Ask HN: How do you market your product/services?

34 points by frontendstrong 7 years ago | 10 comments

I'm working on a product (board-game) and I'm struggling to build a market and get interest in the project.

The project isn't finished, but I'm trying to work on building a market to launch to when it's ready.

If you want to check out the project there's a free "print-and-play" version here: http://games.prettydamnneat.com (just click the button to trigger the download if you don't want to sign up).

How have you marketed your products or services and how effective were they?

hluska 7 years ago |

I'll start off with a bit of philosophy then hopefully give you some useful tactics.

When I was young, lots of people I knew were 'writing' table top role playing games. Yet, almost to a tee, when I would accept the invitation to 'play test', I would show up to a description like:

"Yeah, we have dice and the coolest magic system you have ever seen, but it's not done, but I photocopied character sheets from AD&D."

It got to a point that by the time I was 18, whenever I was asked to play test a new game, my stock response was, "I'll help out when it's ready to be released." I wasn't exactly Mr. Popularity at that point in my life so I don't have a large sample, but my friends all had very similar reactions.

Roughly 25 years later and I know lots of people who are working on board games. Is there any chance that 'the project isn't finished' scares early adopters the way 'I'm writing a game' scared me?

I wonder if changing your pitch would help. Maybe instead of saying 'the project isn't finished', you could say that you're play testing and balancing? Sometimes in early stages, selling is about telling the truth in a more palatable way.

All that said, this is actually a pretty good marketing campaign. At this point, your biggest goal is one fan. You could spend a lot of money on marketing, but that's not worth as much as one person saying they played your game and loved every moment of it.

In my experience with board games, social proof is very important. You could spend millions of dollars on marketing and I won't play your game. But, if one of the people I trust suggests it, I'll be there.

So, at this point, think of ways that you can get people to play your game and talk about it. The talking about it is just as important as the playing.

anongraddebt 7 years ago |

My two cents...

Unless you're a marketing wunderkind, you should either keep your marketing costs at zero or do something like a kickstarter project.

Keeping your marketing costs at zero just means you don't really do any marketing, but rather go out and sell your game to anyone who will buy it. Sell it to family, relatives, friends, community groups in your area, people at boardgame meetups, coffeehouses that have boardgames for patrons to play, etc. etc. Sell it for $5 or $3 or whatever. The point is: find at least someone to buy (with real money) your game. Then, move from there and iterate or polish-up or whatever.

A kickstarter project is self-explanatory.

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Individuals who design and build something to sell can often be stuck in a sort of launch limbo because they're either too afraid to try and sell something or feel like they lack the knowledge to sell something.

I know a technical founder who read introductory sales books before finding his first batch of customers. Should you read sales books? Maybe. If you do, make sure you blitz-read them for the basics and then get out and try selling your game.

Selling online or offline ultimately comes down to the same thing when you are starting out: try, fail, learn, and repeat until you get your first sale.

The only other advice I can give is that a "yes" or "no" should be music to your ears. A "maybe" should frustrate you. You should hate hearing "maybe". Maybe-land is the worst place to be when trying to sell something.

HHalvi 7 years ago |

Couple of nitpicks that can change your bottomline first: 1) Add a description of the same in the Site Title (Also change the favicon while you are at it). 2) While the gold coin animation is cool, it fails to convert me or in simple words interest me enough to put in my email and Name. 3) Ask silly questions like : Would i signup for this if i came across this somewhere on the internet? Work your way backwards from there to build trust.

Now the philosophy part of marketing, think of it as doing things across different places to get a foot in the door with someone. All of the times i think of the Someone(Who should i market to?) and How should i get a foot in their door(Push Notifications, Apps, Newsletters, Social Media and more). Product marketing something that you will be actually doing is more about getting the foot in the door to get someone to use it to do X.

Hope this helps!

maple_castle 7 years ago |

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mooreds 7 years ago |

Have you shown the game to any players who don't know you? Local game store owners? Any bloggers who review games? Have you checked out the relevant reddits for the handles of people who would be able to give you intelligent feedback? Other forums (I don't know where board game players have out, but you should)?

Starting with your target market and getting them excited is how I'd start to market this.

Note that I have not done marketing of a physical product. I wouldn't take advice from me.

Maybe read a book about board game marketing?

herewego 7 years ago |

I disagree with most of the comments here stating you should use zero marketing or market to friends, family, or local shops.

Inbound marketing is a powerful tool, doesn’t require you to be a marketing genius, and costs little to no money as an organic content based effort. Write blog posts, publish to Twitter, cross post on game blogs/sites, etc. These things are well proven to work effectively if done consistently. Also, paid ads can work well too, just keep an eye on your spending there.

seanwilson 7 years ago |

What have you tried? Have you tried online communities and forums? Reddit can be good if you find a related subreddit. I don't know much about board games though.

For what it's worth, there was nothing on the URL in your post that made me want to sign up or find out more as there's minimal information there. You need some images of the board game, a description of what makes it interesting, a video, some quotes of what people have said about it etc.

brownmenace 7 years ago |

Would be nice to see more info about the game before providing name and email.

simplecomplex 7 years ago |

> but is harmless to humans and animals.

> harmlessness to livestock and humans would have to be further investigated

"appears harmless" would be more appropriate.

wingerlang 7 years ago |

uBlock Origin blocked / removed the sign up fields and button. FYI.

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Find a local boardgame meetup / playerbase and take it there?