Ways to promote a kickstarter

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For those that don't know kickstarter is community based project funding site where groups working on projects ask for funding from people, possible donors, and in return those donors get some reward.

If anyone want to check it out just go to Kickstarter.

I have recently started a independent game development company with multiple other members of the game industry (I currently work for a game company in the chicagoland area). We plan on creating a kickstarter to help finish the funding for our game which will be available for the Ouya and PC. We're hoping that if it does well we can also port it to the playstation 3 and xbox live arcade.

The game is a tower defense with some real time strategy elements added in.

Anyway we are looking for other ways to build hype and create a list prior to starting the kickstarter as we'll only have 30 days to get people's eyes on our page once it starts so any help would be much appreciated.

Here are some preliminary screenshots of the game in case anyone wanted to see it. I would also love to hear your thoughts about how the game looks. If you like the art let me know. If you think it's terrible I'd love to hear why you think so. Cheers






Ideas?
#main internet marketing discussion forum #kickstarter #promote #ways
  • Oh I suppose I should also state that so far we are attempting to contact game news websites and see if they want to run a story on our game which will hopefully increase awareness for the kickstarter and we've also created a facebook fanpage but other than funneling viewers from my other fanpages I'm not sure how to promote it in a way that will get a large set of eyes on it quickly (within the next 14 days or so before the kickstarter launches.
  • I do not know much about the games domain and how you can get it in the spotlight but some general marketing aspects can still be applied to it though.

    Have you tried press releases? It can be picked up by other gaming sites looking for news to funnel to their readers.

    Also do a lot of youtube marketing such as insider's view of your project.. interact with gamers, ask for opinions on games forums etc...

    in your 14 days lapse; i doubt you can get a huge impact but its never too late to start.. I bet other veterans here can get you a much better insight on what you can do.

    Good luck with your project.
    • [1] reply
    • We already have multiple members using accounts throughout many high profile video game forums across the internet. I myself have 6+ year old accounts on 3 of the biggest game forums on the internet which I've been using to "leak" screenshots and see what people think about the art of the game.
  • Kickstarter is interesting. You need to appeal to the people who would buy what you want to start. For example, I saw a strategy card game on there the other day that had reached double its funding appeal. I did a bit of scrapebox work to see why it was successful. It was all over several high traffic gaming card forums and mentioned by a couple of big retailers as well.
    • [1] reply
    • Simply, go where the money is. Think out of the box (gaming). Mix in some good "real world" leg work. Print and traditional media still have greater credibility than online.

      I've seen Angel funding come from varied sources - be creative and resourceful.

      After your 30 days - try fundingalt.com for a more permanent and promoted funding presence. There are other platforms, but most only deal with non-profits and none of them promote your cause - I gather this is not such an effort.
      • [2] replies
  • 1. work out your USP's
    2. cut a unique angle
    3. distribute a press release / get in touch with relevant media outlets
    • [1] reply
    • ^We have a fanpage ready to go which we will be loading with content in about 2 days (We have some extra polish we want to add before anyone sees final versions on fb). We also have a website being built by a professional web designer from a fairly major company. He happens to be a sibling of one of our founding members so we got lucky there.

      The usp is created as is the angle. Now we just need a method of deploying the message efficiently to the masses.

      I'm looking for extra deployment methods.

      Also guys, please feel free to give me some criticism about how the game looks. At this stage the look of the game is everything so if someone can point out the flaws which we should remove or nice features that we should emphasize that would be helpful.
  • I think you need to take care of the first 30% then you will start appearing on the front page.

    Things like your blog traffic, Facebook fan pages etc.
  • Make sure you buy fb likes/tweets to your kickstarter page (at least 1000) so it gets viewed as "popular".

    I did a few dozen promotions for kickstarters last year and raised 33k on a dice game. The key is making the kickstarter appear to be popular so it gets listed in the popular section
    • [1] reply
    • I've never bought fb likes. Are you saying pay for fb fanpage promotion through fb or buy straight up likes through some third party service?
  • Will it be something like "Sims"?
    • [1] reply
    • No it's a tower defense so it would be more like Pixel Junk if you've ever played that. Basically there are enemies attacking your town and you command your 4 men to create defensive towers that will destroy enemies before they can get to your town. The townsfolk come out of the town to man the towers. Upgrading a tower causes an extra townsperson to head over to the tower and help the people already defending from that tower.
  • I wish you luck. I have been embarking on a campaign to get exposure for my Kickstarter for my novel Zombified. I am not even halfway there and I have contacted everyone I can think of and posted everywhere on the web. It is a full time job
    • [2] replies
    • Is your kickstarter currently underway?
      • [2] replies
    • I personally found kickstarter by accident and when I did, I couldn't use it since I am not a US citizen and that really broke my heart.

      My elder brother is currently in need of money for his music production. Though he was a member of a group who where already doing fine until a black sheep sprung up and the manager disbanded the group. He is back to square one and seriously need the money.

      So, if I were you, I would go over what I was doing wrong and how I could change that. I would take a look at all the successful campaigns and evaluate what element make them 'thick' because the best way to succeed is copy those that have done it before.
      • [1] reply
  • been thinking of using kickstarter myself would also like to know the best ways to promote it to drive it up
    • [1] reply
    • That's just it, it's like doing your own promotion. So, everything is the same except you are spending your energy getting folks over to kickstarter instead of your own site. I guess sites like Indiegogo.com and Kickstarter work if you are promoting a certain niche that they are into, but if they aren't I think you might as well send the people to your site to donate that way you don't have to pay a middle man.

      For Promotion:
      Youtube
      Articles
      Blogging
      Forum Signature
      Google, Bing, Yahoo
      Press Releases
      Wickipedia

      All the same promotions you normally do you would be doing to get folks over to your Kickstarter page.
  • You could try getting the attention of people like the owners of Penny-Arcade or bloggers from sites like 1UP.

    Most indie projects that ended up funded were promoted by an article or blog post in a big site. Try everybody and someone eventually will take a liking of your project.

    Also it is looking good and original, not just another clone. That helps your chances a lot.
  • Use Microworkers to go to your Kickstarter page and "like" the kickstarter page
  • Hey thats cool....can you make a tower defence game like that using any background? Can it be personalized?
    • [2] replies
    • Really like the concept - I wrote a little flash game once that used the same idea - the whole drawn-on-paper look. It was a flying saucer shoot-em-up game - did it for an arcade site, so I didn't make any money...
      • [1] reply
    • Yes, we can, and they aren't backgrounds. Those are fully interactable environments. You can run underneath the rings of the binder and so forth.
  • I consulted on a Kickstarter project for an iPhone game. Here's a couple of things that really helped push it over what we were going for:

    1. Setup a Twitter search for anyone mentioning your project and engage them. Also thank everyone who backs your project and mentions it on Twitter. HootSuite is free and you can setup a window just for that.

    2. Don't be afraid to engage influencers on Twitter. Ask them to take a look. Every now and then you'll get retweeted and pick up a few backers.

    3. Your initial video is key. Frequent updates are even more so. Make sure you publish them to YouTube and promote on Twitter and Facebook. Even behind the scenes stuff which wouldn't seem as important really helps motivate people to back.

    4. Keep in touch with Kickstarter itself. Getting featured on their page isn't difficult if you follow their guidelines and create compelling content.

    5. Finally, it REALLY helps to have a playable demo that you can show on your video. Even if it's a few screens. That way backers know you've already spent some time developing it.

    Hope that helps. Cheers!
  • I don't know much about Kickstarter but i LOVE tower defense games. First played this kind of games on wacraft 3, 70% of my iphone games are tower defense. Hope your game and your project will do well, i will keep an eye on it !
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  • Take a look at The Crowdfunding Bible from Crowdfunding Bible: Top Book on Crowd Funding, Kickstarter . It's a really in-depth guide and free. Good luck with the project!
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • try 8bitfunding.com too for games.
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    Ways to promote a kickstarter

    For those that don't know kickstarter is community based project funding site where groups working on projects ask for funding from people, possible donors, and in return those donors get some reward. If anyone want to check it out just go to Kickstarter.