How to sell a board game
“How to sell a board game“
Selling board game ideas to publishers is a crucial task for aspiring designers, as the industry is growing stronger than ever. Everyone can become a new rising star in this field, but it’s essential to understand the steps needed to sell your brilliant ideas and find a solid outlet for them to shine.
Selling board game ideas is not as easy as it sounds in theory, and it’s a whole different story compared to methods of video game monetization. There are numerous ways to choose from, but there’s no ease of choice. The variety of market forms leads to complex options that can significantly change the course of your business and product’s future success.
To sell your board game ideas, it’s essential to thoroughly analyze and explore these options. By understanding the various market forms and their potential, you can create a solid foundation for your product’s success and make a significant impact in the industry.
How to sell a board game?
Understanding Your Board Game
Your board game’s USPs set it apart from others. USPs include theme, gameplay dynamics, components, and experience. Make sure your marketing materials emphasize your game’s USPs to attract purchasers.
Wingspan, Gloomhaven, and 7 Wonders Duel feature excellent board game USPs. You must define your target audience to adjust marketing and messaging. Consider age, player count, playtime, topic, complexity, and price. If you want to reach young families, advertise in parenting magazines and websites.
Casual gamers play board games occasionally but don’t want to learn complicated rules or play long games. Family gamers enjoy board games with friends and family. Complex and tough board games are popular among hardcore gamers, whereas themed gamers appreciate fantasy, science fiction, and history.
You can sell your board game and attract more customers by analyzing its USPs and target demographic. Wingspan, Gloomhaven, and 7 Wonders Duel feature excellent board game USPs.
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Crafting a Compelling Story
Successful board games have a captivating narrative that makes players care about the game and its mechanics, producing an immersive and memorable experience. It can also set your board game apart.
Engaging narratives enhance immersion, distinction, and player engagement. A good story can transport players to another planet or time, making the game more immersive and memorable. Unique and intriguing stories might also draw gamers to your game.
Adding theme and design to your board game’s narrative requires a solid relationship between mechanics, artwork, and components. Choose a theme you love, use game mechanics to tell the tale, and use visually appealing artwork and components.
Pandamic, Gloomhaven, and Spirit Island are board games that use theme and design well. Pandamic is a cooperative board game about stopping a deadly epidemic, while Gloomhaven is a dungeon-crawler about mercenaries in a dark and scary world.
A good board game needs a good story. You can make your game more interesting, immersive, and memorable by carefully creating and integrating your story with the concept and design.
Designing Eye-Catching Packaging
A board game box should be eye-catching and informative to stand out from the competitors. Use vibrant colors, bold lettering, and high-quality game-themed artwork to make a beautiful board game box. Use simple language without jargon or specialized phrases to avoid confusing buyers.
High-quality artwork distinguishes the package from competitors. Buy high-quality artwork that fits the game’s theme and attracts purchasers. Avoid jargon and technical terminology that purchasers may not understand. Instead, simplify and appeal to your audience by explaining the game’s mechanics and premise.
Packaging should have appealing colors and lettering. Use different fonts and colors that match the artwork to create an attractive design. Embossing, foil stamping, and spot UV coating can add luxury to packaging, but use them sparingly to avoid clutter and unprofessionalism.
Scythe, Gloomhaven, and Wingspan have appealing board game packaging. Scythe’s strong icon of a large robot marching through wheat and Gloomhaven’s gloomy, atmospheric packaging reflect the game’s dungeon-crawling concept. Wingspan’s vibrant packaging emphasizes the game’s wildlife protection and giant bird in flight motif. These recommendations will help you create attractive and informative board game packaging that stands out from the competition and attracts more purchasers.
Utilizing Online Platforms
Businesses, including board game sellers, need an online presence in the digital age. Online platforms let businesses reach more people, promote their products, and make buying easier. Having an online presence helps reach potential customers worldwide, promote products better through SEO, social media integration, and email marketing, and make it easy for customers to explore, compare pricing, and order.
The ideal e-commerce outlets for selling board games vary on target market, budget, and game kind. Selling board games online is popular on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, BoardGameGeek.com, and Dice Throne.
Your target market, budget, and board game kinds should guide your e-commerce channel selection. Knowing your target demographic and where they purchase online lets you choose their preferred e-commerce channels. Your choice of e-commerce channel can be guided by comparing fees.
Some e-commerce channels are superior for selling new, secondhand, or rare board games. Additionally, different e-commerce outlets can enhance sales and reach a wider audience.
Building Trust through Customer Service
Selling board games requires client trust. Excellent customer service shows that the organization cares about their concerns and will resolve them quickly. Businesses should offer several support channels, respond fast, and be polite to provide responsive customer service.
Responding to consumer inquiries quickly and effectively is also crucial. Customers want the company to do something about their difficulties. Businesses should listen to customer complaints, apologize for any inconvenience, give solutions, and follow up to assure satisfaction.
Businesses may enhance sales and consumer trust by delivering exceptional customer service. Being clear and honest, reliable, simple to contact, proactive, and grateful are some ways to create consumer confidence. These recommendations will help businesses sell more board games and attract new customers by building a good customer service reputation.
In conclusion, board game sales depend on client trust. Through different support channels, responsiveness, solutions, and follow-up, businesses may develop a reputation for exceptional customer service, increasing sales and customer loyalty.
Tracking Sales and Analyzing Data
Board game companies need analytics tools to measure sales and analyze data. These tools reveal which products sell best and worst, which sales channels work best, customer demographics, conversion rates, average order value, and return rate. Google Analytics, Shopify Analytics, WooCommerce Analytics, Amazon Seller Central, and Etsy Stats are popular.
Set up tracking codes for your website and sales channels to use analytics tools to track sales and generate reports. Analyze data with reports or custom dashboards. See how different consumer segments are performing by product category, sales channel, or location. Comparing your statistics to earlier periods can reveal trends and business growth. Stay on track and achieve business goals by setting and tracking goals.
Analytics tools may help you decide which goods to create and launch next, which sales channels to focus on, how to price your products, how to sell them to your target audience, and how to improve customer service. If one product is selling well, you could launch another in the same category. If one sales channel drives a lot of website traffic, invest more in marketing on that channel. Bundling or discounts on larger orders may help if your average order value is low.
Finally, successful board game businesses must track sales and analyze data. Analytics tools and informed business decisions can boost performance and help you reach your goals.
Conclusion
Board game sales are gratifying and complicated. Understanding your game’s USPs and audience is crucial to success. Create an engaging story that fits the game’s concept and design. Avoid jargon and create appealing packaging with high-quality artwork. Select the proper online platform for your audience and budget.
Provide responsive, polite, and accommodating customer service to build trust. Track sales and analyze data with analytics tools to inform product development, marketing, and customer service. You may sell your board game concepts and become an entrepreneur with proper preparation and execution.