The Definition of Insanity is…

Though I am relatively new to D&D (began playing in 2014), I’ve always had a nerdy side. 

Growing up, my brother and I for a few years got REAL into the Lord of the Rings Warhammer. Building armies, painting all the minis, playing in the store right next to the mall Cinnabon… the whole nine yards. 

It started with the Two Towers starter pack: my brother took the Uruk-hai and I took the mounted Rohirrim. I fell in love with the idea of recreating the epic cavalry charges from the movies, envisioning sweeping through his lines and sending his men scattering! 

(the level of epicness i imagined every time) 

But after a few games, I hadn’t come close to a victory. 

Having “learned my lesson”,  I added some Warriors of Minas Tirith, complete with shields, and heavy armor. I thought that, with the knights in the center and cavalry on the flanks, just like in real medieval warfare, there was no way his pikemen would survive.  

WRONG.

I got creamed again. Absolute bloodbath.  

Then, one Christmas, through very carefully crafted christmas wish-lists, we fully upgraded our armies overnight. 

I got special captains with unique skills, bolt throwing siege engines, even GAWD-DAMN UNDEAD GHOST SOLDIERS. At this point I was straying away from the books, but who cares… they looked so epic!

But the ghost soliders attacked an enemies COURAGE rather than DEFENSE, and his unarmored berzerkers had the highest courage in the whole game.

It seemed like matter what I did, it was the same result: loss… loss… LOSS. 

Eventually, I gave up. No matter what I did, what combination of epic heroes and warriors I tried, my brother beat me with the exact same strategy:

• Shoot at me from a distance with his crossbowmen

• Let charge into his ranks of pikemen and lose momentum

• Finish me off with longsword wielding berzerkers on the flanks

Until one day, many years later,  when we were both home for college, I asked him if we could play again. 

I had a lot of time to think over my defeats, and came up with a brand new strategy. 

Since that day, he hasn’t won a game. It got so bad that he refuses to play me anymore. 

So what changed? 

I stopped spending so much time imagining what would be EPIC and started focusing on game MECHANICS. 

• I equipped as many men as possible with bows and volley fired, forcing him to attack

• I used cavalry to get around his pikeman and attack his berzerkers first

• Once I had the numerical advantage I attacked one side only.

And while the new strategy felt so much less heroic, it resulted in the lopsided victories I always dreamed of.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Strangely enough, I see a lot of D&D small businesses make a similar mistake when they base their marketing strategies on social media. 

At first things are great: they are getting a lot of likes and comments and the exposure brings in some customers. 

But overtime, as the rush of social approval begins to fade away, they finally take a look at their numbers, and… it’s not a pretty sight…

They discover that only a fraction of a fraction of a percent of people they connect with on social media are actually buying their product. 

This is imagination led marking: 

• We imagine people seeing our posts and amazing photos and video of our product in action…

• We imagine their hearts growing with excitement, heading straight to our website, and immediately scrolling through to find the exact product that fits them…

• We imagine them buying the product, loving it so much, and immediately posting on social media how great it is…

• We imagine someone else seeing that post, and starting the cycle all over again..

But as wonderful as that vision is, it rarely happens… it’s mostly just that: imagination.

Don’t get me wrong, every e-commerce store needs at least SOME social media; you can’t skip it entirely. But it is only one part of a MARKETING FUNNEL.

A marketing funnel is how you take someone through all the stages of awareness. My favorite acronym is OATH:

1. Oblivious: They do not know you exist

2. Aware: They know you exist, but they do not care

3. Thinking: They care you exist, but aren’t sure if you are right for them

4. Hurting: They know you are right for them and want to purchase

Social media is GREAT at the first step… their algorithms can get you in front of the right eye balls, letting people know that you are real and relevant to their interests. And a high quality video ad miiiiight be able to communicate why should care.

But as you can see from the stages, that is still a looooong ways away from a purchase.

You need other forms of marketing… branding, landing pages, emails, ads… to work with social media to create a consistent funnel.

The odds of finding 1) the right board game customers at 2) the right time are SLIM… which is why you need to nurture them over a period of time with lots of points of engagement.

That includes social media… but if you only use social media you will end up as frustrated as I was charging straight into Uruk-hai pikes…