Gamesylvania

It’s a question I’ve been thinking about a lot, lately. How do I turn my visitors into customers? The more I think about it, the more it drives me insane. I need more visitors, but I need more customers, but I can’t have customers unless I first have visitors, so how do I convert those visitors into customers if I don’t have visitors in the first place? It’s like I’m unraveling a big, cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting, and knitting, and knitting, and knitting…

When Gamesylvania was very young — way, way back in December 2009 — I decided to run a Google AdWords campaign just to get the ball rolling. Then I did some Facebook advertising, MySpace, and a few other self-serve advertising solutions. It would be hard for me to say these campaigns were failures since they accomplished the primary goal of driving traffic to the site, but I can’t really say they were successes either, as I didn’t rack up too many sales. Click-through was pretty good; conversions… not so much. So, what am I doing right? What am I doing wrong?

What I think I’m doing right

1. I made sure my ads focused on a particular product, or range of products. An ad specifically for “used Xbox games cheap” turned up on a search for that exact term. The result was a single customer who spent over $40 on one order. It was my best day, so far.

2. I drilled down to a very specific demographic: single males between the ages of 18 and 34 who added words like “video games,” “xbox” and “halo” to their list of interests. But, I also noted the fact that my product appeals to other demographics for different reasons, so I made up a different set of ads specifically aimed at them. I also made a note of which demographic responded to which set of ads more. As a result, even if I didn’t sell a thing, the wealth of information I gained was worth it.

3. I optimized my titles and product pages for search engines and made sure my products were being listed in Google’s product database. Whenever someone searches for a particular game by title, it shows up alongside competitor websites with the price and cost of shipping and handling. As a result, most of my sales have been conversions from searchers who found my prices fair and my reputation good enough to buy in confidence.

What I think I’m doing wrong

1. I don’t offer enough of the games people are buying. For most titles, I only have 1 or 2 copies available, so when someone buys them, they’re gone. For example, Starfox for the Super Nintendo sold out only hours after I listed it, and I haven’t bought more copies to restock it since. I need to make sure I’m stocked up with games that sell and stop focusing on games that don’t.

2. I’m not reaching out to past customers enough. Well, actually, I am. For example, I emailed the customer I mentioned earlier who bought several games in one order and offered them a discount on their next order, hoping to get them to come back. For whatever reason, they haven’t returned. Perhaps I am reaching out enough, just not enough in the right way? What more can I do to win repeat customers?

3. I’m not doing enough to establish a sense of trust between myself and visitors. I’ve tried to establish my credibility by linking to my eBay account which shows I have 100% positive feedback for over 70 transactions over several years as both a buyer and seller, and not just for selling/buying video games, but is it enough? What more can I do?

Finally, the largest problem is a distinct lack of traffic. You can’t convert visitors you don’t have, so I’ve been reaching out to the community of bloggers and gamers I’ve met on Twitter to set up affiliate links with their sites and even worked on a few cross-blog promotions to encourage more traffic to all of our sites. So far, traffic has been building, but sales remain dismal. And there goes that cable-knit sweater, again… the more I unravel, the more sweater I find to unravel.
So, here’s where I reach out to readers and ask, “How do I turn visitors into customers?” Is it a lack of traffic, trust, communication or title selection? And what’s keeping you, dear visitor, from becoming a dear customer? Let me know in the comments. I’m open to any and all suggestions. I’d also like to hear your success stories. What do you think you’ve been doing right? What do you think you’ve been doing wrong?