Meet Brendan Jonesrebandt. On April 19th, 2022, he launched his first Kickstarter campaign and generated $52,277 in presale revenue from 1,808 backers. Here’s how he did it.
Brendan is the CEO of Knight Vision Creative. A small studio focused on providing premium 5E content to enrich players’ experiences.
At the end of 2021, he knew he wanted to launch his new product on Kickstarter, but he didn’t know the best marketing strategy.
That’s where LaunchBoom came in.
Brendan joined the LaunchBoom Accelerator program on 11/8/21 and the rest is history. In this case study I’m going to break down how Brendan was able to achieve success using our system.
Let’s dive in!
The Kickstarter marketing strategy
There’s a lot that goes into a successful Kickstarter launch strategy. I’m going to simplify it and zoom in on the parts that had the biggest impact. The key to Brendan’s success was to follow this three step strategy.
1. Build prelaunch email list using LaunchBoom’s Reservation Funnel
The prelaunch funnel we use at LaunchBoom is called the Reservation Funnel. This funnel builds prelaunch email lists that are 30x more likely to buy your product when you launch your crowdfunding campaign. Here’s how the funnel works at a high level:
- Ads: Meta ads drive traffic to a landing page
- Landing page: The landing page collects email addresses
- Reservation page: The reservation page collects $1 deposits (people that do this are 30x more likely to buy). By putting down a $1 deposit, the person upgrades to VIP and reserves the best deal on your Kickstarter campaign.
Brendan built a Reservation Funnel, drove traffic, and built up his prelaunch email list. Here’s what his stats looked like right before he launched:
- Ad spend: $4,954.85
- Leads: 1,686
- VIPs: 172
- Cost / VIP: $28.81
- Cost / lead: $2.94
With a highly qualified prelaunch email list, Brendan was ready to launch.
2. Get funded the very first day
If you have a big enough prelaunch email list, getting funded the first day is easy. It’s also a critical step to having a successful campaign because it sets you up to continue driving sales for the remainder of the campaign.
Brendan’s goal was $2,350 and on day one he raised $8,423 (that’s 3.6x his goal just on day one!). You can see his daily funding in the chart below:
Sales from the list $8,685 from 241 people. That means 11.77% of the total list became backers and VIPs converted at 39.53%. His return on ad spend (ROAS) from just the email list was 1.75x.
3. Rise up in the rankings and get free traffic from Kickstarter
Kickstarter has 10’s of millions of unique visitors every month. That’s because there is a vibrant active community of people who are looking for new games to back. But because of that, there is a lot of competition on Kickstarter.
That’s why getting funded quickly is so important. You will rise up in the Popular rankings on Kickstarter, which will get you in front of more eyeballs.
Because Brendan used the prelaunch Reservation Funnel, he was able to get funded quickly on day one. Once that happened, Brendan’s campaign became more visible in the rankings on Kickstarter.
The results speak for themselves.
Kickstarter’s analytics claim that 69% of Brendan’s sales came from Kickstarter’s platform. That’s definitely a little over-reported, but it’s safe to say that the majority of the funds came from Kickstarter.
Another interesting stat is that Kickstarter’s Notify Me had 2058 people by the end of the campaign with a 30% conversion. People who sign up for Kickstarter’s Notify Me receive a notification when you launch, when there are 48 hours remaining, and when there are 8 hours remaining.
The 30% conversion was solid performance but we think it can be better. Brendan told us that next time he “would strategically structure [his] campaign to be hitting these milestones at better times.”
You see, this campaign launched and ended at 8AM EST. That meant that most of the US market probably did not see the 8 hours remaining notification since they were sleeping. For the next campaign, we are planning to have the campaign end at 5PM EST to maximize the visibility of the notifications for the US and European markets.
Recap
Brendan was able to experience success with his very first Kickstarter launch. This was not because of luck. It was because he followed a proven marketing strategy:
- Build a highly qualified email list using LaunchBoom’s Reservation Funnel
- Get funded the first day on Kickstarter
- Tap into free traffic from Kickstarter
Brendan’s success is repeatable for others that are looking to do the same. Take the principles taught in this case study, and apply them to your next product launch. Then you’ll be on your way to bringing your gaming project to life through Kickstarter.
