Home » Featured, gamerati

FLGS Outreach

20 November 2009 View Comments

A retailer asked me for help reaching out to the gamers in their area. I responded with a the following suggestions (partially edited):

Google Local is important for website traffic for local businesses. If you’ve already submitted your shop, good job. If not, make sure you’re listed.

IDEA: Sponsor game days at the local library. Bring in some games and demonstrate them. Don’t sell anything, just give people fliers with directions to your store (and the website) and a coupon good for a small discount. The flier will remind people where you are and help them get there. The coupon will help you track how many people came to you via the library.

While at the library, put a sheet so that people can sign up for updates from you about future events, both at the store and elsewhere. The important things you want are name and email address. With the email address, you can find out if they are on Twitter and Facebook, and invite them to join your fan page if they are. Don’t spam these people, just let them know you will keep them informed and do just that.

Bring games that are easy to learn and easy to play without a lot of explanation (FLUXX, for instance). You can bring an RPG if you like, but I would focus on family-friendly games. Leave the hard-core stuff for game conventions.

This idea was influenced by a talk I had with Scott Nicholson from Board Games with Scott. You can hear the whole discussion here.

IDEA: Find out if there are game clubs at local schools. Talk with publishers about sponsoring these clubs through you. Ask them to donate a couple copies of their games for this purpose. Put your store logo and website, etc on the boxes (a big sticker on the inside of the of the lid _and_ the back of the box / book would do fine) so people can find you. Treat these clubs like you do the library game days…

Ask the club leader to offer members a special discount card that gives them a small discount at the store. All they need to do is come to the store and pick one up – in exchange for their name and email address, of course (see above).

Keep in touch with the groups. Invite them to parties at the store. If you have two or three, maybe have club-on-club tournaments or competitions. Encourage the members to come in and demo games in the store so that they can breed new gamers for their clubs (and new customers for you).

IDEA: People that live in your area visit websites from time to time. Consider purchasing advertising that is only targeted to people that live in your area.

  • DarrenJohnson
    I have to weigh in here, as a FLGS owner. ( of an 11 year old store)

    The stickers idea is a good one..mostly. But there might be other considerations.
    First off, keep in mind if the day that they come in and play changes, all of those stickers now become little shiny pieces of trash.

    Second, I would FAR rather train myself and my employees to TALK to that customer, and eye to eye tell them that we ran DnD miniatures rather than rely on the customer noticing the sticker and then having the gumption to actually read it. I've seen most people open those packages. They tear into them with the care of a rogue backhoe. I'd guess that only perhaps 10% of those stickers would actually be seen and make an impression on a customer. So now you're spending money to target just one small percentage of your customer base.

    A store is much better off spending money on advertising in a bit of a broader fashion. Guerrilla marketing is where many store need to concentrate. Things like event flyers printed out and bag stuffed and PERSONALLY handed out to that come into the store. Don't just give them to people who make a purchase, but give them to EVERYONE.

    Let me just share a little math with some people about the game retail trade. The average store will have an end of year profit of 5 to 9 percent. If the average store does about 250,000 a year, then their take home profit will be about 12,500 to 22,500 a year. If I start discounting, and that discount say amounts to just 1% of total sales, then my profit margin has been hit by anywhere from 11 to 20%. (it would be really nice if my land lord deducted 1% from my rent to account for my discounting, but so far such pleas have landed on deaf ears.)

    Ed, I'd also like to bring up one little point you made in your original post. You mentioned stores setting up Facebook _fan_ pages. I'd like to suggest that instead they set up full accounts instead. Not the somewhat limited fan pages. Full FB sites are far more flexible and allow for far more two way communication. The term 'fan' doesn't imply the same level of two way communication that 'friend' does. I'm a fan of Brent Spiner, but I can guarantee he doesn't know who the hell I am. A Game store can't afford any kind of the impersonality. They need Friends, not fans.

    As an owner, I'm ALWAYS looking for better ways to do things, and I do appreciate feedback and communication. I'm also quite open to questions and comments from others. Please feel free to drop me a line at ImperialOutpost@hotmail.com

    Darren Johnson
    Owner - Imperial Outpost Games
    Glendale Arizona
  • Darren, I don't usually suggest setting up full accounts because doing so is a violation of Facebook's TOS and I'd hate for someone to put in a ton of work and then have their account shut down without warning. Enough people do it, though, that it appears Facebook is turning a blind eye.

    Thanks for sharing your experience with us, by the way.
  • DarrenJohnson
    Um......well..crap. I actually did not know that. I guess it's true that you learn something every day.

    Hrm.

    I'll defiantly keep that in mind from now on in my recommendations. When I set mine up, I had called around to several other game stores who had 'fan' pages, and almost everyone one of them told me they wished they had rather done a full page instead, and would set up a full page if they could go back and do it again.

    thank YOU for that information.
  • Excellent ideas. You and Scott really know your stuff. This past November 14 was National Gaming Day @ your library. It would have been an excellent opportunity for FLGS to get involved. Stores could start building a relationship now for next November. I'll looking to build some RPG events at libraries, but I don't have any stores interested yet. Now that I have a success story to share, maybe they'll be more likely to help out.

    In addition to local schools, anyone near a college or university should work out a deal with the gaming society on campus. They could visit during club's meeting time to demo new stuff and do the same things mentioned for after school groups.
  • I agree those are great ideas. Game clubs by far should be a huge focus of any retailer - its a highly targeted group and even a nominal discount would make many of them happy to come visit you.

    On a side note - if you intend to give out coupons in brochures, always make sure there's an expiry date on them. It forces the customer to come by a certain date.
  • Good point about the expiration date, Tao. I'll have to remember that, the next time I talk / write about this.
  • I find FLGS's are marketing retarded. Just sayin. Some of this should be no brainers, and I have no idea why they don't make it happen. Idea I shared with a co-owner of FLGS. You have a D&D minis skirmish night every Tuesday night. Why not print off a bunch of shiny stickers and have the words "played at <store name> every Tuesday night" and stick that on every booster box. Did they do it? No, of course not. Sometimes I wonder if FLGS's arent profitable, but they just don't know business/product marketing knowledge.
  • That last sentence doesn't read correctly. I should proof read, guess I won't be writing for KQ any time soon. It should read:

    "Sometimes I wonder if FLGS's aren't necessarily unprofitable when they tank, rather they don't know business/product marketing knowledge.

    BTW, isn't that what GAMA's for?
blog comments powered by Disqus