Now that all my distributors have got stock, my sales have slowed down. I need to make sure that people are buying my games from shops/online stores, so that they re-stock from their distributors, who in turn re-stock from me.
The long-delayed BoardGameGeek competition will hopefully help, bring the games to more people's attention, and hopefully leading to some sales. Speaking to distributors in Europe, BGG is fairly popular there so hopefully that will help boost sales in Europe - not just North America and the UK.
One of the biggest markets for board games is in Germany though. Lots of modern eurogames are designed and made in Germany, where board games seem to be a very popular pastime. The Spiel games fair is held in Germany and I get my games made in Germany too.
I've a couple of German distributors, who both report that sales of my games have been fairly slow. How can I make better use of the opportunities available in the German market? Advertising on BGG is probably not the best way of going about it. Speaking to one of my German distributors, he recommended advertising on Spielbox one of the big German games websites. I've contacted Spielbox, and it looks like putting a banner on their forums for a month might be both affordable and worthwhile. So I've got to make some banners for my games in German. I've got the tag lines for It's Alive! and Carpe Astra in German already (Michael translated them for the Essen posters), but I'm not sure I'll have room for them on such a small banner (234 x 60) I might just have to go with the title and a background.
The next problem is what to target the ads at? Usually a website banner ad can be clicked, which takes you to a relevant site. I've always pointed the ads I've done on BGG and Boardgame News at the relevant page of my website. But that's in English. Do I do the same, and risk putting off German-speaking visitors? Do I make a German version of that page on my website? Do I point them at a page of Spielbox? That would work for It's Alive! (Michael did a review of it there) but not for Carpe Astra, for which there is no information on Spielbox.
Decisions, decisions. Anyone familiar with Spielbox care to weigh in?
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8 comments:
The site in German is definitely a good idea. Do it.
Hiya Nestor,
Do you mean advertising on Spielbox, or directing click-throughs there, or to a German version of my website?
Cheers,
Jack
Hi, Jack.
Everything. Half of the market is in Germany. Specially for the type of games you're producing (euro-style).
It would be a good idea to hire a German native translator.
Cheers!
... and don't forget a german version of the rules!!
By the way, I've just found what MS means (I'm spanish. It's EM here).
Fight, Jack. I defeated my Crohn's disease 2 years ago. Strength and hope were my weapons.
Néstor
I would go with making a German version of your website. At the *absolute minimum*, have a German landing page for your ads. You'd get major brownie points for it, and in an important market.
The biggest problem I can see with that is keeping it up to date. I change my website fairly often and I don't have the skills to translate my website myself. I'd need to get someone to translate it for me, and the regular changes would require a fair bit of work, which all costs money :-(
Cheers,
Jack
Gonna have to bite the bullet at some point. Maybe you could find a friendly game-playing German to take on the task for a pittance; perhaps find some way to get inventive with the type of payment you offer (free copy of all published games, some other value-added privilege, etc.) and do everything you can to simplify his/her translation duties so that it never feels a chore, even if quite frequent (sentence at a time on Twitter?).
I know these are glib answers, but it's gotta be done at some point, I would've thought.
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