It used to be that people would discover projects on Kickstarter as they went live on the platform. If you were in your pre-launch phase, potential backers could only find you through word-of-mouth channels (like through playtesting, conventions, etc.) or through online advertising.
However, since Kickstarter has seen that backers like to discover campaigns earlier and earlier, they’ve added a new feature to help backers discover you and you to find new potential backers: the promo page.
What Is The Kickstarter Promo Page
The promo page (also called the Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page) is a feature that Kickstarter released in 2019 to help you market your project and make it easier for interested fans to find you.
From Kickstarter:
With the Project Pre-Launch Page, as a creator you can now share all vital information necessary to start building hype for your campaign and present a direct call-to-action for backers to be notified when your project has launched.
Elements Of Your Promo Page
There are a few elements that will show up on your promo page:
- Your project’s title
- Your project’s subtitle
- Your creator name
- Your profile avatar
- Your campaign image
- Your project’s location
- Your project’s category
Today we’ll discuss the following steps that you need to follow to use the Kickstarter promo page to market your board game:
- Activate Your Kickstarter Promo Page
- Show Your Launch Date
- Get Followers For Your Campaign
- Automatically Send REminders
- FAQS About The Promo Page
Activate Your Kickstarter Promo Page
After your project has been approved for launch, you’ll be able to head to the Promotion section of the project editor to set up your promo page.
Potential backers are able to find new and upcoming projects by searching directly on Kickstarter. This is where your promo page will appear.
Do this step early. Actually, do this step as early as you possibly can (read: right now).
Since you have the opportunity to continue editing, tweaking, and optimizing your project as long as you would like, there is actually no downside to getting your project approved early and getting your promo page up early.
From a strategy perspective, activating this promo page early is a strength; you’ll be able to continue collecting project followers throughout your entire pre-launch process.
Show Your Launch Date
One thing that has stayed true throughout the history of marketing is that timing is everything. But alas, the interesting thing about promo pages is that it doesn’t show your launch date.
What to do?
Project creators have found a clever workaround and directly show their launch date on the project image:
I encourage you to do the same.
If people know when you will launch, they can put it on their calendar and make sure to back your project on launch day.
Get Followers For Your Campaign
When shared with your community, potential backers will have the option to be notified when your campaign has launched by clicking “Notify me on launch”. If you’re reading blogs and forums, you’ll notice this also referred to as NMOL.
The follower count on this page only goes live after 10 people have clicked to be notified about your launch.
The more people you have on the counter, the more enticed others will be, too, about your game and click to be notified (yes, FOMO is real even online).
It’s in your best interest to get the highest number of people to click the NMOL button so that other casual observers will also be enticed to click and find out more.
Automatically Send Reminders
Probably the most useful thing about these Kickstarter promo pages are the automated reminders. Kickstarter sends out reminders to those who have pushed the NMOL button on three different occasions:
- Launch day
- 48 hours left of the campaign
- 8 hours left of the campaign (new and not rolled out to all campaigns just yet)
Here’s an example of an automated email that Kickstarter sends out on Launch Day to everyone who clicked the NMOL button for Elia and Something Shiny.
This is marketing magic for you as the creator since that is one additional reminder for potential backers to consider pre-ordering your game.
FAQs About The Promo Page
Here are a few of the questions I get about the promo page:
Should I Collect Emails To My List Or Kickstarter Followers Before Launch?
Although there is a benefit to collecting project followers, email will win in this battle any day.
For one, your emails stay with you for life. Even after the campaign, you can use emails you’ve collected to launch another new game you create, but you can’t get in touch with those who click the NMOL button.
Data is one of the most important things to have while working on your campaign. If you get someone’s email address, that is one more data point you have about someone who is interested in your game. For one, you can use that data to create lookalike audiences on Facebook (to find more people!). You won’t know who is on your NMOL list. Heck, you won’t even get an NMOL list; just numbers to track.
You can encourage your email subscribers to click NMOL, but you can’t get a NMOL clicker into your email. Once you have those emails, it’s just a few clicks to ask your subscribers to also click the NMOL button. However, if someone has clicked NMOL, you won’t ever have that information to talk to them again. It’s infinitely more powerful to have emails, since you can ask your subscribers to do these other follow-up actions.
How Do I Get People To Click On The Notify Me On Launch Button?
That’s a great question that dives into the strategy behind using the page.
I cover one way to do that above (get your email list to act!). Some additional methods:
- Share it with your social fans (game Facebook group, BGG WIP page, Twitter feed, Instagram profile, etc.)
- Run a retargeting ad just to your email list (remember, people typically need SEVEN touch points before making the decision to buy something)
- Share it to groups on special promotion days (the Kickstarter Board Game Marketing group has What Are You Working On Wednesdays where you can post about your work)
- Hack the NMOL button for your landing page (below; Mantis Falls did this with their landing page. More about this in the thread here.)
These are just a few ways to get that NMOL click, but I’ll be covering more strategies in a more in-depth post. Head to the Kickstarter Board Game Marketing Group to be notified first when it goes live.
How About The Kickstarter Preview Page?
I get a lot of questions about this so let’s take some time to clarify this. The Kickstarter promo page and the Kickstarter preview page are completely different and serve two different purposes.
While the Kickstarter promo page has limited information and exists to help you market your project, the Kickstarter campaign page is literally the preview link for your whole campaign.
The preview page is for you to make sure that when the floodgates open (aka your game is launched), people who go to your page see that it’s a no-brainer to back you. Use this page to get feedback directly from people.
- If they don’t understand something, explain it better.
- If things are too difficult to read (text size or color on background for example), update it.
- If the rewards are too confusing, simplify it.
You should especially get feedback from the audience that you’ve been building.
Also, people who are in groups like the Kickstarter Board Game Marketing group know board game campaign pages inside and out. These are also the people who will potentially be backing your project.
The two pages are different (Promo Page and Preview Page), but are both necessary for your success in marketing your game for launch!
Before you go, be sure to join the Kickstarter Board Game Marketing Facebook Group to learn the most up-to-date marketing methods for your board game!
Nalin is a tabletop gamer and marketer. She’s here to give you the tools, training, and resources to market your game. In her free time, you can find her playing games, reading books or running around the soccer field.