Try to get that follower count up as high as you can before launch.įor our part, here are EN World's contact details. If you can afford it, maybe a Facebook ad (see below). Social media, contact RPG news sites (in advance, with cool previews they can share, not last minute emails when you have a week left in your campaign just asking them to help 'boost the signal' - it's probably too late then), reach out to podcasters. You need to be getting the word out every way you can. If it's any consolation, it gets easier as you do more Kickstarter campaigns, as your previous backers will often become fans. This is the hard bit, especially if you can't afford ads and don't have an existing following. If you have a bunch of campaigns and thousands of previous backers, I think it's worth it. You don't get the nifty stats, and it takes a little longer, but you don't have to spend the $99. Just go to every campaign you have run, and manually email the backers from each. There are other similar services, but Mailchimp is the one I've experience with. It costs a bit if you have more than a couple of thousand contacts, but it collects the email addresses on a nice landing page, gives you reports on how many people opened emails and how many clicked on links, and so on. If you want to set up a mailing list of your own, I've found Mailchimp to be useful. Plus your marketing won't prevent you running other projects. You can tailor the experience, present any information you need, and you end up with a useful mailing list of targeted people who have specifically asked you to email them about your project. I personally recommend you do this yourself rather that using Kickstarter's pre-launch page. If you have a long promotional period before your campaign and you anticipate running other Kickstarter campaigns during that period, you will have to use a different service. While a pre-launch page is a great way to generate interest in your project before launch, they won't let you launch any other campaigns while you have an active pre-launch page. I found out (the hard way!) that they consider a 'pre-launch page' to be an active campaign. Important note - Kickstarter only allows you to run one campaign at a time. But the Coming Soon page is a nice, easy way to do it with minimal effort on your part. And you can show a lot more information and previews on your own page. That gives you more control over the communications - a lot of people filter out emails from Kickstarter, and may not see the notifications. You can set up your own landing page, collect email addresses, etc. You don't have to use the Coming Soon page. This is what the Coming Soon page looks like: Note that only about 10%-20% of those will typically back the campaign (we had 18% on Mythological Figures, and I've heard of people getting higher than 20%), but it's good to have a starting core there. We had about 2,000 for Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters. You need to have that up early - a month or so before, if you can, and work on getting as many followers as possible waiting for launch. Kickstarter has a "Coming Soon" page for every not-yet-launched project. During the campaign itself promote, promote, promote, and when you feel you've promoted enough, promote some more.Consider Facebook ads if you can afford it or a promotional service if you can't.Reach out to TTRPG news outlets before launch and try to have something nice they can share (exclusive previews work wonders!).and a press release make it really easy for people to report on your project Create a press kit - some of your best images, page spreads, etc.Start working on a mailing list and/or the Kickstarter Coming Soon page.Start promoting your campaign before launch (I like a month).But there might be tips that even old hands can use. This introduction to promoting your Kickstarter is aimed at people running their first Kickstarter, who don't already have a following. It mitigates risk, it makes more money than anywhere else, and it's a combined marketing and sales platform. If it goes well, Kickstarter is the single best platform to sell your work online. There are companies which are absolute masters of the Kickstarter campaign - Monte Cook Games springs to mind I do OK, but I'm still learning this stuff even now. I thought I'd share what I'd found out so far about the promotional side of running a Kickstarter campaign. I've run over twenty Kickstarters, some big, some small, over a period of several years, and along the way I learned a few things about the process.
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