Well Played Board Game Cafe

Public Relations & Social Media

PROJECT BACKGROUND

SIMPLE MARKETING TACTICS THAT TURNED A GIVEAWAY INTO A BONANZA

When the COVID-19 National Emergency was announced in mid-March, it was an obvious decision for Well Played Board Game Cafe to temporarily close their doors. Regardless, as their marketing agency we were still tasked to quickly come up with a plan of action to answer the daunting question: How do we maintain the momentum of awareness and engagement when our client is essentially out of business? All of our 2020 planning needed to be thrown out the window.

We dialed in on a revised communication and content strategy to navigate an unprecedented time the best way we knew how. Ultimately, our goal was to focus on genuinely helping the community make the best of their time while under the #stayhome orders.

After conducting a thorough cleaning of their board game library (which I might add is quite impressive, being the largest board game library in North Carolina with over 650 games), staff identified close to 100 games that weren’t useful – either being duplicates or titles considered β€œNSFW.” The thought that came up was rather than letting the games collect dust in storage, why not give them to a good home? Especially at a point in history when people have extra time on their hands, and quite frankly, could probably use a little entertainment.

THE STRATEGY

We knew leading with a PR strategy would be the best way to get the word out as quickly as possible, while utilizing social media as a support mechanism. Keeping it simple, we whipped up and distributed a press release and created a Facebook event along with a few posts early Friday afternoon.

Later that evening, ABC News 13 (WLOS) picked up the press release with a featured article and published the story to their social accounts. Jason Sanford of Ashvegas also published the story and AVLToday followed suit the following Monday afternoon.Β 

THE RESULT

Overall, the impact was significant and far reaching, from both marketing and philanthropic standpoints. By the numbers, our performance was remarkable:

  • 300 games & care packages donated

  • Total Potential Reach: 195K

    • WLOS – 89K

    • AVLToday – 78k

    • Ashvegas – 28K

  • 500% spike in website traffic

  • 300 new social media followers in 24 hours

However, in our opinion the greatest gain comes from doing something good for our community – the best marketing happens when business can impact peoples’ lives for the better.

Get marketing solutions that help grow your business and save you time and money.

NOW THAT’S MARKETING THAT WORKS