The 3 Questions You Need To Consider Once You’ve Launched On Kickstarter And Indiegogo

Congratulations on your launch! 

I know launch day is usually a whirlwind so take some time to give yourself a pat on the back. You’ve gone from having an idea to create a new product, gathering an audience, to launching – it’s a huge feat to get to where you are today so kudos to you!

Moving forward, this will be an adrenaline-filled 30-60 days so fill up on coffee and get ready for the ride.

At the heart of every project, there are three big questions you should answer every single day during the campaign:

1. What can I do to bring more visitors to my crowdfunding page?

Without people coming to your page, how can you get more backers on Kickstarter or Indiegogo? 

It’s time to be vulnerable. Get on calls, email relatives, strike up a conversation at the checkout line at the grocery store; do everything you can to get the word out. Once you’ve launched, you need to get more people to know about your brand and the product. 

There are countless ways to get the word out and your creativity is the only thing holding you back. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Run advertising campaigns. You can either do this yourself (if you have experience with digital marketing campaigns) or hire an agency to work with you to meet your goals.
• Cross-promote with other projects. Statistics show that a vast number of backers on crowdfunding are repeat backers. That means that they back more than one project and keep coming back for more. Who knows, backers from another project might also be interested in yours!
• Start a referral campaign. Word-of-mouth marketing is effective. In fact, this type of marketing results in 5x more sales than any paid media channel. If that isn’t proof enough, I don’t know what is.
• Initiate promotions with backer-related groups. There are companies that have already invested money into gathering crowdfunding enthusiasts. Leverage their audience by activating promotions with them. Be aware of how and when you use these promotions though. Hint: bring your own successes first before leveraging traffic from them.
• Head to an industry-specific trade show or conference. It’s literally a big gathering of people interested in your niche. How much more dialed-in can your audience get?
• Attend a Meetup or local event. It’s now easier than ever to get in touch with people within your local area who are very much interested in the same thing. Get out there and introduce your idea.
• Post in related forums. There are countless groups, pages and forums dedicated to any interest under the sky. Find yours and get posting.

2. What can I do to convert more visitors into crowdfunding backers?

You can’t just bring visitors to your page, you also need to figure out the best way to convert visitors into backers. 

The best way to do that is to solve pain points and answer questions. I’ve broken down into three steps to better convert visitors into backers.

1. Listen to feedback

Although you’ve done a lot of market research and preparation beforehand, there will always be something new or unexpected that arises. If new questions and pain points surface, be sure to address it in as many channels as possible. Questions that repeatedly pop up are key issues and their answers will be highly valuable to anyone who has any sort of interest in your project.

You’ll be getting comments, feedback and questions about your idea in every single channel that you have available. Text messages, phone calls, Kickstarter comments, crowdfunding messages, social media comments, questions on your ads… this is just to name a few of the channels. 

2. Create impactful content

Next, you must synthesize comments and questions and create content that addresses them. 

Create new video content to further explain features, add new questions and answers to the FAQs, make new graphics to better illustrate your point and so on. Whatever it is, the main goal should be to make it easier for people to digest your project and better convince them that your project is worth backing. The more content the better.

3. Release new content

Think about your campaign page as a living document. Heck, think of your entire campaign as a constantly evolving organism. You’ll get learnings from your backers (or potential backers). Then it will be your job to make it that much more convincing for people to support you.

Knowing this, your objective needs to be releasing content in a way that best educates and informs. You want to solve problems, quell worries and build trust all in one fell swoop. It can be a new infographic for your page, some additional explanatory GIFs, updating certain texts or images, rearranging your page, more social testimonials or additional third-party reviews. 

Always stay on top of your Conversion Rate

As a campaign owner, you need to make sure that you’re aware of the conversion rate of your campaign page at all times. 

The conversion rate is how many people come to your page and actually convert into a backer. 

( Number of backers / Number of page visitors ) x 100 = Conversion Rate

The higher the number, the better. 

On average, you’ll see this spike during your first few days of launch (if you’ve done the work in pre-launch beforehand), but this number will slowly decrease. 

According to eCommerce standards, you should see about an average of 3% conversion rate on your crowdfunding page. Use that as a benchmark, but again, the higher the better. If you’re seeing lower than 3% then you’ll have to fix both the type of traffic coming to your page and the page itself.

As a rule of thumb: remain agile, communicate openly and act quickly.

3. What can I do to get people to pledge more to my project?

Once you launch, you’ll get an influx of comments from your backers. In these comments, a lot of them will be questions for you to answer, but some will also contain little nuggets of gold. 

What do I mean by this?

Backers are an immensely dedicated bunch and incredibly creative. Here, you’ll find novel and exciting ideas of what types of stretch goals you should offer and what types of add-ons they’d like to see. 

Take these comments as a way to add value to what you’re providing to your backers. In any case, your backers will be more than happy to contribute more to their existing pledge as long as you’re providing them with the value they want. 

A word of warning: before you do launch additional add-ons or stretch goals, be sure to research its viability. You need to ensure that you can actually make it work within the projected budget and timeline that you have outlined for yourself at the beginning of the project. 

If there’s any hesitation, think back to the beginning and how you are defining success for yourself and your project. Let that, and your gut, be your source of truth. 

Once you’ve decided on your way forward, stick with the path and openly communicate with your backers. Maybe you’ve decided to stay the course because it will be more difficult to scale up manufacturing (you might need to find a different company to do this) or it might create a logistic nightmare for you to ship things out. Whatever you decide to do, be sure to keep your backers in the loop.

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