About 9 months ago I launched a crowdfunding campaign for my game I had been developing and, though the campaign wasn't successfully funded, I learned a lot from the experience and feel like the experience itself was a success. (Link for reference https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ravengengames/never-lost-our-story?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=never%20lost%20our%20story)

I now find my game at a state where I feel like it is much more polished and ready for another go, however, I wonder if I should spend more time preparing for the “sell” of my game. For example, last time I ran ads on FB and YouTube, while also producing my own promotional material (videos, art, etc..), which at the time felt like a mountain of material.

But I wonder, should I invest externally, like having social media influencers playtest and review the game to get attention/traffic to the site before launching? Or would it be more prudent / sensible to invest in the crowdfunding campaign trailer / pitch and maybe have someone that does it for a living create it? Or even, split the resources and invest a bit in both? Essentially, I'm trying to gauge the best way to “sell” my new campaign, while not emptying the coffers, so to speak.

Thank you for taking the time to read, any suggestions are most certainly welcome!

**Note: I realized I had spelled crowdsource wrong in the title after I submitted the post lol. It wasn't even supposed to be the final title to this topic, but alas, it has been posted and shall be wrong.

As you have said and experienced, marketing takes a lot of time and resources. At an early stage I would focus on one channel at a time and do it right, rather than trying to do everything at once. Which channel worked best for you during your previous marketing tests, or which do you think could perform even better? You could start with that channel, and if the channel starts losing momentum or doesn't work as anticipated, go to the second-best one.

I can recommend you to read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares. It's a short and straight-forward book on startup marketing, with many practical examples from other companies.

And of course it's best to be methodical about your marketing plan, like @frob recommends.

@frob That's a healthy article and I'm grateful for your response!

Though I have my site for marketing/information, ultimately the plan is to sell on Steam/Other platforms, because of the very point you made that my website is obscure, especially when compared against giants like Steam, Epic, Itch etc. From what I see/hear, I definitely need to put a lot more into the marketing/promo than I did last time (and not in any small amount either). Again, thank you very much for the response, it was quite helpful and gives me solid grounds to move forward!

@benediktloe I have some honest reviewing to do regarding my last campaign and definitely need to do some planning before I launch any future campaign. I will check out Traction as you recommended, thank you for your recommendation and response!