RPG Alchemy ���� 2015 Goals ���� Progress Report #1

At the beginning of the year, I posted a list of goals for RPG Alchemy that I was focused on accomplishing in 2015. These were not your normal New Year’s Resolutions that fall by the wayside two weeks into the year. They were actual, measurable goals that our team is focused on accomplishing this year. Since the first quarter of the year is complete and the second quarter is in full swing, I figured it would be nice to look back and see what we’ve accomplished so far. I wanted to review what have we done well with and what mistakes have we learned from.

Definitively Answer The Question: How can we offer value to gamers?
In Progress ���� Although we’ve focused in on what we want to accomplish with RPG Alchemy, I still don’t feel we have a pin-point definitive answer yet. Resolving a concrete answer to this question has recently become my primary focus with the blog. In all honesty, it should have been first on my list at the beginning of the year but I think subconsciously I was hoping the answer would just magically come to me over the next few months. Well, it hasn’t so time to buckle down.

Blog Goal: Professional redesign of the website (web, graphic, and brand design).
In Progress ���� I contacted numerous website designers about this and continually came back disappointed. Quality web design is extremely expensive and I have yet to find someone that does amazing work for the price I would be able to pay them. One of the problems is that I know just enough to be able to develop a decent looking website at no cost, but I am not proficient or artistic enough to design a top-tier, world class website. And that is what I want. So I’m stuck in the middle area purgatory of being able to make a good website myself, but not being able to create or afford a world class website.

Blog Goal: Add one more quality, once-per-week author to collaborate with.
In Progress ���� I have been contacted by several individuals about becoming writers for RPG Alchemy, especially after we started receiving multiple products to review. I believe I currently have two promising individuals in the applicant pool. This is an area that I am definitely not going to rush, as finding the right teammate that brings a different perspective and personality to the team is a must. I actually just brainstormed a few ideas this week to enhance our search in this area that I am looking to implement this month.

Blog Goal: Host the RPG Blog Carnival.
In Progress ���� This goal is currently in progress and will most likely be either the second or third goal on this list that we accomplish. We’re currently hosting the RPG Blog Carnival for April 2015 with the topic of ����The Combat Experience����. If this is a topic that interests you, please leave a comment with your submission on the post linked above.

Social Media Goal: Reach 20,000 ����hits���� in a single day.
In Progress ���� Our current ‘best ever’ is 4,125 that occurred on February 20th when my article, 101 Player Character Quirks (1-50), got Stumbled. I realize that social media, particularly StumbleUpon, will play a great role in us achieving this goal. But I also believe that a solid media campaign with good articles and continued hard work will help us achieve this milestone somewhere near the end of the year.

Social Medial Goal: Reach 500 WordPress Blog Subscriptions.
In Progress ���� This is probably the loftiest goal that I created without realizing how lofty it was. People are very reluctant to let you into their e-mail account unless they really trust you as a person or business, and rightly so! Building trust with the community will be key to accomplishing this goal.�� At this point, this is the goal we’ve easily made the LEAST amount of progress on. I will be adding a separate e-mail list component though to this area by the end of the year.

Social Media Goal: Reach 500 Facebook Likes.
In Progress ���� After we reach our goal with Google+ Followers, I will then start focusing on this goal. I think this goal is a little bit loftier than I initially realized as well, since Facebook is almost as important (if not more important) for some people than their e-mail. People can be reluctant to let you into their Facebook world. This is also an area that we haven’t made very much progress in, but to be honest I haven’t put much effort into it either… yet.

Social Media Goal: Reach 500 Google+ Followers.
In Progress ���� This goal will most likely be either our second or third goal that we accomplish this year. After making some horrendous mistakes which including ����carpet-bombing���� various Google+ communities and actually getting banned from Google+ for two weeks, we’re starting to make progress in this area. We made the grave mistake of looking at what other people were doing to promote their blogs or podcasts and then following in their lead. WRONG. After messing up, I took our two week ban time to read about Google+ and talk to some successful RPGers in the community. I feel like we’ve righted the ship in this area and are making productive progress in connecting with gamers there.

Social Media Goal: Reach 2,000 Twitter Followers.
Accomplished! – On March 12th, 2015, this was our first goal that we accomplished. I put a lot of effort into doing so, including reading two books on Twitter and trying out several different programs and phone apps to assist with this goal. Just like Google+, I made a lot of mistakes and offended one or two people along the way, but we’re learning and seeing some great results from from our efforts too. We’ve received several products for review directly from Twitter connections and met gamers in our local area. So far, Twitter has been a great tool for us that we will easily blow our initial goal out of the water by year’s end.

Connect with other RPG Bloggers by writing six guest posts.
In Progress ���� At this point, we have two articles submitted with other roleplaying blogs and are in the process of submitting a third. This is actually a goal that I think we’ll focus on really blowing out of the water as well by year’s end. After careful research, I realized that I’d like to do a lot more guest posts on other RPG blogs, as I believe it will really allow us to connect with other RPG bloggers, more readers, and the community as a whole. Plus, I’ve learned a lot while doing it and it just feels good to do something good for someone else.

Attend two game conventions (at least one with my family).
In Progress ���� One of the remarkable connections we’ve made so far this year is with the organizers of RAGECON, a gaming convention in Reno, Nevada that will take place this summer. I plan on going to RAGECON and am hoping to take my family. John Lewis, the co-founder of RPG Alchemy, is scheduled to be on some panels at the convention and will also be running several games there. After that, I’d like to attend a larger convention outside of my local area, but I think RAGECON will definitely be a great start.

Prepare RPG Alchemy for the ����secret���� goal in 2016.
In Progress ���� After doing more research on our ����secret���� goal for 2016, I realized that this goal is also going to be loftier than I had initially suspected. Without going into the details, the goal would be a culmination of accomplishing all of the goals listed above, in addition to more hard work, timing, and luck. I believe that if I accomplish every other goal on this list, than I will consider this goal accomplished as I will have done what I could to prepare RPG Alchemy for this particular goal.

CONCLUSION
So that’s RPG Alchemy’s first few months of 2015 in a nutshell. We have accomplished one out of twelve of the listed goals. I would say that one to three of these goals are within reach in the next month or so. Three of the goals I believe I didn’t set high enough, so I’m hoping to actually blow away the number for those goals. And I further believe that about three or four of these goals are going to be much more challenging than I anticipated, but still absolutely within reach.

So there you have it. That’s our progress report in a nutshell. We did a lot of things right so far and we’ve done a lot of things wrong as well! But every mistake we made helped us get even closer to our goals. So thank you for your support and we hope to connect with you soon!

About Samuel Van Der Wall

Sam has been roleplaying since he first encountered Battletech 1st Edition. It was initially the tactical play that drew him in, but eventually he expanded into the roleplaying game portion and it was a done deal from there. His favorite game is Shadowrun, but he����s also a huge fan of Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeon World, Numenera, Star Wars, Warhammer, and many other roleplaying games. He����s a huge fan of Fantasy Flight Games and numerous other gaming companies and publishers. He prefers playing over game mastering. He likes creating one character, building on that character, integrating it into the story, and seeing how it develops over a campaign. He����s not afraid of character death because it����s often memorable and builds the story! If he had a specialty, it would be that he����s really into helping other players draw out storylines in their own characters and further their own goals. He����s never had the privilege of attending a gaming related convention, but hopes to attend two next year.

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