Crowdfunding Followers vs. Reservations vs. Email Subscribers

What Each Audience Signal Means for TTRPG Crowdfunding

by Jackson Dean Chase

Founder and Lead Designer, MageGate Games

Last updated: September 2026

Why trust this guide?

USA Today bestselling author Jackson Dean Chase founded MageGate Games as an independent TTRPG publisher focused on practical, high-utility products for serious Game Masters.

That means we evaluate crowdfunding from both sides of the table: as publishers studying what makes campaigns work, and as buyers looking for projects that offer real value, credible execution, and products worth using.

MageGate’s free crowdfunding coverage focuses on product quality, campaign clarity, creator credibility, fulfillment risk, and value to backers—not hype, funding totals, or paid placement.

Looking for general advice for backers? Check out our free TTRPG Crowdfunding Guide for Backers.

The Short Answer

Crowdfunding followers have expressed interest in a specific upcoming campaign through the crowdfunding platform.

Reservations go a step further. A potential backer pays a small amount before launch to qualify for a special perk or incentive if they later pledge.

Email subscribers have given the publisher permission to communicate with them directly through an owned email list.

All three can be valuable. But they measure different things:

• Follower = interest
• Reservation = stronger demonstrated intent
• Email subscriber = direct audience relationship

The strongest crowdfunding strategy does not necessarily choose one.

It uses them together.

What Is a Crowdfunding Follower?

A crowdfunding follower is someone who asks a platform such as Kickstarter or BackerKit to notify them about an upcoming project.

On Kickstarter, potential backers can select Notify me on launch from a project's pre-launch page. Kickstarter then sends those followers a notification when the campaign launches. BackerKit also allows visitors to follow projects through its pre-launch pages. This makes follower count useful because it shows how many people have taken an explicit action indicating interest in the campaign.

That is more meaningful than:

• a social-media impression
• a page view
• a video view
• someone scrolling past an advertisement

But a follower is still only expressing interest.

They have not yet pledged.

Followers Are Not Backers

This distinction is easy to overlook. A campaign might accumulate hundreds or thousands of followers before launch without every follower becoming a customer.

People follow projects for many reasons:

• they are genuinely interested
• they want to inspect the campaign later
• they are comparing several projects
• they are waiting to see pricing
• they want the launch reminder
• they are curious but undecided
• circumstances change before launch

That does not make follower count useless.

It simply means followers should be treated as a pre-launch audience, not guaranteed revenue.

The commercially important question is:

How many followers eventually convert into backers?

What Is a Crowdfunding Reservation?

A reservation adds another step between following and backing.

BackerKit currently offers Pre-launch Reservations for eligible campaigns. A potential backer first follows the project and can then pay a small reservation fee to qualify for an exclusive perk, bonus, or eligible pledge incentive when the campaign launches.

The reservation itself is not the campaign pledge.

The supporter still has to return and pledge after the campaign goes live.

That creates a simple progression:

Follower → Reservation → Backer

Because someone making a reservation has taken an additional action—and spent money to do it—a reservation generally represents stronger demonstrated intent than a follow alone.

What Does a Reservation Actually Tell a Publisher?

A reservation tells the publisher something useful:

This person did more than click a notification button.

They were interested enough to:

• follow the campaign
• review the reservation offer
• provide payment information
• spend a small amount
• qualify for a specific incentive

That creates another layer of audience segmentation before launch.

Instead of knowing only:

“We have 1,000 followers.”

A publisher might know:

“We have 1,000 followers, and 150 of them also made reservations.”

The second number identifies a subset of the audience demonstrating stronger purchase intent. It still does not guarantee that every reservation becomes a pledge. But it provides more information about audience commitment than follower count alone.

What Is an Email Subscriber?

An email subscriber has voluntarily provided an email address and given the publisher permission to send relevant communications.

For crowdfunding, this could happen through:

• the publisher's website
• a crowdfunding landing page
• a free download
• a newsletter signup
• a previous campaign
• a pre-launch promotion
• another lead-generation offer

The important difference is who controls the relationship.

A Kickstarter follower exists inside Kickstarter's system.

Kickstarter controls the notification mechanism, and creators cannot simply export that follower list and begin emailing everyone directly.

An independent email subscriber has chosen to communicate directly with the publisher.

That makes an email list fundamentally different from a platform follower count.

Why Email Subscribers Matter

Email gives publishers a direct communication channel that does not depend entirely on the crowdfunding platform.

A publisher can use that channel to:

• announce the upcoming project
• explain what makes it different
• share previews
• reveal launch dates
• answer objections
• provide useful related content
• announce when the campaign goes live
• remind subscribers before the campaign ends
• introduce future campaigns later

More importantly, the relationship can continue after one campaign is finished.

That makes email useful not only for launching a project, but for building a repeat audience across multiple launches.

Followers vs. Reservations vs. Email Subscribers

The three audience types answer different questions.

Followers

What they tell you:

How many people expressed platform-level interest in this particular campaign?

Primary advantage:

They can receive platform launch notifications and may contribute to visible pre-launch momentum.

Primary limitation:

The platform controls much of the relationship.

Reservations

What they tell you:

How many interested followers were willing to take an additional paid action before launch?

Primary advantage:

They identify a higher-intent segment of the pre-launch audience.

Primary limitation:

A reservation is still not a completed campaign pledge.

Email Subscribers

What they tell you:

How many people have agreed to receive direct communication from the publisher?

Primary advantage:

The publisher controls the communication channel and can maintain the relationship across campaigns.

Primary limitation:

Subscribers still vary widely in purchase intent. Joining an email list does not guarantee backing a campaign.

Which Is the Strongest Crowdfunding Signal?

There is no single number that perfectly predicts crowdfunding performance. But the signals generally become more informative as the potential backer takes additional meaningful action.

• A visitor who sees an ad has demonstrated little intent.
• A follower has taken an explicit action.
• A reservation adds financial commitment.
• A backer has actually pledged.

Email subscribers belong on a slightly different axis because they represent audience ownership and direct communication, rather than simply another stage inside a platform funnel.

That is why publishers should avoid asking:

“Which audience number is best?”

A better question is:

“How effectively are we moving relevant people from awareness to interest to commitment to backing?”



Why Publishers Shouldn't Rely on Follower Count Alone

Follower count is useful.

It is also easy to overinterpret.

A publisher might see a large pre-launch follower number and assume the campaign already has enough demand.

But crowdfunding revenue comes from pledges, not followers.

The more useful measurements are conversion questions:

• How many visitors become followers?
• How many followers make reservations?
• How many email subscribers click through at launch?
• How many followers become backers?
• How many reservations become backers?
• How many previous backers return?
• What percentage of the audience actually purchases?

Those numbers reveal whether the audience is merely interested—or economically activated.

Why Publishers Should Build an Email List Before Crowdfunding

A publisher that relies entirely on the crowdfunding platform is effectively renting access to part of its audience. That can still be extremely valuable. But an owned email list gives the publisher another route to those potential customers.

Ideally, the publisher enters launch with multiple ways to activate demand:

Email subscribers → crowdfunding followers → reservations where available → launch-day backers

Not everyone will follow every step.

That's fine.

The purpose is to create multiple opportunities for interested people to move closer to a purchase.

How Followers, Reservations, and Email Work Together

A strong pre-launch funnel might look something like this:

Someone discovers the publisher

↓

Joins the publisher's email list

↓

Learns about the upcoming campaign

↓

Follows the project on Kickstarter or BackerKit

↓

Makes a reservation if that option exists and the incentive is worthwhile

↓

Receives launch communications

↓

Backs the campaign

↓

Becomes a potential repeat customer for future releases

The exact sequence will vary.

Some people will discover the campaign directly on the crowdfunding platform.

Others may have been customers for years.

The important principle is that each stage can reinforce the others.

Platform Audience vs. Owned Audience

This is one of the most important distinctions in crowdfunding.

Platform audience

Includes people connected to the campaign through Kickstarter, BackerKit, Gamefound, or another crowdfunding platform.

Advantages can include:

• platform discovery
• launch notifications
• crowdfunding familiarity
• visible campaign momentum
• recommendation systems
• access to existing backer communities

But that relationship is mediated by the platform.

Owned audience

Includes people the publisher can reach directly through channels it controls, especially email.

Advantages include:

• direct communication
• repeat campaign access
• segmentation
• relationship building
• lower dependence on any single platform
• long-term audience value

The strongest publishers can benefit from both.

Platform audiences help campaigns grow. Owned audiences help publishing businesses compound.

What Backers Should Understand About Pre-Launch Numbers

Large pre-launch numbers can create social proof.

They should not automatically determine whether you back a project.

A campaign with thousands of followers may still have:

• an unproven product
• unrealistic production plans
• weak fulfillment experience
• expensive shipping
• poor communication
• an offer that simply does not fit your needs

Likewise, a smaller campaign may be highly credible and offer an excellent product.

Follower counts and reservations tell you something about audience interest.

They do not independently tell you whether the finished RPG will be good.

Evaluate the campaign itself.

How MageGate Games Evaluates Crowdfunding Audience Strength

MageGate Games looks at pre-launch audience numbers as conversion signals rather than trophies.

A large follower count is encouraging.

A large email list is useful.

Reservations can indicate stronger intent.

But none of those numbers matter economically unless enough people eventually act.

For publishers, the more useful questions are:

• Where did the audience come from?
• How qualified is that audience?
• How many people move to the next stage?
• Which channels produce actual backers?
• What does it cost to acquire those backers?
• Can the publisher reach those customers again for future launches?

The objective is not simply to build a large pre-launch number.

The objective is to build an audience that converts—and can become more valuable over time.

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