Only Using Social Media? Learn This From My Wargaming Mistake….
Social Media Marketing, and “O.A.T.H” and The Definition of Insanity…
Just about every board game and tabletop game developer I talk to is doing some sort of organic social media marketing
Could be Instragram, Tik Tok, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Discord… they almost all have at least one they engage with on a regular basis.
But most of them also have another thing in common.
They believe that social media, all by itself, is enough to drive sales.
On the one hand, I get it.
Some form of social media is almost always responsible for board gamers discovering new games.
But “discovering” and “buying” are two very different things.
And relying on social media alone reveals a misunderstanding of social media, customers, and what makes marketing work.
And to illustrate, I want to tell you about how I finally stopped losing to my brother in every single wargame battle…
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Though I am relatively new to D&D (began playing in 2014 after watching the Community episode), I’ve always had a nerdy side.
Growing up, my brother and I for a few years got REAL into the Lord of the Rings Warhammer game.
Building armies, painting all the minis, playing in the store right next to the mall Cinnabon… the whole nine yards.
It started with the Two Towers starter pack: my brother took the Uruk-hai and I took the mounted Rohirrim.
I fell in love with the idea of recreating the epic cavalry charges from the movies, envisioning sweeping through his lines and sending his men scattering!
(the level of epicness i imagined every time)
But after a few games, I hadn’t come close to a victory.
My initial charge would do ok. But his ability to stack pikemen meant that he got 3 attacks (if not 6!) compared to my two…
And the game had a flaw, in that the inertia of a cavalry charge just immediately stopped once you hit the line.
You couldn’t choose to ride through and sweep around for another attack.
Also, if you were charging at fill gallop, an enemy could run up and stop your charge by attacking you
(In my opinion, these were MASSIVE FLAWS in the mechanics, but I digress…)
Having “learned my lesson”, I switched Warriors of Minas Tirith, complete with shields and heavy armor.
I thought that, with the knights in the center and cavalry on the flanks, just like in real medieval warfare, there was NO WAY his pikemen would survive.
WRONG.
I got creamed again. Absolute bloodbath.
His Uruk-hai had an equally high defense value, most strength (so skirmishes ended in kills more often) and his pikes could stack, while my spears could not.
Then, one Christmas, through very carefully crafted Christmas wish-lists, we fully upgraded our armies overnight.
I got special captains with unique skills, bolt-throwing siege engines, even GAWD-DAMN UNDEAD GHOST SOLDIERS. At this point, I was straying away from the books, but who cares… they looked so epic!
But the ghost soldiers attacked an enemy’s COURAGE rather than DEFENSE, and his unarmored berserkers had the highest courage in the whole game.
And given how much those ghost soldiers cost, I was actually outnumbered by his superior foot soldiers.
It seemed like no matter what I did, it was the same result: loss… loss… LOSS.
Eventually, I gave up.
No matter what I did, what combination of epic heroes and warriors I tried, my brother beat me with the exact same strategy:
Shoot at me from a distance with his crossbowmen
Let charge into his ranks of pikemen and lose momentum
Finish me off with longsword-wielding berserkers on the flanks
Until one day, many years later, when we were both home for college, I asked him if we could play again.
I had a lot of time to think over my defeats and wanted to experiment with a brand new strategy.
And since that day, he hasn’t won a game.
What changed?
I stopped spending so much time IMAGINING what would be epic…
And started focusing on game MECHANICS.
I equipped as many men as possible with bows and volley fired, forcing him to attack
I used cavalry to get around his pikemen and attack his berserkers and crossbowmen first with an extra attack
Once I had the numerical advantage, I used heroic actions to move, and attacked only one side of his long battleline, rather than the entire line.
And while the new strategy felt more formulaic and less heroic…
It resulted in the lopsided victories I always dreamed of.
“Lopsided victories” are the type of results you want from social media.
But strangely enough, I see a lot of D&D small businesses make similar mistakes when they rely too much on social media in creating supporters, backers, and customers.
At first, things are great: they are getting a lot of likes and comments and the exposure brings in some customers.
But over time, as the rush of social approval begins to fade away, they finally take a look at their numbers, and it’s not a pretty sight.
These game developers discover what everyone eventually discovers:
Only a tiny fraction of people you connect with on social media buy your product.
This is what I’ll call “imagination-led” marketing:
We imagine people seeing our posts, filled with amazing photos and video of our product in action…
We imagine their hearts growing with excitement, heading straight to our website, and immediately scrolling through to find the exact product or pledge level that fits them…
We imagine them buying the product, loving it so much, and immediately posting on social media how great it is…
We imagine someone else seeing that post, and starting the cycle all over again..
But as wonderful as that vision is, it rarely happens…
It’s a nice thought, but it’s as fantasy as Uruk-hai and undead armies.
Don’t get me wrong, every tabletop games e-commerce store needs at least SOME social media; you can’t skip it!
But a single social media post does not catapult someone from where they are to being ready to whip out their credit card.
In marketing, one way of classifying customers is by considering what stage of awareness they have of their desires and of your brand.
There are many different ways to think about this, but my favorite acronym is “O.A.T.H.”:
Oblivious: They do not know you exist or that they have a problem.
Aware: They know you exist, but they either do not care or do not know why they should care or how you solve their problem
Thinking: They care that you exist, but aren’t sure if you are right for them
Hurting: They know you are right for them and want to purchase, and need a good reason to do so right now.
This is a linear path that customers take. The customer can traverse the path very quickly, even in a single conversation, but it must be done in order.
You see, social media is GREAT at taking people from “Oblivious” to “Aware”
The algorithms can get you in front of the right eyeballs, letting people know that you are real and relevant to their interests.
But you need other forms of marketing to take them to other stages of awareness.
A high-quality video ad miiiiight will grab their attention and make them curious to learn more…
But it is too short, and the nature of the platform too fleeting, to effectively educate and influence.
Even after a great social media ad, the potential customer is still a looooong way away from making a purchase. That’s because the odds of finding 1) the right board game customers at 2) the right time are SLIM.
And yet… odds of finding someone who might become a customer, with the right evidence and persuasion, are HIGH.
You need other marketing tools and channels…branding, landing pages, emails, ads… to bring potential customers to greater stages of awareness.
In conclusion, social media is great…
But if you expect your organic social media to do all the work of creating, convincing, and converting customers…
You’ll end up as frustrated as I was charging straight into Uruk-hai pikes!!!
