I've been thinking lately about what makes people interested in my company. Honestly I think about this most of the time. It's a key question in running your own business. Now everybody has their own set of likes and dislikes, but what is the common theme that I see when people come up to my booth?
I find there's three kinds of people who walk up to my booth:
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People who like the name
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People who like stickers
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People who like games
Now I know personally that not everyone plays games as a large part of their pastime. (I believe that's most people in, actually). So I try to create a booth that caters to multiple types of consumers. Even if you don't play games there's still something interesting to see at my booth. This aligns with my business's focus. My goal when starting Goosepoop Games was to bridge the gap and make it easier for new players to become hobbyists in tabletop games. By luring people in with something that they know is familiar to them, like the concept of stickers and art, I'm able to chat with them and see how a game could improve or change how they spend their free time.
When you think about why people come to my booth you find pretty obvious answers. Somebody wants stickers to put on their water bottle or they want to play a light game with their friends. But I think there's something more to it. After thinking about what ties all the people together, even people who don't necessarily purchase from me, I've come to understand one thing: I provide objects people can tell their friends about. Like, how funny would it be if we were hanging out and you asked me “How was the market this past weekend?” And I’d say, “It was fine, except there was this one booth called Goosepoop and– oh here I have a sticker from them. You might like what they have.”
Now this interaction may not go any further than surface level small talk but it did bring someone to the booth, and that ultimately is one of the first hurdles you have to get through as a seller. Once you’re at my booth I'm able to do my silly fancy sales tactics to get you to support in whimsical stuff, but really you knew you were going to buy something or not the moment you stopped by. I've had multiple people come up to the booth just saying they need to get something from me. That tells me they're shopping so they can show their friends. They might play the games, and a lot of them do, but also a lot of them don't, they just use it as a nice conversation starter.
Now knowing that the primary reason why people come up to my booth, I can start catering what I do to support this ideology. I need to create products that have semi-strange names that are both uncomfortable and whimsical. Come up with more puns. Ultimately, I need to create products people have to read quickly. By creating products that take a tiny bit of effort to understand the customer will become more engaged with the product, theoretically. It's really asking myself with each product “Would I tell my friend about this?”