Know when you are “launch ready”

Now that you’ve created a promotion strategy, it’s time to decide when to hit the launch button!

You’ve been spending months that likely turned into years creating your game. What started as a spark of an idea turned into a community-building opportunity that led to a rigorous prototyping and playtesting experience resulting in an upcoming crowdfunding campaign. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back, celebrate the progress you’ve made, and look forward to launching your project.

If you’ve followed all of our advice, avoided taking shortcuts, and have a community of potential backers eager and ready for you to launch, you should be filled with a lot of pride and confidence right now. Being nervous is completely normal, but feeling unprepared is something else altogether. If you feel unprepared, take a moment to revisit past lessons and know it is perfectly ok to delay your launch if you need to. Just remember to always be transparent with your community about the decisions you make. They will understand.

A few things to remind yourself of at this moment:

It’s ok to not get funded. Sometimes running an unfunded project on Kickstarter is a necessary stepping stone on your path to being funded. Keep an open mind, listen to your community feedback, and take lots of notes throughout your campaign. Whether you get funded or not, you will learn priceless lessons about what your potential backers love, hate, and everything in-between. So listen and learn as much as you possibly can. Running a crowdfunding campaign is the best education you will get by a long shot. You’d be surprised by how many of the top crowdfunding creators have run projects that were ultimately canceled or unfunded. They kept at it, learned from their mistakes, and tried again until it worked.
Launching a campaign is an awesome opportunity to build a strong community. It’s your job to remain excited throughout this process (no desperate doom and gloom messaging, please) and listen to your backers and potential backers. Once you go live, you are identifying who is interested in your game and who is willing to open up their wallets. Getting an email is one thing. Getting money is something completely different. Crowdfunding allows you to create a segment of your community that is the most loyal and supportive.

Take a deep breath, prepare your body and mind for the work ahead, and try and have some fun. These are exciting times.

BACKERKIT LAUNCH
An email marketing tool used to harness the power of your existing audience, whether it be past backers from a crowdfunding campaign and/or your email list. Get backers to pledge to your project early and get crucial insights into conversions. This is a great tool to identify the strength of your email list.

BACKERKIT MARKETING
Drive pledges to your live campaign with advertising designed specifically for crowdfunding. Our proven technology and marketing expertise will help you reach the most backers possible. You don’t have to be a marketing expert as our software and team of experts will do the heavy lifting. If you haven’t reached out about BackerKit Marketing yet, now’s a good time.

BACKERKIT PLEDGE MANAGER
Crowdfunding’s premier pledge management system helps you manage every pledge detail, earn more money, and get the right rewards to the right people. You can sign up early and start organizing your dashboard so you can provide your backers with the smoothest possible experience. And setting up your backer survey and pre-order store early will help you maintain the momentum you built during your campaign.

Resources:

Kickstarter Checklist: Create a Plan for Crowdfunding Success

To understand everything that goes into a Kickstarter campaign, here is a basic overview and checklist of steps you’ll need to take to set yourself up for a successful crowdfunding campaign.

When is the Best Time to Launch a Kickstarter Campaign?

While you may be looking for a simple day, time, and month when you’re likely to get more backers, the answer isn’t as simple as you might expect — and it certainly isn’t universal to all creators.

When to Launch Your Kickstarter Campaign

Our friends at LaunchBoom detail the best month, day, and time to launch your crowdfunding campaign.

Webinar: Crowdfunding Your Game on Kickstarter

Kickstarter’s Senior Outreach Lead for Tabletop Games Jonathan Ritter-Roderick teaches us things you need to know to set yourself up for crowdfunding success.

Webinar: Know When You Are "Launch Ready"

Learn how to build and engage with your audience and understand what you need to do before you hit that launch button.

Webinar: Expert Do’s and Don’ts Before Your Launch

Join crowdfunding experts from BackerKit and LaunchBoom for an in-depth look at what you should be doing before you hit that launch button.

Now that you have launched, it’s time to put your plan in action and get funded!

Are You Ready to Launch?
Contact Us

Have feedback or something you'd like to see added to this roadmap?
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