll have to wait and see if any of the other big labels make similar moves.

[Billboard]

The original complaint about music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band is that they convinced kids that playing the guitar was actually easy. A few taps, a few strums and you sounded like Jack White or OzzySteve Vai, right? Well Powergig wants to change that perception by offering a real six-string guitar that you can really play and, with the flip of a switch, you can dampen the strings and strum along to your favorite tunes on the XBox 360 or PS3.

The company, Seven45, is also making a guitar game with its own downloadable content that will be something like Brutal Legend, and the guitars are made by their parent company, First Act makers of “entry level” AKA toy guitars and instruments. Nice synergy, eh?

Anyway, more on this from GDC when we have it but until then, feel free to thank me for sticking Summer of ‘69 in your head.

via CNET

Taking a page from Apple’s iTunes, Sony is devising an online store offering music, movies, books, and other downloadable content for its various devices.

In September last year, Bandai has updated the Tamagotchi with a color version, causing dozens of teenage girls to leave comments on CrunchGear for the first time. And now the company is ready to roll out yet another model: The so-called Tamagotchi ID [JP] is named “ID” because it’s the first model you can customize to some extent. It’s also possible to install content off the mobile web on the device (but probably only in Japan).

The downloadable content can be anything from virtual items, backgrounds to mini games you first get on your (Japanese) cell phone from a special cell phone-only site and then transmit to your Tamagotchi ID via infrared. You can dress up your character, take him out to various places etc. etc. The device itself features a 1.44-inch TFT display with 128×128 resolution.

The Tamagotchi ID goes on sale in Japan on November 23 in six different colors and costs $57. Targeting mainly 7-9 year-old girls, Bandai plans to sell 500,000 units in Japan alone by March 2010.

Sorry, Tamagotchi fans, Bandai hasn’t said yet whether it will ever sell the ID outside Japan as well.

Nintendo has officially announced Wii Fit Plus, a somewhat incremental upgrade to its wildly-popular Wii Fit exercise program. The price of the Wii Fit bundle, which will include the new Wii Fit Plus along with the Balance Board apparatus, will remain at $99 while the standalone version of the game will cost $19.99. It’s set to release here in the US on October 4th.

According to Nintendo:

Wii Fit Plus: This enhanced version of the top-selling game offers a range of new features, along with new exercises, yoga activities and balance games designed to keep workouts fun. For the first time, users can customize their workouts to target specific areas of their bodies or to fill specific intervals of time. Wii Fit Plus will replace the current Wii Fit configuration at retail, and will be bundled with the Wii Balance Board accessory at a suggested retail price of $99.99. For people who currently own Wii Fit and want to add the expanded options to their fitness regimen, the Wii Fit Plus disc will be available on its own at a suggested retail price of $19.99.

That’s actually not a bad price for the standalone version. It’d be nice to see some downloadable content this time around — maybe some new exercises and games to keep us coming back, eh Nintendo?

[via GoNintendo.com]