9 Steps to Effectively Promote your Kickstarter Campaign
Like it or not advertising your Kickstarter campaign is a MUST if you want to hit your funding goal. Whether you are starting or in the middle of your campaign, you should consistently promote your offer so you attract an audience to support you. In this article, we’ll discuss a number of ways you can advertise your project, reach your audience and crowdfund your big idea.
Why is the Advertisement important?
Why do some Kickstarter projects quickly reach their funding targets while other campaigns struggle to get the first donation? There are a number of variables that come into play. For example, pricing and product offer, but generally it's simply down to not enough people knowing about your campaign.
Typically you can expect to see a backer conversion rate of 5%. So for every 100 people who are interested in your offer 5 will back you. With these metrics, you can easily work out the number of people you need to reach in order to gain enough support to help you achieve your funding goal.
Here are some tips to promote your campaign and build your crowd.
1.Carry out proper research to create an irresistible offer
Understanding who your audience is and what your competitors offer will enable you to create an offer that is different and more desirable to potential backers. You can only do this by carrying out decent research before you start your project. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Who needs my product?
- Why do they need my product?
- How is my product better than alternative options?
- How much will people be happy to pay for the product?
Then consider how much you need to raise to make your campaign viable. Do the figures work out? If so, then get ready to tell everyone about your campaign and offer!
2. Create a Lead Capture Page
Create a stand-alone landing page or add a page to your existing website that focuses on your crowdfunding campaign. Add a ‘lead capture box', so anyone who is interested in your campaign can leave their email address, and be updated with news about the campaign launch. Use different traffic strategies to send people to the lead capture page and build a list of ‘hungry’ leads, who are ready and interested in supporting your project.
3. Use Facebook Advertising
Paid Advertising campaigns on Facebook are highly effective at promoting your product and generating interest. The top marketing agencies use Facebook ads to drive traffic to a landing page and capture leads. Using Facebook’s ‘Ad Manager’ there are a number of different campaigns you can run. For example, awareness, lead generation, conversion, and engagment. Facebook ads are great as they can reach really tailored niches and millions of people easily all at the same time. You just need a budget to make them work effectively for your campaign.
4. Use Email marketing
Connect your email marketing software up to your landing page’s lead capture box, so when people sign up they go straight into your email list. You can then message your leads directly and nurture a relationship with them. The key is to get your audience to know like and trust you. Build up momentum as you lead up to the launch of your campaign.
5. Social Media & PR
Use your social media channels to promote and build awareness of your campaign. If you have multiple social channels, post across all of them, or if not just focus on 1 channel. Engage your audience, speak with them, ask them questions about your topic, build up a relationship and encourage people to back your campaign.
Use press releases to reach out to members of the press who may be interested in writing about your product and campaign. Making appearances in the media will attract more interest and give your campaign more credibility.
6. Use Pinterest
People sometimes neglect Pinterest when it comes to advertising a crowdfunding campaign. Pinterest has great potential. It has a niche audience of its own and works as a search engine. You can posts images and videos about your product and promote your campaign. The platforms key features include creating ‘boards’ and using searchable #hashtags.
7. Use a Compelling Video and Gorgeous Looking Photos
Your video is your campaign's most important marketing tool. It's the first thing people look at, and if it's not good, most people bounce to another campaign. Hire an agency that specialises in Kickstarter video production to make your video. As well as your video you’ll want nice photos of your product. Take a selection of your product on its own and with actors in lifestyle shots. So backers can see what the product looks like in a real-life situation and imagine themselves using it. Use the photos and video on your Kickstarter project page as well as in for your advertising campaigns, social networks and pr news releases.
8. Use Super Backer Sites
Many successful crowdfunding campaigns have 1 thing in common, they are backed by 'super backer ‘supporters. Super backers are (predominately males) who have supported multiple campaigns. There are a number of dedicated super backer websites where you can pay a small fee and have your campaign syndicated to the platform’s list of super backers. Generally, you offer the super backers a special perk (Reward) which isn’t available on your Kickstarter project page. This can be a discount on the price, a free add-on, or an upgraded reward level.
9. Give Away a Prize with a Referral Campaign
Referral campaigns can be a good way to build a list of leads cheaply. The one problem with using ‘paid’ ad campaigns like Facebook Ads is that they can be expensive. Referral campaigns give you the opportunity to build a list of leads cheaply. By offering the chance to win a prize you can entice leads to sign up and build a large crowd before you launch your campaign. The only problem with referral campaigns is that the quality of leads can be quite poor when you give away a prize for free. Meaning the lead isn’t that interested in buying your product/supporting your campaign. They just want to win the prize. But saying that when you get your referral campaign right it can be a brilliant way to build a crowd cheaply and launch a successful campaign.
In Summary
There is a lot to do to effectively promote your Kickstarter campaign, but by following the 10 steps above, you will give your campaign the best chance for success. If you are feeling slightly overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done, then build a team to help you or outsource some of the workloads to experienced professionals who can support you. At Wow Your Crowd, one area we can help you in is Kickstarter video production. To find out more, simply get in touch today and arrange a free crowdfunding strategy call. To your success!
How to Set up a Successful Crowdfunding Email Marketing Campaign
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies for crowdfunding campaigns. In this blog post, we’ll explain how to set up a successful email marketing campaign, so you can nurture a relationship with your crowd and improve the chances of successfully funding your campaign.
Why does some email marketing not work?
Some people say "email marketing is dead," but research shows that 72 percent of people are more receptive to promotional content via email over other types of marketing channels.
If your email content isn’t working and It’s not generating the results you desire. Then this could be due to a few things:
- A poor quality email list
- Poor email content
- A Poor call to action
If you are sending emails to a list of people who aren’t your preferred target audience then the campaign is starting on the wrong foot. Poor quality, non-original or salesy content is a big turn off. As are campaigns that push readers to low-quality products or an offer that isn’t as good as your competitors. It may seem obvious to you, but you’ll be amazed at how important it is to tell your audience what you would like them to do. Use a call to action and encourage your audience to act.
What we experience?
From our experience, email marketing is an effective crowdfunding marketing technique that when implemented correctly encourages your crowd to support your campaign. Campaign data shows there is a correlation between sending out an email to your list and then seeing more donations or sign-ups take place. However, there are some crucial points that you should follow to increase the probability of your campaign’s success.
Before Pre-Launch
Before you launch your ‘prelaunch’ campaign you and your team should use your existing networks to build a list of contacts. Take the completed list and upload it to your email software of choice, for example, MailChimp. Connect your landing page’s ‘email sign up form’ to MailChimp. So any leads that sign up through the form are added straight to your main contact list.
You are now ready to start emailing your contacts.
Welcoming Email
It's best practice to have a ‘Welcoming’ email, which is sent out to someone when they join your email list. On signing up, an automated email is delivered to them straight away - welcoming them to your community. The ‘welcoming’ email is an ‘overview’ of your campaign and a chance to recap on the messaging included on the landing page or elsewhere.
Points to include: reintroduce your project vision, explain key benefits, highlight links to any related groups e.g. Facebook community group and give a good CTA at the end of the message. For example, information about the launch date.
During Your Pre-launch Campaign
The emails you send to your list during the prelaunch phase are intended to build and nurture a relationship. Use the opportunity to create interest and intrigue in your cause or offer and get people excited to be part of your project’s community.
How many emails you send during prelaunch depends on how long your prelaunch is. If your prelaunch is 4 weeks then we’d recommend sending an email every week for the first 2 or 3 weeks and then as you get closer to the launch date you can send a few more emails.
Wondering what you should talk about in your emails here are a few ideas:
Chat about your back story, your project’s history and your reason why highlight features and facts and keep your contacts notified about the launch date.
Reminder Email - ‘Launching Tomorrow’
As you get closer to launching you can send out more emails (every couple of days) to encourage backers to support you when you launch. The most important email is the ‘reminder’ email sent out the night before your launch. As people will join your email list at different points throughout prelaunch the ‘reminder email’ helps to put everyone on the same page. Notifying you are launching tomorrow.
Launch Day Email - ‘We are Live’
On the day of launch send an email to your list to let them know that your campaign is now live. Encourage your list to support your campaign straight away. For ‘rewards’ campaigns where you are offering a product at a certain price you can encourage your list with an ‘Early Bird’ discount offer which is available for a limited time. This strategy will help to encourage your list to support you straight away.
Live Campaign
During the live campaign, it's important to keep messaging your main contact list. Keep them updated with the latest campaign news, the milestones you have achieved, for instance when you hit your funding target. As the campaign draws to a close you can send 3 or 4 emails counting down the final days and hours of the campaign.
Generally, you’ll find the most amount of action for your project is in the opening and closing days of the campaign.
Important Things to bear in mind
When creating a list, keep in mind where your emails will go. Will, they hit your user’s inbox, promotion folder, or spam folder? All of these are dependent on your IP credibility and domain history, and credibility.
The best way to make sure your list is receiving your emails is to remind them when they sign up to add your email to their ‘contact address book’.
Their email client will then know to trust your email and you can relax knowing they are receiving everything you send out.
Make your emails come to life
Whether you need help with designing your email marketing or other areas of your marketing campaign or even Kickstarter Video Production then get in touch with us at Wow Your Crowd. We’d love to hear about your big idea and help your campaign to get funded.