Kickstarter Funding helps thousands of startups to well – start up. It also helps established brands to grow and expand. To date, there have been over 170,000 projects funded, totaling to $4.5 million from nearly 17 million backers.
Is getting Kickstarter funding pure luck? Or is there a science to it? We’ll let you decide. We’re going to review the steps it takes to boost your chances of getting your Kickstarter funded.
How Kickstarter Funding Works
It’s all pretty simple. Kickstarter funding rules uses an all-or-nothing model. This means you either reach your goal or you get nothing. This helps to put backers at ease, so campaigners don’t just run off with the money and make nothing because they didn’t get enough to fund the project.
Then if you do reach your goals, you will share 3-5% with Amazon’s escrow service, which holds your money. You’ll also share another 5% with Kickstarter.
To ensure everyone leaves happy, your backers also leave with some amazing rewards (based on the level they chose).
A Unique (Dare We Say Epic?) Idea
As you’d imagine, there are thousands upon thousands of Kickstarter funding campaigns going on at any one time. Although you’re not relying on backers to find you in the midst of it all, it still matters to stand out. This will make it easier for your social media, affiliate marketing, ads, and other campaigns you have going on to gain attention.
Now, this isn’t to say you need to do something outlandish. Just something creative, particularly something that’s never been done before. This will make it easier to get backers who will want to see your idea come to fruition. It doesn’t even have to be 100% new. Merely tweaking an existing product can work.
Take for example, the Coolest Cooler (yes, this was a real campaign). In the summer of 2014, someone came up with a prototype of a cooler that did everything from blending smoothies to charging mobile devices. Of course, it also kept your food and beverages cool (otherwise it wouldn’t be the coolest cooler…would it?)
The device was ahead of its time but still did excellently. It yielded a whopping $13.3 million.
Tell An Amazing Story (And Compelling Cause)
The only thing more compelling than a great story is an intriguing message. Preferably something bigger than you. So no talking about yourself the entire time. You need to tie in a message that speaks of something more significant. For instance, maybe your concept is to change the world in a small, yet impactful way.
Take, for example, {r}eveolution apparel’s story and message for its The Versalette Kickstarter campaign. They set out to transform the fashion industry with a line of sustainable line of women’s apparel.
Get this – it’s one piece of clothing you can wear a dozen different ways. Plus, it’s made in the USA, and the fabric is recyclable. It’s minimalistic and eco-friendly – a double win for the sustainable crowd. The campaign generated nearly $65,000 from almost 800 backers.
Create a Video That’s Personal & Engaging
Your backers want to know who they’re backing before they invest, which makes sense. This is why video marketing is so effective.
To make it work for your Kickstarter funding campaign, you need a video that’s personal and engaging. It doesn’t have to be too long, somewhere between two and six minutes. Shorter seems to work best.
Put in a little background about who you are, what you’re creating, and why it’s important to you (and the world).
Now, the first 30 seconds of the video must be attention-grabbing. Within this time-frame, you need to fit in what your idea is and why the viewer should back it.
Then you can go into the rest, like who you are and details about your project. If it takes you five minutes to do it, then so be it.
Pebble E-Paper Watch went over this mark and still had a successful campaign (it’s top 10, as a matter of fact).
It received over $10 million from over 78,000 backers, and it wasn’t their only campaign. Altogether, they had three campaigns (all in the top 10, by the way), which raised over $43 million using Kickstarter funding.
Then they turned around and sold their company for $40 million to Fitbit. Not a bad deal.
Grow Your Network (Put The Crowd In Crowdfunding)
You can forget about making it to the top 10 Kickstarter campaigns if you don’t have a sizable network. If you’re starting from scratch, you’re going to have to put some legwork into building your following.
Sure, you can start with friends, family, and colleagues. However, you’re going to need to extend your reach. What better way to do so than with social media?
Now, before you go on a rampage on Twitter and Instagram, you need a strategy. The goal is to connect with those who are interested in your product. So if your project is a video game, then it’d be ideal to network on subreddits, YouTube, and other channels gamers frequent.
You can also get some backup from influencers. There are many on these platforms that will promote your project (for a fee).
The good news is you can reach your Kickstarter funding goals fairly quickly. Some raise tens of thousands within two weeks, and most campaigns are 30-45 days. Though you can push it to 60 days.
A great example is 1,000 Pugs. The campaign was unique (artfully photographing 1,000 pugs in one year). The campaign reached its goal in 14 days and went over its limit by day 45. It had 250 backers pledging over $15,000.
This shows you don’t need a large number of backers if your project goals are smaller. So try to aim for something that doesn’t take millions to produce, and you may have a fighting chance.
Create Must-Buy Backer Levels
The beauty of Kickstarter is that you’re not only selling your idea, but also actual items and access they wouldn’t get otherwise. Now, you don’t want to sleep on this because it can mean the difference between getting complete strangers to back you and only having backing from a measly 20 family members and friends.
So on that note, you need to come up with ideas that will attract your audience.
For instance, Critical Role’s “The Legend of Vox Machina” did an excellent job with backer level perks.
To quickly compare, for $20, backers would get:
- A song download.
- Unreleased song download.
- Ringtone download.
- Karaoke version download.
Then for $750, backers received everything from the first level plus:
- Cast signed animation art print.
- Waxed canvas messenger bag (game theme).
- Character pin set.
- Dice set.
- Art print.
- Signed pilot script.
- Sticker set.
Over 1,400 people bought this level, but that’s not the end of it. They had a package at $25,000, which had five backers. With this, backers received an all-expense-paid trip to Los Angeles, lunch with the cast, producer credit, personalized portrait by the animation team, and private screening for the show.
So feel free to go crazy with your perks. Just make sure to factor in the costs, so you price the levels accordingly. You don’t want to go into debt before you can get your project off the ground.
Make Your Kickstarter Funding Campaign Kick Butt
Do you have the next best idea for a gadget, software, video game, or movie? Then Kickstarter is one of the best platforms to breathe life into it. It all starts with a great idea that’s backed with a plan. If you have that, your chances of succeeding will increase.