Digital Marketing Audit
Brute Force Games
Account Manager
Lori Byrd
Key Team Members
Jarred Juett
A tabletop game store aimed to engage new community members by increasing awareness of their offerings.
Situation
Brute Force Games is a popular tabletop game store located in San Diego, California that supports fans of Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer, board games and more. After moving to a new location and a larger space, the owner sought more awareness among the immediate community and the broader region. While earning product revenue was an important goal, the priority was on building community through recurring event participation and increasing foot traffic overall.
1909 DIGITAL completed a comprehensive Audit with insights and recommendations for Brute Force Games’ next steps.
Process
Before we could build a multi-channel Marketing Strategy, we needed to understand the current state of Brute Force Games’ presence across search, digital advertising, organic social media, and their website. We carried out an in-depth audit to assess what channels and tactics would best achieve their goals.
The BFG team decided that they preferred for 1909 DIGITAL to implement the recommendations with an extended contract.
Solutions
The Audit was a distinct contract. The intent was for the Brute Force Games owner to decide if he supported the optimization plan and wanted to carry it out on his own. Our solutions hinged on SEO updates across the tech stack and organic content. He agreed with all of the recommendations in the Audit, which went beyond his capacity and skills. Ultimately, it was decided that 1909 DIGITAL would carry out the plan laid out in the Audit.
We had to get creative to work around a restrictive web platform in order to implement key tactics.
Considerations
A known challenge—both for the Audit and for implementing tactics—was a restrictive web platform, Crystal Commerce. Crystal Commerce was a required component of the tech stack due to its proprietary relationship with a key eCommerce solution. The limitations affected our access to site metrics, tracking, content updates, and UX optimization.
Over the following year we had the opportunity to support and carry out all of the SEO recommendations.
Results
- We built a process around creating content that was: Searchable, Unique, Authoritative, Authentic, Sharable.
- We worked towards store-related information being easier to access on the website.
- We created and managed highly successful digital ad campaigns to drive awareness and sales among specific gamer communities and hobbyists.
- We overhauled BFG’s presence on Google Business Profile and tied their eCommerce system to Google Merchant Center.
- We provided a framework and best practices to better humanize the shop’s social media content.
- We wrote keyword-driven blogs that helpfully answer questions that the store’s audience would actually search.