TCF Raises $2M+ For The Most Powerful Chessboard Ever (Part I)

As The Crowdfunding Formula (TCF), we take immense pride in partnering with Particula on their third crowdfunding campaign, GoChess. This incredible chessboard campaign became the most funded ever on Kickstarter among all the chessboards, raising over $2,000,000.

Our multi-faceted strategy integrates targeted advertising, comprehensive PR efforts, effective email marketing, dynamic social media campaigns, and more. It magnified the campaign’s visibility and sparked curiosity and enthusiasm around GoChess. The result? A sensational 13-fold return on investment and a 5-fold return on ad spend.

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to disrupt a market with a unique blend of tradition and technology, you’re in the right place. Check out how we hit this number with our 10+ years of expertise in campaign management and Particula’s history of successful campaigns like GoCube and GoDice under their belts.

Let’s together see how it all happened.

Building on Prelaunch Success

Before starting their crowdfunding journey for GoChess, the Particula team strategically partnered with Prelaunch.com, a platform that helps creators validate their product’s market fit. This collaboration aimed to validate the GoChess concept and price point, a crucial preliminary step for any product thinking of launching a crowdfunding campaign.

The collaboration with Prelaunch.com turned out to be a resounding success, affirming the potential of GoChess in the market. This crucial validation phase confirmed that the concept and price point of GoChess were well-received by the potential target audience, who is eager to see the product come to life. This initial success laid a robust foundation for the forthcoming crowdfunding campaign, instilling confidence in the team and potential backers.

Maximizing Engagement through a Strategic Landing Page Design

During the validation stage, the Prelaunch.com team meticulously crafted a landing page as the digital equivalent of a welcoming red carpet. Rolled out strategically for page visitors, this landing page was designed to exhibit the striking features of GoChess.

The landing page on Prelaunch.com was carefully designed to showcase the core features of GoChess, providing both close-up views and broader perspectives of the product. We used splendid visual content to highlight the self-moving pieces, the illuminating lights, and the superior quality of materials, thus clearly understanding the product’s functionality and aesthetic appeal.

Additionally, the landing page talked about the Particula brand, emphasizing its history of successful campaigns and enhancing GoChess’s credibility. This strategic presentation of GoChess effectively stirred interest and generated anticipation in the market, setting the stage for its triumphant launch.

During the Prelaunch validation phase, potential customers expressed a key concern: they desired more comprehensive information about GoChess before committing to a reservation.

This invaluable feedback enhanced our landing page, adding detailed descriptions about the product’s technology and functionality. This strategic move empowered our customers with the needed information, boosting their confidence in GoChess and encouraging them to make reservations.

This strategic move empowered our customers with the needed information, boosting their confidence in GoChess and encouraging them to make reservations.

Launching Lead Generation

After optimizing our landing page, we moved on to the next stage – building a community.

We started it by directing the right traffic to our page using targeted advertisements on Facebook and Instagram.

The ads were designed with a compelling narrative to grab the interest of potential backers and direct them toward our landing page. Once they arrived, the rich content and striking visuals of GoChess encouraged them to explore further and become regular subscribers or VIPs by reserving the VIP price.

Our design team developed an array of eye-catching visuals to capture the attention of potential subscribers; however, two specific design directions brought the highest conversion during the lead generation.

• The one with the magic

Every Harry Potter fan remembers the breathtaking scene of the self-moving wizards’ chessboard from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” The magic and thrill of seeing the chess pieces move on their own fascinated millions around the globe. We used this enchanting memory to our advantage, vividly comparing GoChess and the magical wizards’ chessboard.

• The one with close-up visuals

The second advertising direction successfully showcased a close-up view of the self-moving chess pieces, emphasizing their intricate designs and superior quality. This allowed potential backers to have an up-close experience with GoChess’s key feature, thus increasing their desire to own one.

The impact of this direction was explicit in the conversion rates – which accounted for a staggering 90% of subscriptions. These visuals effectively triggered viewer curiosity and excitement about GoChess, enticing them to learn more.

Contrary to most campaigners who primarily focus on lead generation, we knew that the key to a successful launch lay in preparing our community to purchase when they hit the launch button.

So, as the ads started generating traffic to our landing page, we also began working on our email marketing strategy, a crucial component that goes hand in hand with lead generation.

Understanding that GoChess was a complex product, we aimed to ensure that each person who entered the funnel had comprehensive knowledge.

To accomplish this, we utilized email marketing to nurture our leads, providing them with in-depth information about GoChess’s features, technology, and benefits.

To significantly enhance our engagement levels, we adopted a personalized email strategy. Each email was sent from the creator’s name, adding a touch of authenticity and establishing a personal connection with the potential backers. These emails were not mere text-based communications; they were enriched with dynamic visuals that perfectly illustrated the unique appeal of GoChess, making it easier for the recipients to visualize the product. Using bright and eye-catching colors in the emails increased their attractiveness, capturing attention and fostering more significant interest in GoChess.

This strategically personalized approach significantly amplified our engagement rates and solidified our relationship with potential backers.

Check out the email engagement data for the VIP Community:

1. Our email campaign proved highly beneficial, with a 67% open rate revealing our subscribers’ high interest in GoChess. Our subject lines, such as “Welcome to the GoChess Family,” “We Want to Know You Better,” and “The Core Features of GoChess,” were direct and informative, effectively triggering our subscribers to open and read the emails.
2. Furthermore, the click-through rate was equally impressive at 34%, signifying that most people who opened the email were intrigued enough to click and learn more about GoChess or follow a CTA we invited them to.
3. Finally, the click-to-open rate, a key performance indicator that provides insight into the effectiveness of the email content and design, recorded an outstanding rate of 51%.

These numbers attest to the success of our personalized email strategy in fostering a solid relationship between GoChess and our potential backers and in encouraging them to engage with our brand actively.

Conversion Strategy for former campaign backers

Understanding the significance of existing loyal customers for a big launch, we devised a strategic plan to engage Particula’s previous campaigns’ backers.

We initiated a direct email campaign explicitly targeted toward our old backers. The emails were crafted personally, acknowledging their previous support and inviting them to join our new project. We offered them the VIP price without any additional reservation fee, thus recognizing their continued loyalty and support.

This strategy strengthened our relationship with old backers and successfully converted many of them into VIP subscribers and backers for GoChess. Additionally, these loyal customers became brand advocates, spreading the word about GoChess to their networks and further amplifying our reach and impact.

Inspired Campaign Page Design

Along with our lead generation efforts, we started crafting a campaign page to captivate our audience.

Drawing insights from our advertising strategies, we built the page with a sense of magic yet grounded in the realistic visuals our audience resonated with. We aimed to create a dynamic, engaging, and exciting hub for potential backers – where GoChess could come to life.

• Our campaing page was titled:

“GoChess: The Most Powerful Chess Board Ever Invented.”

This title was chosen to convey the extraordinary potential of GoChess, creating curiosity and intrigue while providing a clear value proposition to our audience.

• The page description reads:

“Experience the Magic with Self-moving pieces | Real-time coaching | Online play | AI-powered | Premium Design”

This highlighted the critical features of GoChess, enticing visitors to explore further.

The page design began with trust seals, strengthening our credibility. Usually, when you are a serial creator or have your e-commerce brand, we advise adding those trust seals as they can significantly increase people’s confidence in purchasing from you.

Unlike traditional static hero image visuals on the GoChess page, you would see a dynamic one, creating a more engaging and immersive experience for our visitors. The dynamic visual showcased how GoChess functioned, making it even more intriguing for the general audience.

To ensure our audience found the answers to their ‘why’ questions, we crafted the content of our campaign page meticulously, making it both explanatory and educational. We focused on the unique value proposition of GoChess, presenting it as more than just a chessboard but an immersive, interactive, and innovative learning tool.

The “Why GoChess?” concept was incorporated into the page layout to help potential backers understand the distinct advantages of our product. Our copywriting was strategic and designed to captivate and retain the audience’s attention. The page was structured around the critical statement, “You love chess anyway – now you will love it even more,” followed by an explanation for each feature.

This way, people will always find the answer to the why question and gradually move down the page.

In the crowdfunding space, trust is vital, and past failed chess projects have unfortunately cast a shadow of doubt over such initiatives. To counteract this, we made a concerted effort to reinforce our credibility and earn the trust of potential backers.

On the campaign’s Kickstarter page, we underscored Particula’s successful track record, emphasizing that GoChess was not the first but third crowdfunding campaign. We proudly shared that the previous endeavors and feedback from satisfied customers spread across the globe.

Furthermore, we provided prompt and responsive customer support to address any queries that came our way.

This practice demonstrated our commitment to transparency, readiness, and genuine enthusiasm for bringing GoChess to life. By doing so, we effectively addressed any underlying skepticism, reaffirming our credibility and the viability of our innovative project.

We Are Live!

With everything in place, the moment to hit the launch button finally arrived. We were live! The excitement was unspeakable as we watched the backing unfold in real-time, signifying the start of a thrilling new chapter for GoChess.

Furthermore, to encourage swift action and celebrate our immediate backers, we provided an added incentive – a free pouch for pieces for all those who backed within the first 24 hours. Our launch announcement explicitly communicated the following tactic and had a tremendous response.

We were ecstatic to see the positive responses pouring in from our loyal customers, new reservations, and subscribers, who had been eagerly waiting for GoChess to be launched.

In under 24 hrs, we’ve hit the $500K milestone.