KickstarterForum.org

Hello again Sal,

it's Dominic, from Pexira. =)

I'm going to paste my questions on this post.

I recently started my indie game dev company with my partner. We launched our first Kickstarter
campaign yesterday. It is a mobile game. We pretty much got only 2-3 backers
from outside of my circle, even though we're up to a hundred + video clicks in
a day. I am not sure if we generally need a ton of video clicks to get
backers, or if my campaign has something someone can dislike.

Is it because it's for mobile, and these games are usually very cheap or free? I think
that my rewards could interest some people, as they are quite unique and
"in-game" oriented. I may just not have the marketing power right now to
boost the page's visibility.

I did follow your suggestion steps on where to promote the page, but I'm getting the feel that a new unknown small team like us, with a mobile game, will need a lot more work than this to grab backers or followers, sadly.

Also you may have already written about it, but do you think that having
already a couple of backers, tend to mind-game the newcomers into going
ahead and joining the party?

Thank you so much for reading this. I'll go ahead and show you the
Kickstarter page, if you'd like to give it a look and/or insight about it.
=)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14 ... itten-dump

Dominic
@Pexira

Right now, I'm highly considering the twitter advertisement.

Because it lets you target a specific type of crowd that could potentially be interested in what we do.. It could be a good way to gain a following base. It COULD really help for my first releases, the kickstarter, etc. I don,t know how many followers I'd get and how quickly, but right now it sounds like a good way for an indie dev team to grab an audience...

Hi Dominic,

From what I've seen, Twitter is the best place to reach new audiences in the gaming community. They're far more active and engaged than they are on Facebook.

Did you do any marketing interest building before hand? Usually you need to spend a few months gathering support before the Kickstarter launch.

Good news is you don't have a bad product, your video and concept made me smile so I dropped in a few dollars to your project. You have to remember that conversion rate on KS averages about 3.5% so to meet your goal of 5K, if the average backer gives you $25, you need 200 backers, at 3.5% conversion your page needs to be seen by 5714 people.

Time to crank up the Ads on Facebook or Twitter, hit up the gaming forums, and start groveling to app game bloggers to get that exposure.

do you think that having already a couple of backers, tend to mind-game the newcomers into going
ahead and joining the party?

Yes definitely. Also - don't underestimate the importance of backers that have already pledged leaving comments. It's like any kind of group around a particular endeavor - the community is in the comments. Naturally, people are more likely to participate if others are participating.

Even though we're up to a hundred + video clicks in a day.

You may need to consider getting feedback on your rewards and video (and retooling) if you're getting a lot of traffic but it's not converting. For comparable video stats see: http://www.crowdfundingpr.org/kind-conv ... ter-video/

Thank you for the response guys.

customglow wrote:Did you do any marketing interest building before hand? Usually you need to spend a few months gathering support before the Kickstarter launch.

Good news is you don't have a bad product, your video and concept made me smile so I dropped in a few dollars to your project. You have to remember that conversion rate on KS averages about 3.5% so to meet your goal of 5K, if the average backer gives you $25, you need 200 backers, at 3.5% conversion your page needs to be seen by 5714 people.

Time to crank up the Ads on Facebook or Twitter, hit up the gaming forums, and start groveling to app game bloggers to get that exposure.

Thank you so much customglow ! x)

Are you familiar with twitter and Facebook ads? Would you go for a "promoted tweet" more than "promoted account" ads on twitter? As for Facebook, I suppose I would have to create the game's page and publicize it, instead of publicizing our company's page.. ? And then once on the game's page, they'd have to read a post with the kickstarter link. Damn.

I find it so difficult to get anyone's attention, anywhere. I posted on different forums, tried to get re-tweeted by plenty of crowdfunding twitters and game streamers, youtubers.

Do you know a few things about approaching "bloggers"? Yesterday I finally did the big move. I contacted 9 IOS app games websites via their press email. No response yet. I find it awkward to approach anyone with a mere little kickstarter announcement. How many of these are they receiving everyday really?

I feel like I will have better luck contacting press about the actual release of the game, in a few weeks, since I believe it is a good mobile game. Also I would pay for a few ads on google play etc. >.>

My advice comes from what I've been doing. Mine launches on March 24th and I started promoting 2nd week of January so about 45 days of prep time. You learn a lot. I'm a data kind of guy so I'm running the number over and over in my head to make sure I have enough fuel to fly this thing on launch.

I am currently using both Facebook and Twitter ads. I don't bother with promoting pages or accounts, it all goes to specific tweets or posts that has good pitch and a link to the page. Otherwise my likes and followers are only useful if I make another post to tell them what to do. Page and followers are long term goals.

When you approach bloggers or anyone really I had to learn to put away my humility and just walk and talk like your game/product is the best thing in the world. If your not going to be confident about your product then they defiantly wont be. Tell them why their readers would want to know about this. "Everyone has that hyper cat lover friend that this app would be perfect for... etc"

Response rates are really low if you go through the email and contact forms, i get about 1/60 replies to my queries. The next level is to find phone contacts and give them a ring.

customglow wrote:My advice comes from what I've been doing. Mine launches on March 24th and I started promoting 2nd week of January so about 45 days of prep time. You learn a lot. I'm a data kind of guy so I'm running the number over and over in my head to make sure I have enough fuel to fly this thing on launch.

I am currently using both Facebook and Twitter ads. I don't bother with promoting pages or accounts, it all goes to specific tweets or posts that has good pitch and a link to the page. Otherwise my likes and followers are only useful if I make another post to tell them what to do. Page and followers are long term goals.

When you approach bloggers or anyone really I had to learn to put away my humility and just walk and talk like your game/product is the best thing in the world. If your not going to be confident about your product then they defiantly wont be. Tell them why their readers would want to know about this. "Everyone has that hyper cat lover friend that this app would be perfect for... etc"

Response rates are really low if you go through the email and contact forms, i get about 1/60 replies to my queries. The next level is to find phone contacts and give them a ring.

That was helpful. I will probably promote a post rather than a page or account. But what are you launching, a Kickstarter or the game? At this point, with my very low budget, I find myself hesitant about throwing Facebook ads for a post about a Kickstarter project. It feels like I should keep this money to publicize the actual game on the launch date. I did not expect to have this much trouble with the Kickstarter. And there is no way to get feedback from all the people who viewed the video and didn't pledge. I wish I could, to adjust some things.

Putting money to TRY to promote a fund raising project, sounds extremely sad and unworthy to me. My current state of mind is.. I'm pretty much thinking of dropping the Kickstarter and releasing the game asap, with a few good ads. :/

Like, I know there is some time left on my kickstarter, 25 days or so, but I tried a few things already, without success, and I don't feel like wasting more time or money if I don't have any more tricks to pull.

Isn't the Kickstarter and the game the same thing? The Kickstarter creates the game.

That's true, if you have the resources to complete the game you can just focus on that. I think you jumped in too quickly.

Like everything else it takes money to make money, whether that be in dollars for advertising or marketing material or just simply time spent. I'm spending around $40-60 dollars a day on advertising or other useful services/tools and 4 hrs per day making promotional materials/messages/research/etc so its not cheap, but I am asking for 55K in return so 4K spent to gain 55K is good ROI. Still a gamble in the end but the odds should be in my favor.

25 days is a long time so you could do a lot with that. Its really where you see your job as. For me I can't do my project without the funding so the Kickstarter promotions IS my job, if i already had the funding it would be more a side project/exercise. I believe if you were put in the DO OR DIE situation you could pull it off, its just up to you if that effort is worth your goal. Mine is do or die so I have no choice.

In mid-retrospect, I would probably do Kickstarter for any future project regardless of funding because its a GREAT evaluation of the project at hand. You get to try out the sales and marketing, you get to evaluate the interest, you get feedback, you learn what works what doesn't, and overall learn if your project has potential to make it in the long run.

BitofaGeek wrote:Hi Dominic,

From what I've seen, Twitter is the best place to reach new audiences in the gaming community. They're far more active and engaged than they are on Facebook.

I second this. Although not game related, most of the traffic towards my project comes from twitter.