5 Kickstarter Tips for Board Games

You're planning to launch your board game on Kickstarter or Indiegogo?

We all know that crowdfunding is the easiest way to start your business and to get instant investments from your backers, it is also an opportunity to create a warm community that supports your project and is ready to help you grow!

As you may know, the most-funded category on Kickstarter is actually board games, so you're very lucky because there's a huge market waiting for you, but also a lot of competitors!

That's why you will need a great entry strategy, a well-planned pre-launch phase, and a bunch of tips to help you face the crowdfunding world!

Before reading the article...

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1. RESEARCH, STUDY, PLAN

The Internet is plenty of good crowdfunding campaigns, so make sure to check that one similar to your board game project and take some inspiration. What worked and what did not?

It could be very helpful to study a little background about the creators, what they've done in the past and how long it took to build their campaign. It is totally cool to imitate your favorite creator's strategy, as long as you will add your own personal touch to that!

Your project is unique and you must offer people your visions and values in order to be appreciated and backed!

Take a glimpse into the Kickstarter games section, most popular, most-backed project, etc... that will surely help you to get an idea for the creation of your campaign and start organizing your ideas.

2. THINK AHEAD OF YOUR LOGISTICS

Even if your product is almost ready, you've already done your prototype and playtested it, doesn't mean it's ready to be sold to the world!

In fact, the most important part is to find a manufacturer who's ready to sort out all the elements of your board game, it is not an easy task, it takes a lot of time and research and after that, you should then take care of your logistics.

Most likely you will not do this all by yourself, you’ll a dedicated team and more to assemble and deliver your board game. It should be clear that until you have these details fixed it will be difficult to launch your campaign, too many things to take care of all at once!

Make sure to start with these ''difficult'' parts before starting creating your campaign strategy, thing will be a lot easier after that.

3. TIME FOR ADVERTISING

When you're planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign is fundamental to have a great marketing plan set up. Maybe it's not something very appealing for a creative person, but without it, it could be difficult to raise funds.

You need to be ready to know your target audience in this way you may know how to compel people to play your game. In order to succeed in this, you have create catchy visuals and creatives, for example, a video to show how the game is played, images, gifs and everything that could ignite interest on your campaign.

These are the so-called ''hard assets'', because they are resources with fundamental value.

Other than that, you will also need a marketing strategy to reach out to your potential backers, also called ''outreach strategy'' which includes email lists, social media ads, and targeted ads to be performed by Facebook.

All of these components are vital to build a pre-launch campaign strategy and to make people know your amazing board game, so remember to include all these marketing expenses when thinking about the logistical strategy, because of course, it will affect your price on Kickstarter, so be careful with it!

4. KEEP MOMENTUM GOING

Okay, so, you just launched your campaign, and then what? Keep in mind that you cannot just sit and wait for it to be completely fulfilled, you have to keep leveraging the momentum you've created.

Here's what you can do:

1) Be present on socials: it is really important to let people know what you're doing, how's the campaign going and the little milestones you reach, for example, $500, $1,000, $5,000 and so on... That will keep your potential backers interested and focused, keep on reminding them that they're losing an important chance.

2) Add ons: What are add-ons? I explained it really deeply here, with add-ons you can offer your backers complementary products to add to their pledge, for example, the extension of your board game, meeples, little figures and more. Once they backed the first time there's a big chance that they will still want to buy additional items, make them desirable!

3) Stretch Goals: they are fundamental and you can add them once you got fully funded, stretch goals are additional funding goals once you’ve reached your initial funding mark, that will help get the backers thrilled and wanting to back the new goal you aim to.

4) Announcements: inside of your Kickstarter page you could keep in contact with your backers during the campaign to update them on the progress of the project, for example, the shipment phase, logistics, production, etc. This is very important, don't underestimate this.

Doing all of these things above will keep your audience engaged and excited about your campaign, don't forget about them once they back your campaign, because it's thanks to them that your game will come true!

5. START A PR STRATEGY

After thinking about all the social media marketing strategies is now time to think about some PR strategy, which includes contacting influencers.

Influencers are a big opportunity to launch your newborn project, they will speak to a large community of people interested in a specific niche, in your case, board games. So, reach out to one or more influencers on the major platforms and talk about your game, making them fall in love with it!

This step is fundamental because an influencer or journalist could be really great testimonials through their social media posts, blog or Youtube videos. Make sure they like your game not only because they're paid, in this way the shoutout will be more genuine and fun, and people will be interested in it!

Keep in mind that this traffic will have a higher chance of converting, because people have already associated it with a positive thought about your project.

WRAPPING IT UP

This is it for today, make sure to follow these steps to launch your board game campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. It might seem complicated, but be patient and you'll see the results along the way!

A crowdfunding launch requires a lot of hard work and sacrifices, but I'm sure that it will be worth it in order to start making your dream project come true.

Always remember that before launching your project you will need to analyze and prepare your pre-launch phase to launch your first product, I’ve got you covered with my crowdfunding pre-launch free e-book called ''3 steps to success on Kickstarter and Indiegogo''. 

As always make sure to subscribe to my channel to stay updated on fresh new content that I’m gonna drop there.

Ciao ciao! 

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