Alex Norton has given a 90 minute lecture last year on how he made his pledge on Kickstarter for Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox a success, raising over 500% of it's original pledge. There is a video of 90 minuntes covering this lecture, which might be a bit long, so he summarized it in an editorial for Gamasutra.
He makes some valid points on running a successful kickstarter not addressing the point that he only asked for $6000 to start with, which made raising a lot more maybe a bit easier compared to those who are asking $30.000 to start with.
More information.
He makes some valid points on running a successful kickstarter not addressing the point that he only asked for $6000 to start with, which made raising a lot more maybe a bit easier compared to those who are asking $30.000 to start with.
And you can check out the 90 minute low quality shakey-cam video too.After doing significant research on other, more successful, crowd-funded projects, I came to the following conclusions:
- Communication is key! Talk to your pledgers and potential customers. Answer their questions when they have them and keep them engaged.
- It all comes down to how you sell your product, and how you sell yourself and your team as people.
- Be aware of your target audience and gear every little thing you do towards them and only them.
- Market your campaign. Send links to blogs, reviewers, journals, magazines and spread it across social networks. Get traffic to it.
- Be willing to put in the hours that it takes to make regular updates, answer all questions and keep the customer engaged at all times.
On top of this, I decided to change my tactics to include the following:
- Show the customer that the project is being made by people. Good quality, friendly, nice people. If they like you, they'll be more inclined to like what you're selling.
- Don't just show them why your product is special. Show them why it's special to YOU, and why it should be special to THEM.
- When you're selling your product, you should also be selling the people making it. It makes the customer feel a part of something, rather than a simple ‘browse and buy' scenario.
- Write lots of updates. At LEAST 3 per week. Show them you're working at it. Show them how dedicated you are. Try and use video where possible. People respond to video. Get your best speaker onto it.
- Talk to the pledgers, not just as someone who answers questions, but really engage them in conversation. Show them you're real.
More information.
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