3 Ways We Are Turbo Charging our Campaign
Nut Hunt 100% funded in just under 24 hours (with 7 minutes to spare!). And, at the time of writing this, we are at $15k funded and just unlocked our first stretch goal!!
But, of course, no launch can go off without a hitch. Ours included.
We’ve identified a number of areas where we can do better and are excited to take the campaign to the next level.
1. Email List
We’ve had pretty remarkable growth in our e-mail list over the past few months, and at the time of launching the campaign had 2,332 people who signed up to be notified about our Kickstarter.
But we also saw a pretty drastic drop off in open rates.
A content creator (who I had previously corresponded with) messaged letting me know that my most recent e-mail got caught in their spam filter. Corroborating the thesis that our domain is getting scraped into spam and promotions is that despite the declining open rates, we haven’t seen a tick up in unsubscribes.
I cross referenced all of the non-openers of our last few email campaigns and identified 1,632 people who asked to be notified about Nut Hunt but may not have been due to spam filters! That’s a huge untapped opportunity with over two thirds of our list potentially not knowing our campaign is live!
Over the next few weeks Chelsea and I are individually reaching out to each and every one of them to introduce ourselves, let them know about the campaign, and make it easy for them to opt out if they aren’t interested in our content (the last thing we want is people on our subscribers list who don’t want to be).
After the campaign I’ll have a lot of work to do cleaning up our domain – but for now I am encouraged by the untapped opportunity.
2. More Creator Content
We received a ton of amazing social proof from reviewers and content creators leading into the campaign.
“This is not an overly advanced game, but for a lightweight approachable, family, or kind of evening style game, it has a lot going for it.” - Jesse Anderson (Quackalope)
“This was actually quite fun to play, and it fit’s that niche in between ‘hey we’re going to play something really heavy and we’re going to play a quick game just to have some fun together’.” - West (Quackalope)
“The type of game that would be a great addition to any collection.” - Derek Pederson (Woosung Board Games)
“Nut Hunt already safely belongs to our top 4 favorite family Euro games - along with Catan Junior, Ticket to Ride First Journey, and Honga. And that’s good company!” - Ryan Billingsley (Dad Suggests)
“A perfect combination for groups that are trying to welcome a new gamer, or for families.” - Ian Hornbacker (Board Feelings)
But, I did a bad job pacing the schedule of content releases. This means that fans were inundated in the first day of the campaign, and we don’t have as much content scheduled over the coming weeks.
I’m taking a few steps to make sure that we can keep the momentum going
Getting our game out into more hands. We have a couple of preview prototypes that are ready for re-circulation, so I’ll be scheduling more previews over the coming days.
Boosting content we already have. I’m starting in on paid promotion of some of the videos from our favorite content creators. I expect this to be especially effective on TikTok.
3. Keep it Personal
One of our biggest strengths is that we are a small personal, and personable company. I’m individually reaching out to each and every backer, thanking them for their support and starting a dialogue.
This is probably my favorite part of the campaign. And it’s paying off, already we’ve gotten a ton of great feedback including new communities to reach out to, and ideas for content and stretch goals.
It’s also made me realize that some of our communication can be a little sterile, and looking back, I see a real difference in our interaction, and traction when our posts and copy seems corporate versus when it’s clear that it’s coming from me personally.
I will be working hard alongside Roque DeLeon to add personal flair to our Facebook advertisements, and I’ll continue to stay genuine and engaged with our backers, and everyone across our communities.
What are your favorite ways creators keep up the momentum of their campaigns?
