167: Chapter 167 Promotion Budget

Chen Fan looked at her and said, "It doesn't matter if the cost is high. The company has sufficient funds now, so we should spend money where it's needed. Just find the top bloggers."

Chen Fan could well understand Wang Jing's reaction.

She was worried that if the budget was too high, he would get angry.

But Chen Fan knew in his heart that the money that needed to be spent still had to be spent.

The reason little money was spent on "defend the carrot" wasn't because he didn't want to spend it, but because the company didn't have much money in the account at that time.

Moreover, it was the first game Chen Fan had made.

He lacked experience and could only try marketing cautiously, afraid of wasting money.

Although the game eventually became a hit quickly, that was pure luck.

Lady Gaga playing a game at the airport and getting secretly filmed—how many times in a lifetime can you run into such a windfall?

After "happy elimination" goes online this time, it is estimated that there won't be such good luck, so we must invest enough in marketing.

Seeing that Chen Fan did not object, Wang Jing continued, "Also, we can proactively contact Apple's business team to apply for a recommendation spot. Previously, because we had no track record, we never contacted them. Now that we have the data from "defend the carrot", there is a high probability of successfully applying for it."

After Wang Jing finished speaking, she looked at Chen Fan.

"Regarding Tencent and Weibo, besides sharing, are there any other promotional methods? For instance, qq space ads and Weibo ads—have you looked into those?"

"This… not yet…" Wang Jing said, feeling a bit embarrassed, her fingers gently rubbing the edge of her notebook. "General Manager Chen, I'll go check it out in a moment. I was only thinking about sharing and joint operations before and missed the advertising side."

"Alright." Chen Fan leaned back in his chair. "QQ is currently the largest social platform, and Weibo also has good development momentum. We cannot miss these two channels. You first contact these two platforms, confirm the costs, and then redo a version of the marketing plan. Give it to me as soon as possible."

"Understood, General Manager Chen. I'll go do it now." Wang Jing closed her notebook, stood up, and turned to walk towards the door, her steps much faster than usual.

"Hmm, go ahead."

...

The next afternoon, there was a knock on Chen Fan's office door.

"Come in."

Wang Jing walked in holding her laptop, with a folder tucked under her arm. Her expression was much more composed than yesterday.

"General Manager Chen, the latest marketing plan is ready. Please take a look."

She placed the laptop on Chen Fan's desk. On the screen was the completed PPT. The open page read: ""happy elimination" Integrated Marketing Plan — V2.0". She sat down beside him, opened the folder in her hand, and waited for Chen Fan to finish reading so she could answer questions at any time.

Chen Fan leaned back in his chair, swiped his fingers on the touchpad a few times, and flipped through it page by page. The PPT was much more detailed than the last one, divided into four major sections: Social Propagation, Advertising Placement, Media Public Relations, and Event Operations.

Under Social Propagation, she listed qq space sharing, Weibo sharing, and Renren Network sharing, with the connection status and estimated launch time marked for each.

The Advertising Placement section was divided into two columns—Tencent system and Sina system. Under the Tencent system, she wrote qq space feed ads. Under the Sina system, she wrote Weibo display ads, feed ads, and a small line of text: "Grassroots Big Account Cooperation (Testing)."

Media Public Relations and Event Operations were similar to the previous version, but there was an extra page for "Budget Summary," which listed the estimated costs for each channel and the total budget.

Wang Jing sat on the side, watching Chen Fan flip through the PPT without speaking, her fingers gently tapping the edge of the folder, waiting for him to speak.

Chen Fan flipped to the last page, closed the laptop, leaned back in his chair, and tapped his fingers on the desk twice.

"Have the advertising quotes from Tencent been confirmed?"

"Confirmed." Wang Jing opened the folder and found that page. "I've clarified the quotes for qq space feed ads and QQ pop-up ads. The QQ pop-up ad is the "Today's News" window that pops up after logging into QQ. You can place an 8-second FLASH ad inside, which costs 500,000 per day. There is also an ad slot in the top right corner of the QQ chat window, which is 80,000 per day for 50 rotating ads. However, this is for the PC version, so users need to scan a QR code to download."

She paused and continued, "For qq space, it's 50,000 per day. The position is at the top of the qq space page, and users can see it every time they open their space."

"So expensive?" Chen Fan frowned.

"Yes. Currently, QQ is the largest social platform in the country, and the monthly advertising revenue alone is over 50 million."

Hearing this number, Chen Fan was a bit surprised. In 2010, just QQ's advertising alone could bring in 50 million a month? And this wasn't even Tencent's main source—Tencent's main source was games. He roughly calculated in his mind: QQ Games, Dungeon & Fighter, crossfire—adding up the main products, Tencent's quarterly game revenue was likely an astronomical figure.

The current Tencent could already be called a giant.

Chen Fan leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the desk twice. Although the effect of QQ pop-ups was good, the price of 500,000 per day was simply too high, so he immediately gave up on it.

"Don't invest in pop-ups for now; the cost is too high," he said. "Let's test the qq space feed ads first, and add to the budget if the results are good."

Wang Jing nodded and made a note in her notebook.

"What about QQ Groups?" She looked up. "There is also an ad slot in the bottom left corner of the QQ Group window, which is 100,000 per day. Although this position is not large, the activity level of QQ Groups is high, user stickiness is strong, and group members will see it constantly while chatting."

Chen Fan thought for a moment and shook his head. "Don't do it for now. The ad slot in the group window is too small, and the display effect is limited. Let's get qq space and Weibo running first; the volume from these two channels is enough."

"Alright."

"What about Weibo?"

"For Weibo display ads, the banner at the top of the homepage is 50,000 to 100,000 per day, depending on the position and time slot. Feed ads use the CPM model, about 25 yuan per thousand impressions." Wang Jing flipped a page. "I also asked about the grassroots big accounts. For those at the level of "Weibo Funny Rankings", the quote for one ad is 1,500 to 2,000. For those with fewer followers, you can post one for a few hundred yuan. I've selected three or five accounts to test first, and the budget is controlled within 10,000."

"What are grassroots big accounts?" Chen Fan asked.

"They are those ordinary user accounts with huge follower counts but no official or celebrity verification."

Chen Fan suddenly realized—aren't these just self-media bloggers? Wang Jing said "grassroots big accounts," and he really didn't react at first.

"What about the total budget?"

Wang Jing flipped to the budget summary page: "Calculating everything, the domestic part is at least one million. Investing in QQ ad slots for five days is 400,000; testing qq space and Weibo feed ads for a week is 100,000; grassroots big account testing is 10,000; plus media press releases, event operations, etc., it's controlled within 600,000. The total is just over one million."