Legend of Hart’s HollowKickstarter Planning

Nina ParkFall 2013

The Current Deliverable

• A Kickstarter preview url. • The video has not been created and the

budget has not been finalized• The in depth description, reward tiers, and

marketing plan have been figured out

• http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/451218992/1285941583?token=96612566

Researching Successful Kickstarters

Andrea Benjamin – Former Director of Communications at Activision“Break It Down Into Pieces”

• What is my goal?– To excite and inform potential backers about Hart’s Hollow and the

Polybot team. We need to present ourselves as fun and approachable as well as competent and skillful. (i.e. Not only are we cool people, we're cool people who can deliver what we're promising you.) We need to sell backers on the feeling of adventure that is the main emotion we want players to experience in the game. Everything from marketing leading up to the Kickstarter campaign, the campaign itself, and the upkeep of the campaign/community should support this goal

• Who is my target audience?– 18 to 24 demographic = primary audience. Potential to bring in

secondary audience in the tween age group• What are my strategies?

– Kickstarter and social media sites primarily• What are my tactics?

– Breakdown in rest of presentation

Nicky Soh• A current sequential arts major at SCAD• Has run 3 successful Kickstarters• Gave amazing advice on how to research successful Kickstarters and gather data on any Kickstarter

How to Gather Data on Any Kickstarter

Go to any Kickstarter page

Click on the Twitter link

Copy the bitly link

Paste it into a new browser window but add a “+” after the link

It will then take you to a page that tracks the stats of that link.

It tracks what percentage of page views the bitly link accounts for, clicks per day, where those clicks are coming from, etc.

• Knowing that, I started researching Kickstarters that went very viral• Trends between them • Most link clicks came from Facebook

and Twitter• Got most of their funding from the

first and last 48 hours in the campaign

• Usually priced their games at $10 or $15 (that is the bare bones digital game. No extra rewards included)

Also researched Kickstarters from lesser known developers who were similar to us in some way (potentially launching on the same platform, art style, similar target audience)

•Good Kickstarter to study because the creator, Craig Stern, failed initially and then was successfully funded later on• Wrote an article about his experience•http://indierpgs.com/2013/04/how-to-not-fail-at-kickstarter-in-12-easy-steps/• Useful tip: You can still email backers updates if your funding is unsuccessful. Let them know you are going to try again.

Telepath Tactics by Craig Stern

Hart’s Hollow Kickstarter Marketing Plan

Because the ground work and upkeep are just as important as the actual Kickstarter page (if not more)

2 Months Before Launch

Indie MEGABOOTH: Try and get into it if the timeline allows

• What is it? – Indie devs pool $ together to

buy floor space at PAX prime and East

• Need to pitch game to the organizers

• Potentially can reach out to Craig Stern (Telepath Tactics) and Ryan Green/Josh Larson (That Dragon, Cancer) who we talked to a bit at IndieCade for tips on getting in

2 Months Before Launch

Company website and social media accounts created and up to date

At launch, we need a place to funnel people if they have more interest in the game and the team

Have all team members start reposting/sharing all FB updates

2 Months Before Launch

Potential cross promotion w/ another indie dev (e.g. putting our characters in their game)

Armillo: Did a cross promotion w/ Air Mech. Made their main character a special pet available in Air Mech. Went from approx 120 likes to approx. 350 likes in 1.5 weeks

1 Month Before Launch

• Go into forums and start conversations there to build hype. DO NOT just spam a link and run

• Contact Podcasts. Do not ask them to review your game publicly. Ask for their critique because you value their opinion. If they like us they may feature us on their podcast

2 -3 Weeks Before Launch

• Contact big name gaming news sites

• Sue Bohle’s advice– Contact them 1st thing in

the morning and at the beginning of the week

– Make it easy to read (bullet the key features)

– Include 8 -10 pictures– Thank the editor for their

consideration not their coverage

2 -3 Weeks Before Launch

• Contact niche gaming news sites/sites that are more specific to our genre/sites that focus on smaller indie games

• Contact SCAD about being on their curated Kickstarter page

Armless Octopus

Launch Day• Goal: Get on Staff Picks/ the

newsletter/ Popular– Popular is based on # of backers.

Not amt of $– Staff Picks/newsletter bit harder to

get on because the projects featured there generally are doing something radically diff in the medium

• Impt because: Telepath Tactics (54% of funding came from people just wandering around the KS site. Not the pre-existing fanbase.)

• Get all team members to share the KS over all social media accounts

Post-Launch Upkeep

• Stretch goals = only reveal after 50% funded– Don’t flood backer with info– Want to have a backlog of updates you can give as the

campaign runs• Keep on engaging community with vids and

updates. Update every 3 – 4 days• Send a short thank you message to each backer. It

will retain your audience and make them less likely to withdraw their pledge. (May also make them increase their pledge amount.)