April 27, 2015

Last week's interview with Khan Vikshyn marked the 5th installment of the Crowdfunding Crash Course series, and with that in mind I thought it would be helpful to start posting some summary-style posts which outline and feature some of the recurring themes and insight we've heard so far:

Promote Ahead of Time

Everyone interviewed mentioned using social media as part of their promotional arsenal, but few people mentioned using it prior to the campaign to drum up interest and build excitement around the campaign.

Meghan Athavale of Po-Mo Inc mentioned in her interview that one of the reasons why their initial Kickstarter campaign didn't reach its goals was because they didn't promote it properly ahead of time, and instead relied on the campaign itself as their promotional tool. In her interview she explained that she had learned from this experience and had spent a significant amount of time promoting her next Kickstarter in a variety of ways (paid Facebook ads, regular posts, Tweets, social shares, interviews, etc) to generate interest before the campaign launched.

The Takeaway: Use every tool at your disposal to promote your campaign before it starts. This can include Facebook posts, Tweets, LinkedIn messages, and frequent mentions in your newsletter, if you have one. Plus good old-fashioned word-of-mouth!

Have a Plan

One of the things that stood out for me throughout all the interviews was the level of preparedness required to run a successful crowdfunding campaign. Devin Reimer of OWLchemy Labs referred to the campaign as "one of the hardest and most stressful things I have ever done" and Khan Vikshyn mentioned that in order to prepare himself for his campaign he spent six months researching, reading, watching videos, etc. to gain a better understanding of what he was setting himself up to do.

The Takeaway: Do as much research as possible and prepare a detailed plan. Hire someone to help you if necessary (and you can afford it). A great example is how Khan Vikshyn's 45-day plan helped him stay organized and kept his project from overwhelming him.

I managed my campaign by creating a 45 day plan so I’d stay on track and would know what I should be doing each day and how far along I expected to be. I knew that once I kicked things off I’d be too busy doing things to research and plan so I had to be as prepared as possible.
- Khan Vikshyn

Factor in Hidden Costs

One of the things that stood out for me in Adam Brooks of Astron-6's interview was when he mentioned that he wished that he had budgeted for all the postage that he spent on the rewards, and Kelly Tindall also mentioned researching things like shipping outside of Canada, weight of shipped items, etc.

Adam mentioned needing "a cool project and cool rewards" in order to get people motivated to participate, which is definitely something to remember - people want to feel like they're getting something interesting or unique for their contribution in addition to the finished product, itself. However, not being prepared to deliver these rewards could negatively impact your campaign and cost you a lot more than you realize, if you aren't budgeting and planning for it.

The Takeaway: Think long and hard about the types of backer rewards you're planning to offer, and factor in things like shipping costs ahead of time. If possible, try to avoid having to ship things to anyone (eg: offer a digital download over a DVD) and save yourself the worry of having to budget to ship multiple types of items at different times during your campaign.

Reach Out to Everyone You Can

One recurring theme throughout everyone's interviews was that they made a point to reach out to everyone that they knew for support, both in terms of campaign contributions and also for spreading the word.

In addition to reaching out to friends, family, and their existing audience via social media, they reached out to local news outlets, relevant organizations who could promote their campaign, and a variety of online communities who would be receptive to sharing and supporting the campaign.

I have very loyal family and friends who really stepped up to help out with money and were willing to talk to others about the campaign... I had over a year’s worth of loyal fans who couldn’t wait to read a print version of [Strangebeard], too.
- Kelly Tindall

The Takeaway: Your campaign's success depends on your ability to get as many people as possible to contribute, so don't be afraid to ask friends and family for support, and make as many relevant news outlets and online communities aware of your campaign ahead of time. That way you can build on the momentum to keep interest (and donations!) going until you've hit your goal, or beyond!

Keep a very open mind, spend as much time as possible building an email list, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. You are about to ask hundreds of strangers for their money.
- Meghan Athavale