What is the best marketing advice you can give?

[Team.UWU]

i want to help others with this to place this question in one spot.
my comic

Marina Mafia: Blood Money | Tapas

is going to be doing a revamp on the marketing side, so i wanna collect your advice in general on how you would market any comic? from merch, social media and other stuff

[darthmongoose]

I wouldn't call myself an expert, but here's what I've learned so far...

• Advertise in lots of different places. Do tweets, instagram, facebook, reddit, the tapas forums, tumblr etc. Plus add yourself to sites that serve as a list or database of webcomics, like TV Tropes and webcomics wikis and the like. Chances are you'll start to see which sites have an audience most drawn to your style and content.
• Advertise regularly. A lot of people need to see at least a few ads for the same thing before they actually try it.
• Don't be cagey with the premise and look of your comic and never post just vague teasers. Post ads and taglines that are really clear on what the reader is getting. If an ad is too vague, people will assume it's clickbait or fail to be grabbed by it and just scroll past.
• If you can invest the time to make them, animated ads can really grab attention.

[Eiranyx]

Just some tips I learned in the process so far:
(disclaimer, not everything listed in here will be applicable for everyone, these are just some tips to consider)

• The First thing you should keep in mind when you're marketing a comic is having a cover that will make an impression, something that tells what the reader expect to the comic, or what's in for the readers in your comic, what mood or theme it is etc. It's basically like a 5 second summary of your comic based on the cover itself to pique reader's interest --- When I was working in publishing one thing that they always say is that the term 'don't judge the book by it's cover' doesn't really apply ---why? because let's face it, majority of the people actually judge a book by it's cover, most people who buy a book/a comic tends to pick out the cover which grabs their attention first, before it gets their interests, proceeding to read the summary and before they actually read it therefore the cover should make an impression on potential readers and buyers -- and it applies on both digital and printed comics.

• A Synopsis that not only briefly summarize your story but also enough to intrigue the readers. Avoid starting on the lines of: "This is the story of (insert character name)" or "The story is about (insert character name) -- it's too redundant, overused and majority of the readers have already come across with the same opening sentences --- and will skip it. There are many creative ways to write it in a way that it highlights the events to look forward in your comic, and intrigue potential readers to know more in a way that you won't spoil it to them.

• Time it -- time your chapter in a way that the readers will definitely look forward for the next chapter, take advantage of cliff hangers and strategically place it in between chapters and wrap it up when needed. Time your ads too -- know when to 'attack' your marketing.

• Create a hype through interaction with your readers --- there are many ways to do this, you can add an author's commentary at the end of every chapter which foreshadows events --- this can be an opening topic for the readers to voice out their guess/ theory on what may happen to the next chapter if you want. Or you can create something that the readers can relate to or feel that they have some connection to the story and things like that.

• Social Media --- there are lot of creative ways to market on social media and each social media has its strength -- make use of every strength of it. And know what are the strength of your ads, and who do you intend to market it.

• Make Connections - This is a must, because you need to interact with people if you want to market, I'll be blunt here but, don't make any excuse that you are too shy and awkward of interacting with people why? -- because that's how marketing works, you're marketing to expand the network of your connection in the first place right? That's how you can make connections.

• Law of supply and demand --- create merchs/ other comic stuff once you notice your readers starting to demand it --- it gives you the time to plan it, save unnecessary efforts that may take away your comic time, and disrupt your schedule and will give you time to accumulate something like production fees for the merchs/you're planning which will be very helpful for later.

• BONUS: from making connections, do take note of suppliers, company that can provide services that can assist you in your comic making (like those who make 3d backgrounds for webtoon/ webtoon assets) and make a list of suppliers --- it will greatly help you when you decided to make merchs and if you need something for your web comic

[sushy00]

I have never heard of web comic wikis before, is that a thing?

[DiegoPalacios]

Alright, here are some principles i learned in advertising:

1-Understand your audience: Instead of spending resources in all kind of media, is more convenient to focus in the places and sites your potential readership has a higher potential to find you. If you have a general idea of your reader's general interests like action-comedy or goth aesthetic among others ....(What are those interests will depend a lot on your story and style.) you can reach a larger part of the people who would love to read your comic.

2- Ad design: the thing is that more often than not, people judge a book by it's cover.....so design your ads around giving a good and genuine first general impression of what the story is about. Don't sink them in walls of text, more often than not, short and sweet is more than enough to hook them up. Don't lie or people may just hit the "back" button after realizing your comic is not what you promised.
If you make a short video or any other kind of audiovisual media (check your budget first to see what you can afford), the first seconds are key to hook the viewers.....use that time wisely.

3- Stay visible without spamming. This is more easier said than done, but try to find a balanced ammount of ad impressions, teasers and anything that makes you visible. Don't be afraid to be creative. If you have fun and understand your viewership, chances are that you will find them, however, seeing the same thing over and over again can tire them out.....The other extreme of not enough visibility is also bad, because people may not find you.

4- Work on your pitch. This is related to ad design and understanding your audience. The same message can be expressed in many different ways and some of these ways can be more attractive to your audience.

5-Know your product: Maybe you have a comic or a novel to sell, but deep down, you are selling more than that. You are selling an experience. When you understand what kind of experience your story offers, you can express that better and convey it in unique and attractive ways.

6-While this is not directly related to marketing, is an important point to consider: You need to have a product in the first place. If you don't work on your story, all that advertising will be useless if the viewers will only find a page or two. You dont buy the carriage without first buying the horse, so make sure whatever you have is enough to hook them up and to continue working on your story (unless it's already finished)

[rajillustration]

-You do not have to keep using a platform that just isn't working for your marketing. Like using facebook can be great for others and not you--you're one person, so you don't have to keep managing your dead facebook account. But, you should try all of them for at least a while to see if they do catch on--but not all at the same time or you'll burn out.

-Try to make your marketing sell a brand and a story. Just dropping links is kind of boring, but if you get people interested in "what's the story here? What's this unique world?" then it'll get more clicks.

-Algorithms work best for accounts that only specialize in one thing. Your day to day activities can work and be fine so long as they match the brand you got (and this is what I do for my art twitter which I probably shouldn't be doing), but in my experience my hobby accounts made for shoveling one purpose will do way better in the long run.

[Rhonder]

Related to parts of the above reply, my biggest tips and self revelations are:

• Don't be afraid to experiment, not only on different sites but also with different types of media, &

• Try to find something that you have fun making/promoting with.

With my first comic I failed to really do either of these things, and now that I've started to do them for my 2nd comic I've had a much better time pursuing marketing.

In short, with the first comic I had always just heard about promoting on social media and the like, so I started a bunch of fresh art accounts and started to slowly build them up, posting both about my comic as well as other art stuff. I do like having those accounts, as a way to archive my work and keep up with other artists. But I never found them to be particularly lucrative ways to grow my webcomic audience. But I just... never expanded beyond Facebook/Twitter/Instagram and that was that.

Recently I've started experimenting with other types of social media, namely Twitch streaming and more recently Youtube. These platforms still allow you to reach out to and connect with potential readers, but making video content differs quite a bit from still images and captions, for example.

I've had a few takeaways. First of all, while I often find posting to social media a chore, especially Twitter, I actually have fun living streaming and making youtube videos. That means that even if the marketing aspect doesn't perform as well as desired, it's still an enjoyable activity. This makes it easier to do consistently, which is important for marketing. Regardless of which platform or type of content you make, you want to have a steady stream of content going out if possible.

Lastly, as an aside for youtube in particular: I'm at the very start of that journey, so to speak, but I'm excited to see where it leads! The one thing that sets Youtube apart from any of the other platforms that I've tried marketing on (including Tapas and Webtoons themselves) is that it's the only site where a significant amount of people actually utilize the search bar to seek out content on a regular basis rather than purely relying on follower content and the algorithm. I've always had a hard time making hashtags and the like work for me on platforms like twitter since... it seems like a lot of the time folks just scroll their feed anyways. But youtube gives you the ability to target specific audiences really accurately, which is neat on paper. Right now I'm making content more so aimed at other comic creators rather than readers since... "make what you know", but I'm looking forward to branching out and trying to target those readers someday with relevant content~

[Kinokolu]

First advice, never spares any money for advertising, second, spend it wisely, according to your budget and capabilities, and third, do not hesitate to use the services of call centers or create one yourself. I, for example, bought myself a couple of VoIP numbers from https://www.mightycall.com/features/call-forwarding/ and I myself call customers and offer my products, and if they like it and they call, they just get redirected to my employees. It's efficient and not too costly.

[Lensing]

For me it is:
Focus on the creation
then let a pro do the marketing

[joannekwan]