I had a visitor to one of my stores complain this week about being sent an invitation to join our group. She called it spam, unwarranted and took up her time and threatened to complain.
Well to fill you in, here’s what we do at the store. We have a visitor tracker that we can access a list of who has visited the store in the last 24 hours. From this list, we send an invitation to anyone who isn’t already a member of our group. The invitation goes out and the visitor can either accept or decline. It’s a few second operation.
The reasons for doing this are many. The advertising and marketing opportunities are limited in second life and we use groups as a way of informing people of various activities and new releases. A notice is sent to group members only when new outfits are released, when we have special promotions and also to give away prizes randomly. It’s effective to a point as people will come down to check out new releases and they stay in the group to receive the prizes. We use a lot of information from the group such as numbers, turn over, frequency etc. It’s a useful tool in second life business. We can see how often people return to the store and if people are leaving the group. It’s a good way of staying informed.
It would be nice if we could ask people as they come in to the store, but since we can’t be there all the time, we use this method.
I don’t feel that group invitations are spam, because we don’t target everyone and send out a blanket note or invite. Only people who visit our store, and those who are not already members are sent an invitation. If you don’t want to join, it takes a split second to decline the invitation.
I get a lot of invitations to join groups and most are sent without asking me. I don’t’ mind as I am free to accept or decline. I often get invites and not know who the group is or why it is sent to me, but I don’t question that as I figure I must have been somewhere to trigger an invitation. I simply decline. If I recognize the group and wish to be part of it I accept it. I receive a lot of group invites in clubs. Almost every club I go to in my capacity as a reporter for Thump Magazine sends me a group invitation. Most of the time it is sent without my permission. But I realize that this is the club owner’s best tool and I accept that.
I can understand being annoyed if you receive a lot of group invites. But generally, invites are triggered by visiting places. Yes it may be frustrating, but understand that this is no different than real life in a lot of ways. We get unsolicited mail and phone calls in real life and unless they get abusive or repetitive, it’s not really a major issues. I can understand if we sent you numerous requests and you were flooded with them, but we do it once and leave it at that.
I’ve talked before about marketing in second life and the limitations it has. People don’t travel the same as rl, watch television or any of the other areas where marketing would prove effective. We can’t use tv advertisements; put billboards along the roadside hoping you’ll drive by or put up signs in buses and other areas. In second life the ways of advertising are limited to the following:
1. Posting notices in events search (fairly effective but is not supposed to be used as general advertising, just for specific events, product launches etc.)
2. Classifieds, not as effective unless you want to pay an exorbitant amount of money and even then I’m not sure how effective it is. I have ads for all my businesses, but the hits stay fairly low compared to event notices.
3. Parcel search, for the 30L fee, it’s not bad. It keeps you listed in search.
4. Ad boards – I’ve used a few in various places but I don’t find them very effective. They are usually set in out of the way areas of a club or mall and people don’t really seem to use them.
5. SLX- I do post notices in SLX regularly and see a fair response. It’s hard to determine how much of this transforms into actual sales or visits.
Aside from the above, we use events at our nightclub to promote other businesses on the island through announcements and sponsorship.
I’m not sure why people get so offended in second life. I hope we don’t, but it’s business.
Well to fill you in, here’s what we do at the store. We have a visitor tracker that we can access a list of who has visited the store in the last 24 hours. From this list, we send an invitation to anyone who isn’t already a member of our group. The invitation goes out and the visitor can either accept or decline. It’s a few second operation.
The reasons for doing this are many. The advertising and marketing opportunities are limited in second life and we use groups as a way of informing people of various activities and new releases. A notice is sent to group members only when new outfits are released, when we have special promotions and also to give away prizes randomly. It’s effective to a point as people will come down to check out new releases and they stay in the group to receive the prizes. We use a lot of information from the group such as numbers, turn over, frequency etc. It’s a useful tool in second life business. We can see how often people return to the store and if people are leaving the group. It’s a good way of staying informed.
It would be nice if we could ask people as they come in to the store, but since we can’t be there all the time, we use this method.
I don’t feel that group invitations are spam, because we don’t target everyone and send out a blanket note or invite. Only people who visit our store, and those who are not already members are sent an invitation. If you don’t want to join, it takes a split second to decline the invitation.
I get a lot of invitations to join groups and most are sent without asking me. I don’t’ mind as I am free to accept or decline. I often get invites and not know who the group is or why it is sent to me, but I don’t question that as I figure I must have been somewhere to trigger an invitation. I simply decline. If I recognize the group and wish to be part of it I accept it. I receive a lot of group invites in clubs. Almost every club I go to in my capacity as a reporter for Thump Magazine sends me a group invitation. Most of the time it is sent without my permission. But I realize that this is the club owner’s best tool and I accept that.
I can understand being annoyed if you receive a lot of group invites. But generally, invites are triggered by visiting places. Yes it may be frustrating, but understand that this is no different than real life in a lot of ways. We get unsolicited mail and phone calls in real life and unless they get abusive or repetitive, it’s not really a major issues. I can understand if we sent you numerous requests and you were flooded with them, but we do it once and leave it at that.
I’ve talked before about marketing in second life and the limitations it has. People don’t travel the same as rl, watch television or any of the other areas where marketing would prove effective. We can’t use tv advertisements; put billboards along the roadside hoping you’ll drive by or put up signs in buses and other areas. In second life the ways of advertising are limited to the following:
1. Posting notices in events search (fairly effective but is not supposed to be used as general advertising, just for specific events, product launches etc.)
2. Classifieds, not as effective unless you want to pay an exorbitant amount of money and even then I’m not sure how effective it is. I have ads for all my businesses, but the hits stay fairly low compared to event notices.
3. Parcel search, for the 30L fee, it’s not bad. It keeps you listed in search.
4. Ad boards – I’ve used a few in various places but I don’t find them very effective. They are usually set in out of the way areas of a club or mall and people don’t really seem to use them.
5. SLX- I do post notices in SLX regularly and see a fair response. It’s hard to determine how much of this transforms into actual sales or visits.
Aside from the above, we use events at our nightclub to promote other businesses on the island through announcements and sponsorship.
I’m not sure why people get so offended in second life. I hope we don’t, but it’s business.
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