Running a successful Kickstarter campaign takes a huge amount of planning and a well-balanced course of action for generating interest and publicity for your project. You’re asking for backers’ money based on an idea and the good-faith claim that you’ll follow through, so put as much time and effort into your Kickstarter presentation as you can possibly spare. Ideas are a dime a dozen—execution is the hard part, and if you want to see your project successfully funded, the consumer needs to know that you can make good on your promises. Take your project as far as you possibly can before you put it up on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. The campaigns with the greatest success rate are the ones that are furthest along at launch. If you’re not up to the task, think about hiring someone to handle it for you. Don’t balk at the idea of spending a little bit of money on your presentation. There’s a risk, but if it’s going to give your campaign a leg up then it’s ultimately worth it. In addition to your video, make your presentation visually enticing with a well-executed logo, cohesive color scheme, and plenty of multimedia. Sketches, concept-art, 3D Models, storyboards—this stuff can really add to a presentation, and your pitch needs to be as good as you can possibly make it. The best way to raise the sort of awareness required for a major development project is to receive legitimate media coverage from an industry news outlet like Kotaku, GameInformer, Machinima, etc. Make a thorough list of all the publications you can think of in the niche you’re trying to serve. Put together some sort of press package and find out how you can reach out to the websites on your list. The more interviews you give and feature posts you score, the better off you’ll be. Think of creative ways to get your project out there. Don’t be afraid to ask for plugs or mentions, even from well-known personalities (especially from well-known personalities!). Get as many people to your landing page as possible, and make sure the page is interesting enough for them to want to cough-up their contact info. In addition to Twitter and Facebook, start uploading incremental progress updates on both YouTube and Vimeo in the weeks leading up to your campaign. Link back to your landing page as often as you can without being spammy—forum signatures and profiles are perfect for this sort of thing. Because Kickstarter and IndieGoGo make you set a finite campaign length to raise the cash, precise timing matters. Begin your marketing push at least a few weeks early, and then launch your campaign just as public awareness begins to peak. But don’t wait too long. If you know that your project is going to be featured on a well-trafficked blog, for example, make sure your campaign is up and running at least a few days in advance.
