Understanding Your Audience
Every genre has its own audience. Discover who your game idea will connect with. Go into forums, add to conversations in your genre, and listen to what people value the most in games in those communities.
Before the crowdfunding campaign goes live, distribute early concepts or alpha versions to a few members of your target audience whom you trust. Feedback is a way of polishing your idea and making sure it is in line with what the future backers would like. If you manage to build a community around your project right now, it will be filled with people who are interested in what you are doing and who would like it to be successful.
Contact influencers who speak directly to your target audience. A mention or review from them can spread like wildfire among their followers, giving you exposure on an almost exponential level. Moreover, making sure that the influencers you choose are genuinely related to your game increases the chances of them becoming true champions of your success.
Creating an Engaging Story
Tell it in such a way that people will be drawn into your story but feel it is real at the same time. Explain your love for the game you are making—what is so special about it that no other game could compare? A great pitch would involve your personal reasons for making this game: your vision, your dreams, and the influence you would like it to have on those who play it.
Use artwork, screenshots, and videos for visual communication. A well-produced video, which shows off the highlights of your game, could become a key point of your campaign page. If nothing else, it allows potential backers to picture the final product in a way that mere words can never achieve.
If you are not the only one working on this project, introduce your team. Give potential backers a glimpse behind the curtain and show them who the real people are who are working hard to make the project. Sharing past experiences, previous works, and personal stories will give potential backers a sense of personal connection to the people they are supporting. It would make the venture credible and show that you have a team of capable individuals backing you, which could make them feel more confident in your ability to deliver.
Building Strong Campaign Momentum
Before your campaign goes live, establish a presence in relevant online communities. Use social media, forums, and newsletters to generate buzz. Announcing your upcoming project and teasing your campaign beforehand can help gather initial interest. Networking is also vital for understanding market trends and insider tips.
If you’ve worked on past projects, leverage any existing fanbase. Inform them about your new campaign and garner their support by making them feel key to the success of your new project. Loyal fans will likely share your campaign with their friends, and you will thus reach a larger audience at no cost.
Once the campaign is live, engagement becomes key. Regular updates, responding to comments, and creating stretch goals demonstrate to backers that you are active and positive. Publicly thank backers for their support, recognizing what they’ve done for you. Doing so will create a community atmosphere for your campaign.
Timing and Planning
Seasonality exerts its influence on all market industries, including indie games. Choose the time of your launch very wisely – when backers are likely most open to it. Don’t launch your project right before a major holiday, or at a time when people tend to spend less, like right after the holidays. Watch for industry events, and start your campaign so that you can take full advantage of the visibility and interest they generate.
Be meticulous in calculating your costs, and then choose a funding target that is both achievable and realistic. People who back your project want to see it completed, but they want to understand what you are doing with their money. Overly ambitious targets can dissuade potential backers, while targets that are too low might result in you not being able to deliver on promises.
A clearly defined timeline helps to keep your campaign organized and on track. Schedule posts, updates, and strategies before the fact so that your operations run smoothly. In this planning, include considerations for various social media channels, types of content, and engagement tactics, in order to keep a flow of activity and interaction throughout your campaign’s life.
Coping with Challenges
If you encounter challenges, be transparent with your backers. Honesty about problems, along with a plan for fixing them, sustains trust. People are typically forgiving as long as they feel informed and see that you are trying to rectify things.
Look at communication and updates in a sustainable way. Do not work without rest, or you will burn out. You need to keep a sense of joy and clarity in the decisions you make during the campaign.
Be flexible and willing to turn around. A change in marketing strategy or a shuffle of reward tiers may be just the thing to rekindle interest in a stalled project. Go with your gut, but listen to the community, too. They will provide feedback that helps define the best action.
Learning from Successful Campaigns
Look at both similar projects in your game genre that have achieved their goals and those outside your game genre. What strategies did they employ? How did they deal with setbacks and keep backers believing? This kind of observation could lead to new considerations for your own campaign.
Many successful game developers share their crowdfunding stories and advice online. Listen to them and learn about their failures, what they would do differently and why. The lessons they learned could be critical in dealing with the unexpected that might happen in your campaign.
If you have done so before, review your past crowdfunding campaigns: what went well, what didn’t. Apply that knowledge to improve this one, steering clear of past errors and building on successful strategies. The difference that such a plan might make in your success would be substantial.