I sought on the forum but I did not find anything on my idea marketing.

Here my idea:
"When a user is registered, I send a bulletin of sponsorship to him so that it encourages a person of its entourage to register the software. He of exchange obtains the next version free"

Advantages:
- Domino effect: a sale can potentially lead to another sale and so on...
- Fight counters the copy: the user is tempted to obtain the next version and thus incites the person, who would like to extort her purchase to him, to be recorded thanks to sponsorship.

Disadvantage:
- Free version for the godfather

Did you already set up this principle of sponsorship ?
Which is your opinion on this idea marketing ?

Thank you for your answers,

Refer a friend type marketing can be very successful. I think this is what you are talking about :)

I have seen it work well with a few different products(and implemented it myself for some). However not with games. I have seen 'tell a friend' type functionality in games, however it is not quite the same.

The good thing about it for customers is that both them and thier friends gain something from it. For example, some internet service providers will give you and your friend $30-$40 credit off your next bill if you get them to sign up. If both friends want and internet connection everyone wins in this situation. If both friends do not get something, then it can make one of the friends wary of the deal, or not so enthusiastic to go through with it.

Not sure if it would work with shareware games... Below are a few ways to work it.

For everyone to win I could see it working like this:
There has to be at least 2 games(not talking about subscription games here).

Sarah Bloggs buys gameA.
Sarah asks Joe Bloe to buy a game, so that both her and Joe get another game for free.

More games available the better, as then Sarah Bloggs can gain more from telling all her friends. This is why it may not work so well with shareware games, unless you have many shareware games to sell.


You could make it work with trial versions instead/as well. Maybe for every trial version they refer to their friends they get a free game, or points towards a free game if you're not that generous. Five points(five friends download the trial) and they get the game for free. What the downloading friend gets in this case? Not sure, but it isn't costing them to install a trial so I guess it doesn't matter.



Another similar idea to this would be to have your cute ingame character be able to be scripted to say something or do something as a greeting card. Then allow the player to send your game as a greeting card to their friends.



Have fun!