Good content is a must to operate successful crowdsourcing campaigns. Crowdsourcing is shaping the future of everything, and it can take place on many different levels and across various industries as well. Crowdsourcing is the sourcing of a specific crowd to obtain work, information, or opinions from them. It is usually sourced through the internet using social media engagement platforms and smartphone applications.
Crowdsourcing is not a new term; we have been already surrounded by crowdsourced products and services. A great example is video games in beta mode. In this stage, the game is still in the developmental stage, and developers release the beta version of the video game for a selected crowd from their audience to test the competency of the game before its actual launch.
Various successful crowdsourcing campaigns are organized to operate over such crowdsourced derived information.
Crowdsourcing can also be referred to as that type of marketing that uses information gathered from the public through various social media engagement to boost and inform marketing campaigns.
Crowdsourcing can be used anywhere, and video gaming is becoming a popular application for crowdsourcing. Video games gain more traction through various successful crowdsourcing campaigns, as gamers and game developers seek more than to just play the game.
Thus, generating good content for successful crowdsourcing campaigns that attract the specific category of interested people is crucial in relevance to video games.
Crowdsourcing has opened up to vast industries and has also proven to be beneficial to them. Successful crowdsourcing campaigns have opened up whole new possibilities for entrepreneurs and consumers.
Here are the advantages of successful crowdsourcing campaigns that a developer and designer must know:
Flexibility
Crowdsourcing not only provides access to entrepreneurs to a diverse assortment of skills and experiences but also produces a wide range of solutions to design and developmental problems. With the launch of successful crowdsourcing campaigns, one can receive a dozen of unique and genuinely interesting entries that drive organic traffic.
It helps in taking the product in a new direction by exposing it to several different approaches. If the client is precise in describing the needs of the project when launching the crowdsourcing campaigns, the designers and developers will be more effective in submitting solutions that meet and exceed the client’s expectations.
The power of collaboration
The primary benefit of successful crowdsourcing campaigns is the power of collaboration on a single platform having a specific genre to deal with. In crowdsourced design campaigns, designers can evaluate and perform over the idea with one another, find inspiration from others, and come up with key performance indicators to the problems using the collaborative approach of each other.
Good content may make a difference between the success and failure of crowdsourcing campaigns. It is very crucial to remember that far more projects fail than succeed. Thus, it is vital to carefully go through the success factors & key performance indicators and prepare the crowdsourcing journey beforehand to have successful crowdsourcing campaigns.
The primary step for conducting successful crowdsourcing campaigns is to research the target player base and generate the content accordingly to attract organic traffic. One might have some idea about their target audience at the initial stages of developing the game, and to convince that audience to back the project, one needs to tailor concise content that depicts the precise desires.
The initial stage is the only stage that has ample opportunities to generate the content for the product for the campaign to the preferences of the target audience. One can also learn about the player base through social media engagement like finding gamer communities in Reddit, Facebook, Steam, Discord, and other platforms that are a great social media traffic generator.
The game developers also need to familiarize themselves with the trends of their particular genre and associated categories. They should also ensure to develop content that is unique, engaging, and honest that speaks directly to the player base.
Along with good, convincing, and honest content, the developers must also set some realistic goals that are paramount to successful crowdsourcing campaigns. Setting the wrong goals and fulfilling them will most likely cause the failure of campaigns.
The setting of the right goals and objectives needs to be done at the initial stage itself but achieving them takes time. Here are the key performance indicators that help in generating content for a successful crowdsourcing campaign for your video game:
By generating quality content
Now the first thing that to be prioritized is generating good quality content. Crowdsourcing is a powerful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) weapon. The various advantages of crowdsourcing cannot be neglected, but it is never easy to convince and drive people to invest time and money in a product in its earliest development stages.
Even if the campaign picks up traction in its earliest stages, but there is no quality content to offer to the consumers, and no key performance indicators are used to enhance the productivity of the campaign, the support will wane quickly.
Successful crowdsourcing campaigns and projects are mostly based on honesty and discerned product quality. And convincing people that the project will be a success is hard, and staying transparent from the outset is vital.
Hence, publishing quality content and updates regularly on the pages of successful crowdsourcing campaigns largely helps in maintaining traction and gaining the trust of the consumers.
By giving regular updates
Publishing regular major updates and demo updates have proved to engage the consumers (most of which are only the organic traffic) to the campaign platform. For best results, good quality content should be provided with regular updates using a wide range of mediums, like project descriptions, screenshots, development updates, infographics, and in-depth articles. Generate content for the website periodically.
Content needs to be focused on improvement
The best content for successful crowdsourcing campaigns for a video game is that which shows the video game is as close to its finished form as possible. Otherwise, people will start to ignore and distrust, and ultimately the campaign will lose traction. It should be rigidly focused on improving the quality signals from the initial stage of all successful crowdsourcing campaigns and at regular intervals to keep the crowd engaging.
Be brief and relevant
The content used should be brief and relevant to attract organic traffic. Overloading the crowd with information may cause confusion and distraction. Every piece of the content included should help guide the crowd in the right direction.
To keep the crowd engaging and on track, provide only the absolute essential content. Even a single misleading statement can deviate the crowd, so being brief, relevant, and very accurate is a must. So keep it brief for creating successful crowdsourcing campaigns.
Key strategies to run successful crowdsourcing campaigns
Many video game crowdsourcing campaigns fail mainly because of poor content, unrealistic goals, and poor planning & management of the campaign.
Here are some key performance indicators and strategies that can help in establishing and marketing the project effectively and may also help in gaining traction on crowdfunding:
Direct and precise communication
Successful crowdsourcing campaigns should give a clear understanding of what the developer is offering and demanding. Better communication needs to be established between the two sides. It can be done by generating good quality content for the audience, like video stories.
Use compelling photos and videos
One should use the resources that create something people are going to enjoy, and the best examples are photos and videos. Videos are better at explaining things precisely. They are more compelling. Video stories are used by different marketing mediums to keep the crowd engaged with the campaign. Good video and photo content are the key performance indicators of a successful crowdsourcing campaign.
Create marketing materials
After knowing the target audience and their needs, the providers must create high-quality print and web marketing material to drive mostly organic traffic. The marketing content used must be personalized as per the content of the successful crowdsourcing campaigns.
Spread on different platforms
After publishing the successful crowdsourcing campaigns, start spreading on different platforms. Sharing the campaign goals on social media using social media engagement, on blogs, or anywhere else can help greatly.
Accept feedback
Almost all successful crowdsourcing campaigns have been a success because the feedbacks have been accepted and taken care of. They may be frustrating at times, but they can be extremely important for the progress of the campaigns, especially if the campaign is regarding video games. Make plans to improve the video game as per the feedback to help grow the organic traffic.
It cannot be stressed enough that generating good quality content helps in building successful crowdsourcing campaigns. Generate content for the website periodically to significantly improve the participation of relevant people in crowdsourcing campaigns. Good content should not only be honest and precise, but it should also be relevant and concise information of what is the agenda of the project, what is offered to the audience, and what is required from the audience.
