Today I received an enlightening email from a fellow tabletop publisher–someone who has used crowdfunding successfully for multiple projects–about their struggles with certain types of marketing and advertising. I’ll explore this publisher’s struggles and share some constructive opinions.
Struggle #1: Facebook Ads Aren’t Resulting in Backers
The publisher shared data for three of their projects, on which they spent a total of around $90,000 on web ads. This expense essentially negated any profit they would have earned from these projects, with the most recent ad generating a 1% ROAS (return on ad spend).
However, they also shared some good news: BoardGameGeek ads are working well for them. That’s great. I actually haven’t posted an ad on BGG for a while, but I need to do so, and I’ll report what I find. The publisher also shared that they like Gamefound as a platform for discoverability, organic visibility, and the algorithm surfacing campaigns.
Meanwhile, whenever we launch a new product, we work with ad manager Andrew Cook to post two sets of ads on Facebook: One before launch to draw people in, and one during the launch to invite them to check out the webstore. For both the ads and Andrew’s time, I aim to spend around $2,000 total per launch. For every dollar we spend, we generate around 3x that much in revenue (but I think that multiplier would greatly decrease if we significantly increased our ad spend). So perhaps part of the key here is to find the right person to run your ad campaigns.
Struggle #2: Paid Previews Aren’t Working
The publisher shared that paid previews (often on YouTube) aren’t working well, both because they require an extremely polished product before any funding has been received and in terms of only a handful of new backers coming to the project from the previews.
That said, as the publisher also pointed out, attribution from a video is difficult to quantify. “People watch it, follow you, watch another, read your rules and then a week later they pledge.” I agree that there is high value in seeing multiple content creators talk about a game over the span of 1-2 weeks.
I’ll ask this: What if the goal is to inform instead of to convert? You can’t control how many people will back your project after watching a video, but you can try to be of service to people so they can spend their limited budgets on the games that will bring them the most joy. Preview content is one way to do this.
Struggle #3: Prelaunch Followers Aren’t Converting into Backers
The publisher shared that around 7% of prelaunch followers became backers for their most recent project, while they’ve seen other projects get close to 20%.
They did add a few caveats to these numbers (they’ve made some mistakes with pricing and shipping fees). No project is perfect, and it’s more important than ever to have a great game at a great value when you’re trying to create something new.
Creators can reduce the chances of encountering these issues during the campaign by having a variety of people look at their project page before launch.
As for the game itself, I think it’s increasingly helpful to share with backers how it’s different than existing games (while also sharing a few comparisons: If you like X and Y, we think you’ll enjoy Z). Also, sometimes it is a matter of getting just one game that elevates itself over all of your other games–that one special game can make a huge difference for a publisher.
Struggle #4: Climbing into the BGG Hotness Is Very Difficult
The publisher shared this: “We still haven’t cracked BGG organic traffic. I just don’t know how to drive traffic to my BGG page without paying to do that. Designer diaries, etc – they work, but it’s very small traffic, and time I could spend on a game.”
As long as it’s for the right reasons, having your game appear on the BGG Hotness list can have a multiplicative effect, as even more people discover it, which solidifies the game’s presence on the list.
I wrote this a while ago, but I think these tips for helping your game appear on the Hotness still apply: “Find ways to get people talking about your game on BGG. Post images on a regular basis. Encourage conversation as a moderator and a participant. Drive external traffic to your BGG page.”
In my opinion, the best target audience to invite to participation on BGG are the people who are already following your company or your project. This isn’t the reason why I focus on community building, but it is one of the serendipitous results.
I love that we have deeply engaged customers at Stonemaier Games, whether they’re participating on BoardGameGeek or our Facebook groups, Discord, YouTube Channel, Instagram, Bluesky, this blog, etc–I try to hang out with our followers on their platform of choice. In the rare occasions when we have something new to share with them, they’re likely to see it.
I truly feel for every creator who has struggled to connect an external or internal audience with their newest creation. It’s hard–I’ve experienced that too. Whenever I’m discouraged by the uphill battle of finding newcomers to invite to our games, I try to focus on how grateful I am for those who already choose to follow us.
Thanks to the publisher who shared this information with me. They asked to remain anonymous but said it was perfectly fine if I publicly post my thoughts on these topics.
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