RPGNow Dungeon Ad #114 Inquiries

[Jraynack]

Hello to Everyone,

I started this thread to see if anyone who submitted to the Dungeon ad with RPGNow has noticed an increase in sales or web traffic to their respective sites. We, at Alea Publishing Group, are curious how the ad is affecting those involved.

To start out - We have had an increase in our free product A Question of Honor: Game Enhancement, however our sales for our normal products are still steady without a sharp increase.

However, I also have noticed a heavy increase of traffic to our site lately. Has anybody else had such a dramitic spike. This is our first magazine ad, and though it is a direction we wish to continue in our advertising, I wanted to hear from others.

By the way - James, the ad looks great - the covers are crisp - great job!

 

[D_Sinclair]

Hmmm... Well, the Big Bang 2003 Collection, one of the more expensive PDF-based products on RPGNow at $25, normally sells 1-2 units per month, except Nov-Jan, where it sells on the order of 15 copies a month... We've sold 5 copies in the last couple weeks.

But to be honest, none of us will really be able to expose any trends until the end of the month, to account for the drawn out release rate over the various markets (game shops usually get them the first few days of the month, big chain book stores get them middle of the month, many indie book stores pick them up at the end of the month, and then there's the 50,000 copies or whatever being given away at Gencon).

Then again, it is Gencon month. Sales are traditionally depressed until early to mid september. Time to go discuss putting a few things on sale to go with that ad.

 

[Jraynack]

But to be honest, none of us will really be able to expose any trends until the end of the month, to account for the drawn out release rate over the various markets

That is true. I thought posting this at the beginning of the month will allow us participating publishers to have an ongoing up-to-date discussion until the end of the month.

A GenCon sale sounds like a good idea - anyway keep in touch.

 

[rpghost]

The page the Dungeon ad links to does contain sales coupons for the products there. If yours isn't listed send me an email and coupon.

And yes, a lot of exposure (one of the main reasons I did the ad) is the 30,000 being handed out at GenCon this year. A week or two after people return we should see some increases.

But in general big expensive print ads don't usually directly corralate to increased sales right away. They have more to do with long term exposure and branding. So don't expect to see any big spikes in sales.

James
P.S. This sort of thread should really be put on our own forums not ENworld so more publishers can participate. Maybe of our publishers these days are NOT d20 fanboys

 

[Chaos Drake]

By the way I spotted a Kobolds book in the ad but didn't see it on RPGNow. So it hasn't been released yet?

 

[Mark]

By the way I spotted a Kobolds book in the ad but didn't see it on RPGNow. So it hasn't been released yet?

It's slated to be released with Gencon (though electronic and not at the show). Look for more information this weekend.

 

[rpghost]

So far (little less then one month since it hit the stores/homes) we have gotten about 40 new customers (people who bothered to signup for account which means they probably downloaded something). Also, these are only the ones who used the discount page or bothered to say where they heard about us.

Print ads tend to get a slower steady amount of people checking out the site... so I expect that number to eventually double.

Still for 3 grand spent on an ad, you'd expect more response then that. I guess I'm not surprised. But I'll go broke if I have to pay $30 per user aquired.

James
P.S. This is the typical response we've gotten from KOTD, Dragon, and other print magazines. I think I need to start spending more money online instead, but where?

 

[Prest0]

We ran a banner ad with reallife.com. It is a popular (and funny) webcomic with a mixture of computer and pen & paper gaming humor. We knew it would be an experiment, but we wanted to try to bring in new customers from outside the existing pool. And they were affordable.

I still think we're on the right track, but that particular venue didn't pan out for us. It would have been helpful if we'd had the kind of banner reporting system RPGHost has, but unfortunately all we had to go by was product views and sales source. We got several thousand product views, so we assume people liked the banner... unless webcrawlers were responsible. There's no way to know for sure. Anyway, the big problem is that those six thousand page views didn't convert to sales.

In the end, we felt like our money bought us more questions than anything else. Were people really clicking on the banner, or was it hit by a series of webcrawlers? If real people were clicking on the banner but not buying the product, why? Was it because the banner was somehow misleading? Does the product description need to be rewritten? Were new customers turned off by having to sign up for an account? Were they not interested in PDFs? What I wouldn't give for an exit survey...

I still think there are opportunities to attract new customers from outside the existing pool of gamers who hang out at EN World, RPG.net, and so on. It's just going to require a long-term investment and a very slow, scientific trial-and-error approach to figure out what works and what doesn't. In the future, I know we'll never run a banner ad anywhere that doesn't offer some sort of live reporting.

 

[rpghost]

On that note, we're actively seeking online venues to advertise in for RPGNow.com as well as RPGShop.com (maybe more of the later unless some vendors want to contribute to an ad pool)...

Mortality.net has been less then responsive with anything I write them about, I donno what's up with them. I'm not sure buying ads at ENWorld (or RPG.NET) would make any difference as we already run their store fronts. We pay hundreds of dollars a month to get listings in search engines so that's cool. But where are the other communities? How can we reach new customers for our stores? Where should we stick some advertising $? Suggestions?

James
p.s. We're currently running a specail at RPGShop.com and RPGMall.com - you get a free T-Shirt with an order of $50 or more.

 

[Prest0]

Yeah, if the idea is to attract new customers then I think we have to look outside the usual suspects. I still think there's potential in hitting gaming webcomics. I think it's a matter of finding the right one and advertising consistently enough to develop a brand identity. In addition to Real Life, we also looked at pvponline.com and megatokyo.com. The latter is electronic-game oriented and both were priced higher than our average sales conversion could justify. However, maybe RPGHost those find those same numbers acceptable. What are some other non-traditional sites gamers hit on a regular basis? By non-traditional, I mean sites that are not RPG-specific news sites.

It's a shame giantitp.com (aka Order of the Stick) doesn't run advertising, as that site would be ideal. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out on the funniest gaming webcomic in existence.

Print advertising has been described as pushing a car. At first it seems impossible, but just when you're ready to give up you feel it budge. So you keep trying a little longer and it picks up speed. After a while you're jogging along behind it wondering what the fuss was all about. Print advertising has a similar momentum-- it takes a while to build up but once it does you can almost coast along. If you ever decide to do another print ad, you might consider booking the cheaper 12x rate and running a 1/4 or 1/2 page ad in every issue. Repetition aids memory. Repetition aids memory. Repetition aids memory. Repetition aids memory. Repet-- well, you get the idea.