We believe that for many organisations conventional social media platforms
fail to deliver on the promise of enhanced customer engagement. The key
beneficiaries of your social media marketing spending are Digital Agencies
and the Social Media companies – not you or your customers. For a more
thorough explanation of the mechanisms at play and their effect please see
http://www.slideshare.net/planyscloud/planys-niche-social-network-overview-30661359
In the meantime we believe that Games Workshop has a fantastic
opportunity to deploy its own Niche Social Network and turn this into
significant bottom line impact by integrating Social Activity, eCommerce
and Store Infrastructure to create a highly compelling focus for the online
Warhammer Community. We call this a Social Commerce Network
All of the information and functions presented herein are conceptual and
have been created for the express purpose of illustrating what is possible for
in a Niche Social Network for Games Workshop.
CONCEPT OVERVIEW
SOCIAL COMMERCE
NETWORK
This presentation will provide a flavour of how the Warhammer
Community might look, feel and operate to deliver the following
benefits:
An enhanced online environment for Warhammer enthusiast
A shorter path between excitement and purchase
A share in secondary market sales of Games Workshop products
Customer data - deep insight into customer desires and sales potential
New customer acquisition – driven by member invitations to peers
Cost effective mass communication tool
A powerful toolkit for Store Managers to drive store revenue and footfall
Incremental performance has been modelled based on Games Workshop
published financial information and the following assumptions:
Advertising revenue rates based on average Linkedin (non premium) and
Facebook page impression advertising.
Incremental sales performance due to enhanced capabilities:
All revenues are factored to reflect that network membership will start low
but grow to a stable growth level of approximately 150K members by the
end of Year 1
Incremental Profit
YEAR 2 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
Promotional Activity 1.0% 1.1% 1.2%
Social Commerce 1.0% 1.2% 1.3%
Incremental Profit
YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3
£ Thousands Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Ad & Sponsorship
Advertising £9 £16 £28 £48 £101 £89 £95 £100 £107 £391 £113 £120 £127 £135 £495 Sponsorship £7 £7 £7 £7 £27 £8 £8 £8 £8 £33 £9 £9 £9 £9 £36
Total Ad & Spons £16 £23 £35 £55 £128 £97 £103 £109 £115 £424 £122 £129 £136 £144 £531
Incremental Margin
Enhanced Promotion £6 £11 £18 £32 £67 £43 £46 £49 £52 £190 £62 £66 £70 £74 £272 Social Commerce £6 £11 £18 £32 £67 £47 £50 £53 £57 £207 £67 £71 £76 £80 £294 Marketplace Commission £3 £5 £9 £16 £33 £20 £21 £22 £24 £86 £26 £27 £29 £31 £113
Total Inc Margin £15 £26 £46 £79 £166 £110 £117 £124 £132 £484 £155 £164 £174 £185 £679
Members create a profile which includes details of:
oThe Games Workshop
Store that they are most associated with (this becomes their affiliated store – very important)
oThe Races and Armies that
they have and the elements that they possess
oPre-authorised payment
methods such as credit card or PayPal details
Members upload information about what Races and Armies they have.
This facilitates a calculation based on what they don’t yet have but might need to round out the tactical capabilities of their own Army in terms of e.g Attack, Defence, Magic,
Mobility etc
Store managers may provide comments & recommendations on how the member might improve their Army
Closing the gap on opponents will drive purchases
Friends
Members gather friends from both within the community and can also invite new members to join by e-mail or from other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter
Profiles include badges of honour which are
attained through activity such as numbers of posts, completion of armies, advice and support
offered to other members – incentivising active contributions
The Social Feed Page
The Social Feed Page is the main interface for members – where they can post
conversation threads and media content such as photos and video
Real-time social interaction within the Games Workshop themed environment (as opposed to a Facebook Wall environment)
Menus and drop-downs lead to other areas of the site
The Notification bar alerts members to:
oEvents that they might be
interested in
oPosts in threads that they are active in
oPrivate messages from
other members
oNews from Games
Workshop Stores that the are associated with or announcements that are relevant to their Armies
Members may organise their own private events such as ‘Battle Nights’ - inviting friends only or other members affiliated with their store.
The event may be open for a restricted number of people and close when the number is reached.
The invitation may provide details of how to get to the venue and use Smartphone as a navigation device.
Advertising & Sponsorship
Highly targeted advertising and sponsorship
opportunities for Games Workshop partners and complimentary product and service providers. Based on 5 banner and video advertising slots we estimate that the value of advertising in Year 1 should be approximately £128K p.a. (based on Linkedin and Facebook average rates)
Driving Revenue - Marketplace
eBay has current 98,049 listings for Warhammer with sets priced at up to £2000. The Marketplace facilitates Games Workshops
participation in this revenue through listing fees or
commission payments.
Current eBay final value fees are 10% of the final selling value of the item.
A Warhammer market place would be a much more logical and attractive place to be for buyers and sellers.
Strike While the Iron is Hot
Contextual text sensing means that member
recommendations can be checked against eCommerce and Marketplace databases. Where a member mentions an available item – a link is
created. Mousing over this link causes a pop up link offering the option to make a ‘one-click-buy’ from the online store or the Marketplace. Alternatively the item can be added to a Wishlist –
Christmas & Birthday gifts.
One-Click-Buy technology is Patented in the US by Amazon – but not the EU. One click purchasing has demonstrated increased purchasing responses of up to 20 times. We assume much less than this in our model.
New Customer Acquisition
Incentivise members to invite their friends to join the Warhammer
Community by offering redeemable rewards. Invites can be
automatically distributed by e-mail and into other Social Media channels. This means that
conventional social media is a source of new members – rather than ambiguous ‘likes’ and ‘shares’
For the Store Manager
By affiliating members to a Store – typically their local Store (in this case the Edinburgh Store) – the manager now has a powerful data driven toolkit to engage customers and drive Store performance.
The Store manager will know:
oHow many customers are
affiliated to the Store
oA breakdown of what Races and
Armies they have
oThe total value of what they do
not have yet
oThe total value and drill down
For the Store Manager
Review the breakdown of Races and Armies by each of the
Warhammer product lines.
This will allow the Store Manager to make informed decisions on what local Events to run, what products to push and what the value of the potential sales
opportunity is at any given time. Drill down into this data to
facilitate individual member recommendations.
For the Store Manager
Store managers can use the system as a method of communicating with the customer base on an individual, group or public basis.
oCreate an Event applicable to a
specific Race or Army
oMake recommendations to
individuals or owners of specific Armies
oSend out notifications and follow
ups
oTrack responses and take
