Marketing Survey Results and Feedback

Hi All,

We have just collated the results from our recent survey covering how we interact with our users.

We were fortunate that 576 of you completed the survey and where asked, provided inciteful feedback. As we have done in the past, we like to share the results and any actions that may be required based on your responses.

As can be seen, we seem to dispatch the right number of emails. Just under 99% of you said we have it right or should send more. Only a combined 1% thought there were too many or were unaware that we sent out regular emails.

Based upon your feedback we will try and maintain our current pace.

Like the frequency of emails, nearly 94% of you thought we had the right length and amount of information. 6% thought they were too short and 1%, too long.

Our intention has always been to have you visit the website to read a more detailed blog post, rather than put all the information in an email. That said, there has to be enough content to create an interest in you, the reader to click through on the included link. We probably should have added a supplemental question, ‘do you click the link included, to read the detailed blog post?’

Just under three quarters of you are aware of our blog posts. 18% of respondents had not seen them. The response to the ‘Other’ category was interesting. The vast majority of the 45 respondents were aware of the blog posts but either were not interested in the content or chose not to read them.

We believe there are a few takeaways from this question. We will try and maintain the frequency of blog posts (we try to get one out every week) as there is an overall positive response. More relevant, is that we need to think about whether there are other ways to reach people who may not be aware of our posts. We primarily use email and Facebook to notify when a new post is available, but that may be a limitation for those that don’t use Facebook, for example. We will discuss whether there are other platforms we could use.

The Official WDS Forums were only started in July 2022, so it is pleasing to see that many of you have used them. Currently, there are over 1,350 topics and nearly 8,300 posts from 750 registered members at the time of writing. Please remember you do not need to be registered to read the postings. Most of the responses in the other category were forum users but felt that they fell outside the categories given. For example, several posters mentioned they read regularly, but posted occasionally. Others mentioned they only visited occasionally and commented that the traffic was too low to warrant a more regular visit.

From our perspective, the forums are for you, the users. We do try and have a regular official presence, but the hope is that the community will both support and educate each other and find opponents as required. We are always happy for feedback and feel free to post your observations, good or bad on the forum.

We do have Spam countermeasures in place on the forum registration process. If you have issues getting registered please contact us at Helpdesk@wargameds.com and we will get you going.

Question five was included to help us work out where you talked about games generally. It is important for us to work out where WDS might need a presence or at a minimum an awareness of where wargames were being discussed. Please note, respondents could and did select more than one option. 431 of you responded, while 145 didn’t provide an answer.

The results confirmed what we suspected; you all have a range of places you interact. Facebook led, but not significantly, while other forums followed. Comments around other forums mentioned, the Blitz, Grogheads, Consimworld, Puntadelanza, Reddit and Delphi. Clubs are important and WDS has informal links to the major clubs supporting our titles, but it may make sense to delve a little deeper there. Under Other, there was a range of responses, but YouTube was mentioned regularly as it didn’t neatly fall under one of the other categories. Discord is also of interest. With nearly 17% of you using it, there maybe justification for a more official WDS presence.

As this was a written answer there was a little more to digest. Not all respondents answered the question, but those that did were split on the following lines. 191 said, yes, 30 said occasionally and 158 said no. There was a plethora of reasons both positive and negative, ranging from little interest in sharing to knowing no one else that played this style of game. On the positive side, many of you are very enthusiastic and have been very forward in sharing your thoughts and experiences with others.

This question was informational for us and helps us understand if and how you might introduce others to our hobby. We need to go away and think how we can assist you all when you have the opportunity to share.

The response to question 7 was universally positive, but we did create significant confusion - sorry! The question was asking how you found the wargameds.com website compared to the initial WDS site when we went public in Nov. '21. Several changes have been made such as the layout of the main page, the images displayed in the top banner on the main page, Customer Accounts functionality, etc.

The vast majority of the Other response was respondents querying what had changed, not really understanding the question. 

We had hoped that people would be positive or otherwise having the store, support, forum, and other assets available locally and generally that was the case.

The Help Desk system also saw a positive response, with comments against the No and Other categories more due to a lack of need, rather than any flaw in the help desk process or support. There was a lot of good feedback on the quality of support, so that is a reassurance for us.

The Store Account system was introduced to reduce the number of support requests for serial keys or downloads. Question 9 was included to see how many people were aware of the store account.

For us, the number of people who don’t know about the store account is significant, with over a quarter of you unaware that it was available. With the linkage to support, we will discuss how best to share what the account can do for you all and get more of our customers using it when needed.

When it comes to our Demos, everyone likes free stuff! In fact, a very significant number of our orders each day is for the demos. Four in five of you have tried the demos and many have actively shared that information.

Demos will always be important part of the WDS marketing strategy as it is the best way to convince players to try something new. It is positive that most of you are aware of them. You can expect further demos in the future.

42% of you shared your thoughts with us. We will be reaching out to some of you as required and are very appreciative of everything shared as it does become an important input into where our priorities need to be.

Here are examples of your commentary.

Thank you to everyone who participated. We always learn a lot when we do a survey and your feedback is very important for the future of WDS.