- The segment I chose was board game enthusiasts. I was looking for specifically Roleplay Game players.
- I went to a local board game store, asking first whether I could conduct some interviews, and talked to some customers. (Took a while)
- I asked a few questions, including "Do you play any RPGs, online or in-person?", "When was the last time you bought an RPG?", "What made you feel that you needed a new RPG?", "Do you have any friends/family that no longer live nearby that you used to play RPGs with?", and "Do you wish you could still play RPGs with them?".
- For the information search, I asked questions like "How do you go about finding new RPGs?", as well as the questions specified in part 4 of this assignment.
- Mostly, what made people realize they had the issue of "Needing a, or needing a new, RPG" was other friends convincing them. There was a lot of "My friend had Dungeons and Dragons and convinced me to get into it". I got a few that were looking for a new RPG because they and their friends wanted to get into a different theme of roleplay, say from fantasy (Dungeons and Dragons), to sci-fi (Starfinder). In these cases, the people had found these new RPGs by coming to the shop, or by researching online for "sci-fi tabletop RPG".
- Based on this, I think a lot of what I'll have to encourage is word of mouth advertising. I could start by maybe putting the rulebook or start-up pack in shops (this would cover the physical aspect that a lot of people miss when playing RPGs online), and make sure they know that it's an online-based RPG, to be played over Skype, Zoom, Facetime, or the video-commerce site designed for the game. Or I could advertise on several online RPG forums?
I need help with advertising ideas, clearly. If anyone can help me with ideas on how to get my product in front of people, I'd greatly appreciate it.
Hey Kyle,
ReplyDeleteI think it was pretty smart of you to go to a local board game store. That is an ideal place to find people to interview for this assignment and those to come. A lot of our own actions come from the influence of our friends. I am not a big gamer, but my friends do convince me sometimes to play a couple of games with them. I think a sci-fi game is a pretty interesting choice that your interviewees wanted. As a fan of sci-fi, I would be totally intrigued in a sci-fi based game.
Hello Kyle,
ReplyDeleteGreat work on this blog post. The questions you chose to ask your interviewees both to identify them and then to better understand your customer base and possible opportunity. For advertising, it does seem like you have identified your biggest channel, word of mouth. But the only way to achieve that is to provide a kick-ass product. SO for product awareness you might choose to place ads on board game stores and stores of the type.