How Wizards of the Coast is dropping the ball in engagement

Press releases do not a community make. [Link]

I think you have accepted that you have made some mistakes. So I am not going to rake you over the coals. I'm not going to make demands of you that are in my self-interest or that seek to bolster some position I have. I am not going to pretend to help you, but really not care about your situation. I am going to take you at your word and give you my honest opinion.

You want to unite the clans. UNITE THEM! I can appreciate that. I can get behind that. So this advice that I give you is truly from the heart. You are an old friend that has, in my view, lost their way. I want to help you. You seem open to it. So here it is...

Live the D&D life

I don't mean that flippantly. Live the D&D life. Stop marketing. Stop pushing your product on people, start caring about people, and they will buy your product without the push. Care about D&D. Advocate for D&D. Be everywhere, talking about D&D. Know the community, know the people. Feel their pain, know their problems, give them help, and care.

I know you might think you are doing that now. You aren't. You are trapped in the past. The future is digital and it is passing you by.

Your website is poorly designed and hard to navigate. I don't want to spend time there. I'm looking at it today, you know what I don't see? A headline that tells me 5th edition is announced. Just a link to SIGN UP and be a part of gamer history. You know what my first thought is reading that? "Sign Up" is a code word for: Let me market to you . Sign up for my newsletter. It doesn't scream out that you are making a new edition. It doesn't make me care and it doesn't make me click. Your "D&D next" group page is bland and boring. I could go on, but I have no desire to ridicule you about your web design.

You have a twitter feed and a Facebook page. Both are boring. It looks like you are trying to sell me something.

You are talking in marketing speak. You need to stop. Now.

Let me give you some hard advice on how to do that, not just impressions and vague directives.

And a comment by Fred Hicks.

The problem is not people not wanting to be marketed to. Generally they do, but they want the marketing to dress up as (better: be ) a buddy, a peer, a fellow fanboy, a gamer who's "in the life". Why? Because people want to be marketed to by someone who is one of them. Someone who shares their enthusiasm, and can communicate that enthusiasm -- infectiously -- to them in a way that gets them buying in. Because that's an invitation to an awesome party by a cool guy, right? Folks like being invited. What they don't like is that being a big put-on, a phony sales pitch by some slickster who wouldn't know a d4 if he got it stuck caltrop-like in his foot. And it doesn't matter if the person is actually a fan -- if they're coming off as a slickster, that perception check rules the day.

This right here is why word of mouth is the most effective. Because it's authentic and genuine. Any marketing or sales effort that isn't word of mouth has to figure out how to make up the authenticity gap. It is not easy.

The wizards site could continue to suck navigationally, etc, if it just managed to be authentic and genuine more than not. But that's not a signal that's shouting out over the noise these days.