Launching your first Kickstarter campaign!

I am not an expert in Kickstarter campaigns, nor do I claim to be. I ran my first and only campaign last September (2020) and was fortunate enough to reach my funding goal at the first time of asking. Ultimately, this blog offers an assessment of what is required for a Kickstarter campaign and more pertinently, shows the pitfalls and errors to avoid.

For start-ups, like Cognition Games, lack of available finances are major hinderance in developing your business. That is why many turn to crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo to raise much needed funds to manufacture their product. These websites can be used for products in different areas from design to technology, but for the purposes of this blog I will mainly talk about its context within the board game industry. Kickstarter in particular is very pertinent with the board gaming community. After all, $233 million was raised in the “table-top game” genre in 2020, up from the previous year’s total of $176.3 million. “Frosthaven” led the pack with $12.97 million, setting a record total on the site. To put that into some context, $4.6 million was the best-selling computer game, suggesting the prominence of table-top games.

However, it is not just small start-ups that utilise Kickstarter’s crowdfunding potential. Many established board game publishers use Kickstarter for a myriad of reasons. The most prominent being:

Publishers can gauge potential in their game: Based on information from the campaign (sales, backers, traffic, etc.), publishers can make decisions on their game moving forward. How many games will we manufacture? Is it worth pushing this game forward or persisting with a different game idea? etc.

Useful marketing opportunity: Many gamers traverse Kickstarter to identify some hidden gems from publishers they may not have heard before. This represents a good opportunity to market your game to an audience of gamers.

System that suits publishers and gamers: Kickstarter’s “all or nothing” approach means it is beneficial to both the backers and the game publisher. This is because the game will not be manufactured unless your funding goal is met. This funding goal is effectively a “safety net”, ensuring that the publisher has gained enough money for mass production while also ensuring that backers don't lose money if the game doesn't enter manufacturing.

Build a community: Probably the main and most important aspect of Kickstarter is building a community of backers that took time out of their day to pledge to your project. Backer satisfaction and retention is vital for subsequent projects and building a community for your brand. Creator’s should engage with their audience as often as possible to ensure optimal backer satisfaction, which can come through sources such as the comments section, updates, emails, etc.

Key Aspects in a Kickstarter campaign:

Develop an audience: This is tough and takes time. A lot of people think that if they launch a Kickstarter that people will magically appear, engage with their game and back their project. In reality, this is not the case. Your presence should be made on social media, through friends / family, through face to face contacts with gamers and at gaming conventions. Unfortunately, the later aspects were was particularly tough during a pandemic, as it was not possible to physically meet some of my prospective backers. Also, for someone like me, who’s new to the board game community, you may be overwhelmed in getting to know where gamers generally hang out. I am still only getting to grips with the likes of Reddit, Tabletop Simulator, BoardGameGeek of which I should have established my presence on these sites pre-launch.

Talk to people in the know: If people have trodden this path in the past, then why not be informed what worked and what didn’t for them? I was pleasantly surprised with the helpfulness and openness of people within the board gaming community. It appears everyone wants you to achieve the collective goal of bringing board games to the masses. I conversed with numerous Kickstarter project creators about how they operate and also general board game enthusiasts. A special mention should be reserved here to the guys at “Decking Awesome Games” who have been the most helpful of all, who go beyond their call of duty in responding to my questions or queries.

Kickstarter Page: What is of vital importance is maintaining a professional image of your product and company throughout a consistent Kickstarter page. The most prominent part of your page is the primary image. Without even looking at the rest of the project page, your audience will only see the main image when browsing through Kickstarter. This has to draw people in and convince your audience to contribute to the project as they are immediately influence by this image. If your budget allows, this should be designed by a professional. I didn’t acquire a professional to create my main poster (or video), but will in subsequent projects when my budget allows me. With respect to a video, a lot of creators maintain that this can be achieved with a low budget. Many videos just require a phone camera, good light and the creator discussing the amazingness of their product.

Good Start is Half the Battle: Launch day is vital. Build excitement on your social media channels prior to launch and widely market your launch date and time. I was lucky enough to have numerous friends and family back the project as soon as it went live. This meant that “Code On” was placed in the top 10 in BackerKit’s “Hot List”. More traffic and pledges came from this “Hot List”, as was indicated by Kickstarter’s google analytics function. Also, offer incentives for people to back early. I offered a 10% reduction on pledges made in the opening 24 hours for our multiplayer product. This good start gives your campaign a fundamental platform on which to build and succeed.

Pledges: Having the right pledges and amounts can be vital for your campaign. I had the base game at €22 and 4 player version at €30. Given the nature of human psychology, many people saw the €30 pledge level and backed here as it was only a little bit extra than the base product. Additionally, be creative with your pledges and pledge names. I had a “Pledge of Legends” which were €200 each and generated widespread interest. Three of these pledges were made within the first hour of launching.

Leads: Kickstarter successes for your first campaign will not be possible without a core set of generous family and friends, which I was fortunate to have. I identified a group of 10 leads to help sell the product, giving them a target of 5 sales each. This helped my campaign massively and was a massive contributor to my funding.

Blogs/Press Release: You should contact and engage with people with large blog followings or with the press. It takes time to develop these connections, so spend months in advance commenting and interacting, before asking someone to publish your work. This is ultimately a facet of my campaign that was weak and will be working on this in subsequent campaigns.

I hope this offers an insight into what is involved in launching a Kickstarter campaign. It may be daunting at first, but rewarding once that funding goal is hit and your project is one step closer to making an impact in people’s lives!