8 Tips on Marketing a Kickstarter Campaign
April 2, 2017
Crowdfunding, particularly on the popular platform Kickstarter, is an effective resource for raising business capital. But it’s not magic. You need to market your project to get enough pledges to make your funding goals. Below are some tips that will help you get there.
Crowdfunding is an enticing way to start a business venture. It provides market research – while raising capital. It doesn’t require Angel investors or venture capital, which means you retain equity in your business. And it’s internet marketing at its best, creating connections between people with shared interests, needs, and beliefs.
Yet the majority of Kickstarter campaigns (about 66%) fail to meet the “all-or-nothing” standard needed to secure capital from pledges. Sometimes the product simply doesn’t generate interest. But often, it’s because the entrepreneurs behind the project don’t have a marketing strategy for their campaign.
Make no mistake. When you begin a Kickstarter campaign, you are starting your business marketing. You will be investing time and sweat into your project. You have to develop a prototype. And if you’re successful, you’ll need plans for production, fulfillment, and marketing for a full-fledged business.
Here’s an introduction to Kickstarter marketing with Senior Marketing Executive Brandon Lilly:
Kickstarter Marketing Tip #1: Product Analysis
The first task is to determine if your product is a good fit for crowdsource funding. Not everything is.
Start by exploring Kickstarter’s campaign categories and history. Here you can see the types of business verticals, products, and concepts that were successful. Consider how well your idea matches what’s already worked on Kickstarter.
Next, evaluate your product in terms of both innovation and usefulness.
Kickstarter campaigns do well with products that are a combination of a recognizable, everyday product with unique, innovative features. For example, one of the most funded projects to date is a photography bag that simply takes its features, usefulness, and quality to a new level:
These guys know who they are trying to reach and offer new levels of value to the market.
Innovative products that identify a need that’s not being filled right now always have a chance on Kickstarter. The Fidget Cube took a new, positive view on the benefits of “fidgeting” at work and tapped into a need that had no solution.
Is there a story behind your product? Does it connect to the lifestyles of a viable community – with a reservoir of revenue you can tap into? Are you solving a problem in a new way? Will people be excited to tell their friends about it?
Do you need your own product? It’s always best if you’re solving a problem you understand – because you have it.
It’s all but impossible to crowdfund a “me too” product line that’s already adopted by the majority of consumers. If people can buy something similar at Walmart, you won’t do well with crowdfunding. Kickstarter is a place for innovative, unique product development.
At the same time, your product must be useful for a viable target audience. It needs to fulfill a recognizable need for a defined community. Kickstarter is a good way to introduce a new product concept and get data on responses. However, if your idea is too unusual or has no practical use, it will be difficult to garner support.
Also, note that on Kickstarter you must have a prototype of your product; photorealistic renderings are not enough. So, your idea must be concrete enough that you actually develop a physical version of it.
Kickstarter Marketing Tip #2: Target Innovative Buyers
Consider the type of consumer you’ll target on Kickstarter.
You’re offering an innovative, daring product. To be successful, you have to reach innovators and early adopters.
This relates to the product adoption life cycle, the bell-curve familiar to anyone who took a marketing class in college. It shows the cycle that most products go through as they are accepted by consumers.
Profits are largest when you make the jump to majority adoption. But as you craft the messaging for your Kickstarter campaign, you must appeal to innovators and early adopters.
In other words, this is not an “everyone is doing it”, “get the world’s most popular” marketing message.
The mass market wants something that works. That’s proven and safe.
Innovators want the fresh, new, interesting, and exciting. They like to be first to use a hot new product.
Kickstarter, by its nature, targets early adoption. Craft the message for your video and campaign page to strike a chord with innovative consumers.
The ultimate goal is to make the jump to majority adoption. But if you start your marketing targeting those consumer types, you’ll miss the Kickstarter crowd you need for initial funding.
Kickstarter Marketing Tip #3: Tap Into Your Network
So you have a product you believe in. What’s the first step in getting the word out?
Put yourself out there. Start talking to family, friends, and neighbors. Get on your social media and share what you’re doing.
Remember that your passion is the driving force behind your campaign. You’re not just selling an everyday product. You’re taking the leap, doing something creative and gutsy. You’ll find people you know will be supportive, even if they don’t need your product.
If you’re not passionate enough about what you’re doing to share it with people who know and respect you, then you won’t do well trying to connect to a larger audience.
Start reaching out to your network as you develop your prototype. You want to have a solid following by the time you’re ready to kick-off your campaign. The earlier you start spreading the word, the more contacts you’ll have in place when you need them.
Kickstarter Marketing Tip #4: Reach Out to Influencers & Reporters
Say you’ve designed a new type of snowboard binding you want to fund on Kickstarter. You’d want people active in the snowboarding industry to know about it.
This doesn’t happen by accident or serendipity. It happens because you make an active effort to reach out to influencers and press in your target industry.
There is a lot of footwork involved here. You need to research social media, blogs, and forums to find the voices that can help you get the word out. You might try to contact some big names in the industry (our snowboard binding project would love to get the backing of Shaun White), but often it’s smaller, more dedicated groups that provide the best exposure.
A good way to reach out to bloggers and journalists is through their Twitter handle. Email owners of industry websites to pitch a guest blog.
Try to target bloggers or reporters who’ve covered crowdfunding kick-offs before, or who write on topics related to your product. Prepare a compelling pitch that describes why your campaign will make a great story for them.
Again, start this process well before you launch. Ideally, you’ll get some strong press coverage on your launch day.
As you reach out, personalize your messages on both social and emails. Avoid seeming spammy at all costs.
Some of your efforts here will pan out, some won’t. Remember that just one powerful influencer with the desired reach can make a big difference.
Kickstarter Marketing Tip #5: Create Your Marketing Assets
You need to have your marketing assets in place before you launch, including:
- Social media profiles: create business social media accounts for your business, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat. You want these in place so you can start to develop and maintain connections not just to get funded, but for your business once you start to ship.
- Website: It’s a huge advantage if you launch your own website either prior to or during your campaign. This allows you to leverage all the traffic, links, and connections you make during the campaign to an asset you’ll control after you’re funded. At the very least, get a domain and basic design in place. This will also give you a big head start as you get ready to go into production and ship.
- Create a Video: Your video is central to your Kickstarter page. It’s the most effective way to tell your story. Check out other Kickstarters and get feel for how videos are done (Peak Designs is a great example). You don’t have to have a professional production, but a quality script that really motivates people to pledge is a huge factor in making your goal.
As you plan your video, take images of your product and craft the message you’ll include on your page. Keep it benefits-focused and connected to the lifestyles of your audience.
With social media and website design, you’re already preparing for how you’ll go forward after you’re funded. That positive approach tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Kickstarter Marketing Tip #6: Host An Event
Nothing starts a campaign like a glittering event. There are several things you can do to kick-off your Kickstarter with a bang.
First, if you have enough of a local network, host an event in your area. Hire some catering and treat your friends while introducing your product.
You can extend your audience even more by hosting a virtual event on Facebook. This is where your initial work reaching out to your network and influencers starts to pay off. You can host the event over several days and have a special offer for early pledges.
Create a hashtag for your product and/or event, and be responsive to people’s posts about your event across all social media channels, including Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.
This is the time to build out your social media presence. Start adding content, telling stories, and interacting with individuals and organizations that connect to your product idea.
Not only will your efforts maximize pledges, but you’ll also be creating connections that will pay off after you formalize your business.
Kickstarter Marketing Tip #7: Use Paid Advertising
One of the areas of weakness for many Kickstarter campaigns is using paid media. It can get complex, so it’s an area to consider working with a professional marketing company.
Paid media is the best tactic for expanding the reach of your campaign based on demographics and interests. You can use retargeting ads as timely reminders for people who’ve visited your content.
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are a powerful tool for expanding your audience reach with targeted demographic and psychographic data.
For example, say you’re selling a new type of cooking utensil. Previous market research suggests that women ages 35-50 are your main demographic target. You want to limit your ad exposure to US Northeast.
You can target your campaign to display to:
- Women ages 35-50 in the US Northeast.
- People whose interests and shopping habits show they are enthusiastic home cooks.
- People who have previously pledged to a Kickstarter campaign.
With just these parameters, you Facebook ads are extremely targeted.
It’s important to note number three on this list. When you target people who have already pledged on Kickstarter, it reaches that all important consumer cohort of early adopters. There is now a substantial shopping demographic of these consumers, and those who’ve supported Kickstarter before are much more likely to do it again.
At the same time, be careful about getting so granular that your target audience is too small. If you’re not reaching enough people, the lack of interaction will hurt your relevancy scores, making your ads more expensive to run. Be prepared to test and tweak your targeting to find the sweet spot.
Retargeting
You can use Facebook and Google Adwords retargeting campaigns to remind people of the countdown on your Kickstarter. As you reach certain timeframes before the campaign will end, your retargeting ads remind people who checked-out your materials before that they can come back and pledge.
Retargeting in conjunction with reminder emails to people who have pledged (to entice them to up their level) and the 48-hour reminder (automatically sent to people who clicked the “Remind Me” button) can give you a nice final surge.
As Brandon notes in the video, normal search-based PPC ads are not that effective for Kickstarter, because you’re targeting a new market. You’re not likely to garner enough search query traffic for crowdfunding campaigns to be worth the effort.
Kickstarter Marketing Tips #8: Hire the Right Marketing Company
A word of warning to those starting a Kickstarter campaign. You will get spammed by self-proclaimed “Kickstarter marketing experts”.
Most of these people are not experts, as a read through the Kickstarter forum on the topic of marketing will reveal.
When you engage on Kickstarter, you signal to the world you need marketing. The spammers start to circle.
A couple of considerations:
- A business that has to spam you is not a solid marketing company. In the age of search, social, and inbound marketing, a “marketer” who has to cold call you doesn’t know how it’s done.
- Many of these offers are limited to executing a few tactics. They won’t be able to help you develop a larger strategy.
- All but a very few of the Kickstarter marketing specialists are limited to just that – Kickstarter. Neither their strategy nor execution will extend to your business after your campaign finishes.
Marketing 360® is not a specialist in Kickstarter. We’re a comprehensive marketing firm that includes Kickstarter marketing in our services.
Like Brandon says at the end of the video, perhaps the best reason to work with us is to avoid the “tragedy” of having a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign – but no long-term marketing strategy that extends from it.
Once you’re funded, you’re in business. You have to meet production and fulfillment promises.
And you have to think of how to keep selling without Kickstarter’s help. Now you want to make that leap from early adopters to early majority.
Use the contacts and data you gained through Kickstarter to maintain your momentum. You made it over the first hurdle. Now the long-term battle begins.
We wish you luck on your Kickstarter campaign, and we offer our services to help. Marketing 360® can get your Kickstarter funded and – more importantly – help you plan how to market for the lifetime of your business.
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