How we launched a successful Kickstarter
with no money and no marketing experience
(almost) No money or marketing experience
November, 2019: We launched A Christmas Carol Adventure. We had researched, marketed, posted, written, bought 3D printers and contacted printing companies. We had picked a bad time of year for most Kickstarter projects, but were determined to take advantage of the Christmas theme of our project and forge ahead with the launch.
And then, almost before we realized it, we had surpassed all expectations and goals to make over $20,000 with an original goal of $6,500.
How did we do it? How did we get that many backers?
Yep, I’m going to tell you how we launched a successful Kickstarter with no money or marketing experience.
We had something special
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is an outstanding story that has transcended time and continues to impact people today. The short book has been crafted into movies and tons of other media. The plot is so familiar that it is hard to find someone who hasn’t heard of Ebenezer Scrooge and his Christmas spirits. When you call someone a Scrooge, everyone knows what you mean. We even get the term “Merry Christmas” from A Christmas Carol (it used to be happy Christmas).
That’s why, when Josiah decided to write a one-shot dnd campaign based on A Christmas Carol, we all knew we had something special.
It was this foundation that paved the way for our Kickstarter success.
Dedication to a vision
From the start, our founders Josiah and TJ had a vision of the final product. This vision laid out clear goals for the team to head towards. This vision wasn’t perfect. But it was a good idea of what should be.
That dedication turned into dogged determination. The project stayed on track despite unexpected costs, a global pandemic and even a wedding! Consider this: all of the printed books arrived the day before Josiah’s wedding, but he had committed to getting them shipped before Christmas. So he spent the entire day packing books with the team (the next day the team worked without him!).
When you have a vision, you know where to go, no matter what happens.
Getting others excited for the project
It’s instantly obvious that Josiah is incredibly gifted at infusing other people with his own excitement. Once Jo gets excited about something, you better be prepared to be grinning and laughing along with him. But the seed of his excitement is working on a great project. If Jo is excited, you know that he truly believes in what he is working on.
Jo and TJ started sharing their project plan with artists and collaborators, and realized that everyone was getting excited along with them. The quality of the project got everyone hyped for the Kickstarter, and it was little wonder that having excited collaborators and creators spilled over into excited backers.
I’m still excited about the project, and it was launched almost two years ago.
Carefully watched spending
Total disclosure here: Josiah is an accountant by profession. He might hate it, but he does know a lot about money and how to manage it. He also knows a fair bit about managing money for a business - sometimes you’ve got to spend money to make money.
Because of this, A Christmas Carol Adventure had a strict budget. We didn’t have a big savings account or seed funding or any of that. That’s why we were launching a Kickstarter, after all. With a little bit of savings, we managed to jumpstart the artistic process. And then, after we successfully finished our Kickstarter, we were careful to stick to a firm budget. Our backers believed in us and our products, and we didn’t want to disappoint them.
Throughout the process, we had specific money goals for each purchase. We also set expanding goals if we got more money. Finally, we held ourselves back and knew when to stop spending if we didn’t make any of these goals.
You can make $1 million on Kickstarter, but if you spend $2 million, you can’t really call that a success.
Hired a professional marketing team
Organic marketing is good. We all want to believe that we can just post enough on social media or our website and gain hundreds or thousands of interested customers. Don’t worry, you can totally gain followers by just posting and not spending any money.
But you won’t gain as many or as fast until you spend some money on ads.
We allotted as much as our stark budget would allow on Facebook ads for our A Christmas Carol Adventure. Facebook is the ideal spot for ads for this kind of product. Because we hired a professional, we had a great ad setup. Even though we ourselves didn’t know much about Facebook marketing at the time, the company did. They made sure that our ads were optimized for the platform and for the audience. They helped us achieve a high ROI and visibility. We wouldn’t have been successful without them.
When 2020 rolled around, we hired the same company to advertise our game again for the holiday season. We made about 3 times the amount we spent on ads.
It. Was. Worth. It.
Paid everyone on time
Never underestimate the power of paying people when you say you will. Artists are accustomed to all manner of clients. They remember the ones who treat them well, give excellent feedback, have great projects and PAY ON TIME.
We paid on time, and now people want to work with us again.
Last thoughts
Launching a Kickstarter for TTRPGs or gaming accessories can be difficult. Especially if you have no money or marketing experience. We did it, and I hope by reading our story you can do it, too. Just remember to focus on something special, dedicate yourself to a vision, get others excited for the project, watch your spending, consider hiring a marketing firm, and pay everyone on time. (Remember that last one.)
Do you have a Kickstarter campaign launch soon? Let us know, either through a comment below or in a message!
Also, if you have any Kickstarter advice for games or game accessory projects, leave it here!
Remember, all the organization in the world is helpful. But with a DnD campaign, chaos is likely.
#NumberOneJosiah
Jo is our co-founder, resident DM for Hire and a philosopher of tabletop gaming.
Jessie CM
Jessie is our marketing guru, lover of #NumberOneJosiah and a published author.
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