Ok, we just spent last weekend shooting a video, and the video guy is starting the editing process. We've done our budget, know how much to ask for at the various levels and should have our pitch ready by the end of the month.
Is there anything we need to know before we jump in? This is our first KS project, and we're a bit nervous. Not about the product - but about the PROCESS. Anybody here had a KICKSTARTER project you'd like to share do's and don'ts about? We're all ears!
One thing to check out would be the podcast "Funding the Dream", it has a lot of good information about planning/executing the whole process.
If you haven't yet, I'd start at the beginning and go through a few episodes before you launch.
Here are a couple of marketing suggestions:
1: include a link to your KS page in all of you posts. I want to check out your project, but I can't because I know nothing about it, and I have no way to find it. This is your game: let everyone know about it!
2: if you don't have one, setup a Facebook page for the game. Get as many people as you can to like it. Post to the page daily to let everyone know how the project is going.
3: setup a twitter account. Follow a bunch of people, and hope they follow you back. Post your status updates there.
4. put out a press release to the local papers and news stations. KickStarter is a big deal. If you are lucky, you may get some "free" coverage.
Honestly, #2 and #3 (and maybe #4) should have been done before your campaign started, to drum up buzz. From what I have heard, getting some backers early to gain momentum is critical. Potential backers may pass over a project that appears to be struggling, or appear to have no chance of funding.
Full disclosure: I've not run a Kickstarter campaign (yet), so feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt. But I have watched a few, and done a lot of research. Both the "Funding the Dream" and "State of Games" podcasts are good resources for how to run a KS campaign.
-Ed
www.edwedig.com
I love the #1 suggestion - will definitely go with that, but all the social media stuff? Didn't work out real well for me last time. For one of my games, I sent a personal email to everyone in my address book, and every one of my Facebook 'friends' [at the advice of a FB fanatic. In all, contacted over 600 people.
Garnered 12 responses.
A man has to know his limitations.... marketing isn't my strong suit. I do just fine at game design, but marketing hasn't gotten me anywhere.
That being said, I do have an ace in the hole we're going to play - involving a local TV station [if they go for it]. To our knowledge no one has combined live TV with a KICKSTARTER promo event. We will be doing something new when we go live at the end of the month. We're going to have a drawing for the folks at the low end buy-in. Winners will get the basic part of the game [we won't be drawing individually, we'll designate all the low-end supporters by blocks] when their morning show celebrity draws one of the blocks.
The game consists of a deck of cards, polyhedra dice and a case of poker chips. Winners will get the printed decks of cards. Haven't seen anyone do that either [but then I haven't checked out 'all' the KS items, either].
So.... we have two things that are related to marketing that will make our pitch unique [as far as I know], and hopefully that will get us some added attention.
We do have a guy on our team that is going to try and handle the marketing side - we'll just have trust him in that regard - but I will absolutely pass all this along to him! Thanks for the input!
Thanks for the suggestions - never heard of these guys and the ones I've already listened to are very encouraging based on what we're getting ready to do.
We've done VERY careful budgeting and know how far we have to go. We've got all our resources lined up [with providers I know can deliver - not like that poor guy that had to pull the plug just minutes before it ended - wow!], and the plan to deliver is in place - and yes, we were shocked at the cost of the dice for the total package.
The one place I see a real problem is in 'marketing'. There's no money to hire a 'professional' marketer, or even advertising on BGG or elsewhere [not that I would know where to go]. If the video doesn't inspire and word of mouth doesn't go anywhere, we may be in trouble. Right now it only looks like our help will come from KICKSTARTER trollers.
I hope it will be enough. I'm certainly open for suggestion.
1. Make sure you've budgeted properly for shipping. Shipping is a killer! Especially international shipping.
2. If you count on merely KS trollers to fund your project, you are in trouble. If you can't afford to buy marketing, then you at least have to get the word out there yourself, via social marketing platforms, etc. KS projects are all about reach, and some of the ones that fail have failed because nobody even knew they existed.
Good luck!
You might want to check your KS terms of service. I'm not sure if you can do a "contest/random pull" like you mentioned (because that is, basically, gambling). I seem to remember someone mentioning it on one of the podcasts I listen to (could have been Funding the Dream).
-Ed
Sedge-
Thanks for the heads up - we'll definitely get on them. I know my friend who is helping the effort for this game IS a social networker [who was gracious enough to volunteer to help in this area because he knows my game design skills and my marketing skills are on opposite sides of the bell curve - but we've been friends in this hobby for over 25 years], and I trust him to get the word out.
Ed -
Your heads up is much more problematic. I will absolutely get ahold of the KS people ASAP for clarification because this changes our approach dramatically.
To clarify - we aren't raffling to bettors. There will be an inexpensive buy-in level [say $10] where the supporter will get a pdf version. Our 'minimum printing' order to get the quality stock for our cards is something over 100 decks. Rather than try to sell these later, we thought it would be cool to have a drawing and give them away to folks who supported us at the pdf level - and have it done on live [local] TV. I don't think that would violate any rules, but I will get it on it tomorrow, thanks!
Please keep throwing tomatoes at me - if nothing else, others who are considering doing a KICKSTARTER campaign will learn something and avoid the pitfalls I'm stumbling into.
Well, this will be interesting. Just sent in the following as a query for clarification from KS:
************************************************************************
We plan to do a vanity printing of my game and are asking for clarification so we know if we can incorporate a TV tie-in for our project.
To our knowledge no one has combined live TV with a KICKSTARTER project. We want to have a drawing for the folks at the low end buy-in. Winners will get the basic part of the game [we won't be drawing individually, we'll designate all the low-end supporters by blocks] when their morning show celebrity draws one of the blocks. For example - 400 people elect to support our pdf level. We have 100 extra items [because of printing minimum requirements]. We want to designate the 400 pdf supporters into 4 different groups - A is 1-100, B is 101-200, etc. One of the 4 groups will be selected at random to receive an additional bonus item.
The game consists of a deck of cards, polyhedra dice and a case of poker chips [not a gambling game - more of a light Eurogame. Always wanted to make a game that doesn't involve gambling but allows you to use poker chips - success!].
We want to have a certain group of PDF level winners [of the chosen group] to get the extra printed decks of cards [rather than try to sell them over the next few years] as a thank you for supporting us, and involve a local TV show to do the drawing [to ensure fairness and pump up the local volume], but we want to be sure this doesn't break any of your rules.
The game is ART DECO. It is registered on BGG, a link is below. You can find me anywhere, I'm known in the game design community.
If this is not OK, we will find something else to do with the overage, we just thought this would be cool.
Please advise.
*********************************************************************
Will let you all know what we find out when they reply.
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The launch has already begun. We're just waiting for the countdown to begin. ;-) We're looking at going live around the end of the month.
Thanks for the suggestions - never heard of these guys and the ones I've already listened to are very encouraging based on what we're getting ready to do.
We've done VERY careful budgeting and know how far we have to go. We've got all our resources lined up [with providers I know can deliver - not like that poor guy that had to pull the plug just minutes before it ended - wow!], and the plan to deliver is in place - and yes, we were shocked at the cost of the dice for the total package.
The one place I see a real problem is in 'marketing'. There's no money to hire a 'professional' marketer, or even advertising on BGG or elsewhere [not that I would know where to go]. If the video doesn't inspire and word of mouth doesn't go anywhere, we may be in trouble. Right now it only looks like our help will come from KICKSTARTER trollers.
I hope it will be enough. I'm certainly open for suggestion.