Nuts & Bolts – Querying Content Creators
[Read our full Nuts & Bolts series]
This is the second installment of our Nuts & Bolts series where we take a closer, bite-sized, look at real-hands-on tasks that come with publishing a board game.
I am very happy with our review and preview content, the social proof we’ve received – and enthusiasm around our game never hurts. There are a few things I would do differently – in terms of tapping more focused creators (the mom & dadfluencers), and in terms of pacing and building hype around content releases. But, on the whole our campaign has been a success.
In the past few weeks, I’ve had a couple of conversations with indie publishers who have expressed poor response rates from reviewers or feeling lost with how to set up a review and preview campaign.
So, let’s dive in.
I want to preface all of this – I’ve found that professionalism goes a long way in this industry. If you approach people professionally, they are very likely to be responsive.
Planning a Review/Preview Campaign
Eric Geller over at Short Hop Games has an excellent write up on planning a review campaign (they went big with their game Quests & Cannons). I highly recommend giving it a read.
Before you dive in, you’ll need to figure out
Your timeline
Your Budget
Which reviewers to reach out to
For our campaign, all of our reviewers are channels whose content I know because I consume it.
I think we did pretty well, but I missed an opportunity with niche content creators like momfluencers and dadfluencers who could introduce our game to a broader demographic.
Ryan Billingsley at Dad Suggests was one of our few Dadfluencers [here is his excellent write up]
I don’t know of a curated list of content creators in the boardgame space. I’ve seen some – but they tend to be incomplete, or out of date.
These lists exist in other industries – for instance, I could hire a PR firm to give me a list of Mormon Momfluencers on Instagram (yes, this is a real influencer segment), and to query them for me.
For board games, in addition to tapping into the content you consume, I’d recommend looking at similar Kickstarters and seeing who their reviewers and previewers were and try to gauge how effective each was (quality of content, viewer count, etc).
The Query
This bears repeating - professionalism goes a long way in this industry.
We are an unestablished, novice, publisher. But, even judging by the emails and pitches people send our way, the differences in professionalism is painfully clear. If content creators aren’t responding to your queries, it is most likely because you are not presenting yourself in a professional manner.
I just went through my outbox – and only one content creator did not respond to our initial query. Not everyone was interested in our campaign, some had scheduling conflicts, and a few don’t do Kickstarter content. But, they responded.
This is the formula I used when cold querying content creators:
Know the content of the (p)reviewer you are reaching out to, and that your game falls in their wheelhouse.
When you reach out put something personal in the message that shows you know who they are. This is a line from my cold e-mail to a content creator who is often drinking or making fancy coffee in their videos:
“I love your TikTok content, it’s hilarious, well thought out, and although you drink your coffee a bit sweeter than I take mine, I appreciate a fellow coffeehollic… er-hem, aficionado.”
Pitch them the game at a high level, and in one or two sentences explain why it’s a good fit for their channel.
Give them access to additional information if they are interested, like a rulebook, or your landing page.
Give them a timeline of when you’ll have review prototypes and around when you are launching.
Ask for their rate sheet & availability.
There’s a lot more we could delve into on review and preview campaigns – social proof versus reach, the kinds of content to curate, how much content is worth, and finding the right creators to highlight your game.
But, I hope this is a good first step in thinking through putting together a preview and review campaign, and querying content creators.
How often do you discover a Kickstarter through a review or preview?
How often does a review sway you on a Kickstarter you are on the fence about?
