If you’re into crowdfunding, chances are you’ve already listed your campaign on Kickstarter or will do so in the coming months. Over the years, Kickstarter, as a company, has given crowdfunding project creators a diverse platform to shape their ideas into reality. Crowdfunding before Kickstarter wasn’t really a thing. But now, with over $4.3 billion total pledged for Kickstarter projects and over 163,000 successfully funded campaigns, it’s clear that crowdfunding is an entirely different beast from what it used to be. People now use Kickstarter as a platform to showcase their project ideas or prototypes and gather enough funding to turn it into a mainstream business. Naturally, when a vast platform such as this becomes so successful with a whole new concept for fundraising, it spreads and develops an industry of its own. And, crowdfunding is no longer confined to the platform alone. Creators have loads of other options to make sure their campaign reaches the masses. Whether it’s a Kickstarter marketing service or a project fulfillment service, there are enough ways to ensure your campaign gets all the attention it deserves.
Kickstarter marketing tips by Gadget Flow
As a product discovery platform, we’ve been working with crowdfunding campaigns ever since Gadget Flow was founded. Initially, product manufacturers on Kickstarter weren’t as popular as they are now. The breakthrough was when Pebble became an e-watch success back in 2014. Their success propelled similar brands into crowdfunding and larger brands began to take this form of fundraising seriously. Since then, we’ve seen some really good projects, as well as brands, come to life on Kickstarter. Whether it was the Baubax travel jackets that raised $9.2 million in 2015 or the Fidget Cube that became a huge sensation with $6.2 million in 2016, campaign creators are no longer considering the platform for one-time success. It’s as if they take to Kickstarter, launch a great project, and then keep repeating the success with a second launch (and sometimes more).
Take Moment for example. They’ve been using Kickstarter for years and, today, it’s now nearly obvious that they’ll have a successful campaign thanks to their reputable brand name and well-designed products. As we can see, crowdfunding is a whole new form of brand building that you can begin with just a Kickstarter campaign. Going through the motions of crowdfunding isn’t enough, however; the entire process needs a lot of effort in terms of marketing, pre-launch, and post-launch plans plus access to valuable insights from industry experts. Through this blog, we’ll to highlight all the major Kickstarter marketing tips and strategies you need to consider before taking the leap into this multi-billion dollar industry.
From planning your campaign promotion from scratch to handling your email lists and social media, these Kickstarter marketing services will help you spread the word even before you launch.
Gadget Flow Kickstarter Marketing Services
Gadget Flow – The original product discovery platform
Gadget Flow’s Kickstarter marketing services are spread across three verticals. We have multiple marketing plans where we list your product on our platform and reach out to over 28M people every month. Or, you could go for our latest services: Crowdinsight and the Unboxing. While the former is about providing you with valuable feedback for your campaign from industry experts and crowdfunding backers, the latter is about unboxing your product on camera with host Johnny Caplan. You can find more details about all of our services here.
Along with our services, we highly recommend the following:
Hyperstarter
Before launching your project, it’s essential to test the quality of your campaign presentation. Hyperstarter does this for Kickstarter campaigns to offer you an incredible understanding of a campaign’s presentation. This marketing and analysis tool will help you identify a number of problems with your page. From there, you can fix any issues with your page as well as find influencers and backers in your product niche. Once you submit, your campaign is listed on the website for potential backers to see.
BackerClub
BackerClub is a platform that bridges the gap between backers and campaign creators. How it works is simple. Once you join the platform and launch a project, all you have to do is offer a specific pledge for BackerClub backers. This can be a price discount, a free add-on item, or an upgraded reward tier. As an exclusive club for serial backers, the average BackerClub member has backed 104 crowdfunding projects. Suffice to say, BackerClub puts your campaign in front of the right people.
Jellop
They help creators maximize their crowdfunding projects by reaching new audiences using high-precision advertising on Facebook and Google. As explained on their website, “the brainchild of Princeton PhDs and veteran PPC professionals, our software reads data from Facebook, Google, and Kickstarter and cross-references it to analyze performance in real time. It then outputs live, statistics-backed data for precise targeting, budget allocation, message optimization and projected returns for different spending levels.”
Enventys Partners
Enventys Partners is a leader in product development. For over 15 years, they have been using their combined services to take consumer products from sketched ideas to production. Their additional capabilities are focused on crowdfunding and e-commerce marketing to help you quickly test your product’s market demand, find additional funds to produce it, and turn it into a commercial success.
Crowdreach
Their targeted advertising plans are great for giving you access to more backers and potential pledges. CrowdReach launched in 2014, the same year a potato salad successfully raised $55,000. Whether you need pledges or subscribers, their mission is to help creators find success through crowdfunding and extend their success even further.
Sprint Crowdfunders
Based in Armenia, Sprint is a fund that provides actual financial support to campaign creators. And, they apply for that funding in the best possible way by connecting you to knowledgeable agencies. Sprint has made its mark on the industry with hugely successful campaigns. With the launch of their worldwide operations, they’re now in everyone’s reach.
When it comes to promoting your crowdfunding campaign, you can’t rely entirely on third-party services. You have to make sure you’re aware of the process and learn the strategies in order to master the art of crowdfunding. Here are some of our top tips:
1. Design a perfect pledge reward chart – If you don’t offer a well-balanced pledge reward chart, all the effort you put behind creating your campaign can be a waste. Whether you want to be straightforward or super creative with your rewards, your backers want to feel special while also feeling informed. Read more
2. Nail the video – According to Kickstarter, you raise your chances of having a perfect crowdfunding campaign by about 50% with a video. It need not be a motion picture drama nor a sci-fi extravaganza – you just need to be yourself and very clear with what you want to sell and why. Read more
3. Achieve a simple and effective project description – Statistics say that well-written content can improve usability by 124%, as shown on NN/g. From clearly stating the pricing to properly explaining the key features, the idea should always be to help any and every potential backer spend minimum time looking for the information they need. Nobody wants to sift through wordy literature. All that is required is the proper use of language in a simple and easy-to-read format. Read more
4. Leverage social media – Whether it’s the latest highlights feature from Instagram or the continuous development of the Facebook Ads manager, you need to keep up with the pace of these continuous changes, primarily because marketing from the perspective of your brand or business is an entirely different game than crowdfunding. Read more
5. Make the first three days count – There are backers everywhere on the web and you need to make sure you have their attention at the right time and the right place. This is why your efforts in promoting the campaign should be increased in the first three days for maximum exposure. Read more
6. Calculate your goal correctly – Real goals are your long-term targets after crowdfunding success. Your crowdfunding goal should be the minimum amount needed to launch your product as described. Skyrocketing your campaign with your real goal isn’t the right choice at all. However, it is important to make sure your backers know about your real goal. To do this, you can to make a stretch goal chart. Read more
7. Create outstanding graphics – Great crowdfunding campaigns all have one thing in common: high-quality graphics. Be it the campaign video, high-quality images, or GIFs, one of the keys to a successful campaign is showing your product in the best possible way. Read more
8. Make use of email marketing – Email marketing isn’t just about spreading the word about your product. It’s about building a strong relationship with your potential backers. Add some exclusive information or deals to entice your subscribers even more. Read more
9. Avoid these mistakes – Statistics say that less than one-third of crowdfunding campaigns are successful every year. If you try to figure out the reason behind those failures, you’ll know that it has nothing to do with the idea of the product. Like every other form of business, crowdfunding has its own strategies and a series of tasks that needs to be done. By failing to do any one of them on time might just be the sole reason for the pitfall. Read more
10. Have a product prototype – The journey of going from an idea to execution is what makes this form of fundraising one of a kind. Your potential backers need to know your dedication to the project. Having a product prototype adds more weight to your presentation and gives them confidence it will come to life. Read more
Along with all the strategies we discussed above, we also have a few resources you should refer to for some guidance while prepping your crowdfunding campaign.
1. Gadget Flow Podcast – We launched our podcast last year to interview experts, consultants, and CEOs as well as project creators who raised millions of dollars through crowdfunding. With 29 live episodes and more on the way, we hope to make our podcast a valuable resource for all project creators. Listen and subscribe here
2. Salvador Briggman’s Podcast and Forum – With a dedicated YouTube channel for crowdfunding enthusiasts and the Kickstarter Forum, Salvador Briggman brings a lot of crowdfunding information to one place through this platform. Read more here
3. Fireside chats with Yossi from Nisnas Industries – On a recent YouTube series, Yossi from Nisnas Industries has started bringing crowdfunding industry experts to discuss valuable tips that helped them have a successful campaign. The two recent episodes were:
How to raise $200,000 on Kickstarter
The process of getting funded on Kickstarter isn’t about luck. It’s a calculated approach you need to plan months in advance in order to make your project stand out right from the beginning. That’s exactly what Omer Matityahu, a serial entrepreneur, did with the Perfect Notebook. In this interview with Yossi, he discusses some valuable advice about how to have a successful campaign. Watch it here
The most common Kickstarter mistakes and how you can avoid them
There’s no hard and fast rule to promote a campaign to make it successful overnight. Every time you launch a campaign, you have to go through the motions. While we prefer to follow a set of rules for images and campaign presentation in general, what’s going to work best will vary for every campaign. Even so, there’s a long list of what you shouldn’t do. Elad Burko of Paperwallet discusses the common mistakes you should avoid while doing a Kickstarter campaign. Watch it here
4. Ultimate crowdfunding checklist – After promoting more than 4,000 crowdfunding campaigns since 2012, we are now considered experts according to Kickstarter. We used our knowledge to create one of the best and most comprehensive crowdfunding checklists for anyone who wants to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Crowdfunding is about so much more than launching the prototype of your idea. It’s about how you get into the business of transforming the idea into a mainstream product. Although it sounds like a whole new form of raising funds, it’s still similar to any other business model out there. View the checklist here
We’d love to hear about any other tips or resources that helped you during your crowdfunding campaign. Share with us in the comments below.