Mktg 3001 - Brand Me - the Personal Marketing Plan

Brand Me - The Personal Marketing Plan

MKGT 3001, Section #2

Yongbo Yang

09/16/2013

Industry Focus: Online-Gaming

Personal Experience with Marketing/Sales:

I started my own online buying-and-selling business on Yugioh cards (a type of trading card game) at the age of 13. Using auction sites like Ebay and Trademe.co.nz helped me to become very familiar with how the online auction system works, and at the same time granted me the opportunity to make money. I also have been involved in dealing with online-gaming industry frequently to gain profit by using the platform provided by gaming companies. In June of 2012, Blizzard Entertainment opened up a system called the "Real-Money-Auction-House" in the new released game - "Diablo III", which allows people to buy and sell in-game items for real cash. This was a huge opportunity to exploit due to the uncertainty and the fluctuation of market price for many kinds of in-game items. I started buying Gold (in-game virtual currency) in China from the Chinese in-game "farmers" and buy in items that are worthy for selling. Obtaining resources from the cheap labors in China and to combing my analytical skills of seeking for profitable items was my core competency. Huge profit margin was obtained, but not for long. As more and more people got familiar to how the system works and obtained vital resources, pricing became more sensitive and competition intensified. Many competitors adopted same selling strategies as I first did, so that I had to innovate new ways of differentiation. I then started to buy and sell directly on gaming forums, and look for more suppliers at cheaper cost. Continuously monitor the marketing environment, have a superior supply chain, and innovate new profit paths helped me to stay profitable. By the end of first year, I achieved 20%+ profit margin with revenue of over $300,000 (from June 2012-June 2013).

Customers:

Online-gaming industry has been rising prominently in the past decade. As the information era progresses, cyberspace interactions and communications have become a substantial form of enjoyment for many people. The online-gaming industry is extremely popular among people with the age between 10 to 30 in many countries. It provides great ways for people to communicate and interact with each other through forms of playing games, which satisfy both the needs of entertaining and socializing. Many people are willing to spend a considerable amount of money in those games to obtain a higher status, which contributes significantly towards the profit of the firms who are the operator of the online-games. I believe that this industry is in the growth stage of the industry's life cycle and is expected to growth substantially in the following years