Crowdfunding Basics - The First 5 Things I Learnt When I Launched A Kickstarter

I'm really excited to start sharing posts about my recent journey into crowdfunding. As you may already know, I've been running a Kickstarter project in addition to working on my website, it's currently 21% funded with 19 days to go - not terrible, but not awesome either and I've hit a MAJOR plateau with no bids for several days.

I'm hoping to be completely honest in the upcoming posts around crowdfunding and I want to start off that way too. I'm not an expert on crowdfunding, or Kickstarter, or anything to do with launching a business this way! I was recently approached by a group looking for help to marketing their upcoming crowdfunding campaign through my marketing business. I really wanted to take on the project and I knew I had the marketing knowledge, but everything I knew about crowdfunding was based around one platform, and a few heady days of pledging money towards ridiculous projects like building a Death Star. Yeah, I invested in that.

I spent a few days looking into crowdfunding. I spent time on Kickstarters Campus forum and joined several Facebook groups. I watched a great Facebook Live featuring Leona from The Indie Rollercoaster which gave me a lot of info in a very short space of time! And then I launched. If you care to check out my campaign, you can below.

I'm going to share the first 5 things I realised after I launched - that I really wish I had known first!

1. It's all in the pre-launch email list.

I didn't do this and I wish I had, I'll definitely do something in this vein if I relaunch or do another campaign. It's the advice that I have read the most regularly over the course of my research, - having a list of email addresses that belong to people with a potential interest in your product, or your campaign in general is an essential.

The most common way of collecting email addresses seems to be through a landing page. A landing page is a simple website, featuring a brief description of what you are are hoping to achieve and an email input. Some of the ones I have seen that relate to crowdfunding have a 'Countdown to Launch' feature, which has the potential to build a sense of momentum when your audience initially visit the page. I should have got this landing page up and started directing people to it through social. Forming a community should play an key role in any crowdfunding marketing strategy and the email list is the start of this. It can also be used later on to target potential backers with updates about your project, which could lead to last minute pledges.

2. There is a certain format to most successful campaigns

When I first started reading about crowdfunding I saw a lot of advice replicated across the board. I pushed a lot of these to the back of my mind thinking they probably weren't relevant for my project. Spoiler: They were. You need to create a video because it shows who you are to potential investors, right there in your campaign link. You also need it because all the other campaigns have it and if you don't, it looks like you aren't taking it seriously. Who wants to invest money in someone who isn't taking it seriously? This was probably one of my major mistakes. I'm still considering adding a video to my project, just something simple explaining who I am, why I like making crowns and what plans I have for launching an Etsy shop next year. There are several other elements to the standard format, including setting 'stretch goals' - these are goals past your original amount. Often, if the project reaches the 'stretch goal' there will be an additional reward released. Pinterest was a great resource for me when it came to putting my campaign together - I've got an awesome Crowdfunding board here if you are interested.

3. You'll need projections on what you intend to spend the money on

I didn't include this when I launched, but looking at successful campaigns afterwards I saw there was often a lot of detail about where the money would go. It's vital to remember that Kickstarter take 5% of your final total, IndieGoGo take 4% if you reach your goal and 9% if you don't. Paypal will usually have a charge of 3-5% too. Budget for at least 10% in fees to be sure. A pie chart looks cute and will make your funds allocation clear. Set a small margin for error too and don't forget to include packaging. I made a huge mistake in not working all of this out before to launched so be a boss and work out your costs!

4. Kickstarter doesn't have a forum in the normal sense - you'll need to reach out further to get backers

I kind of assumed there would be an inbuilt way of reaching Kickstarter lovers with my project, but there really isn't, not in the same way there are forums on Etsy anyway. Kickstarter Campus is a section of the website to which you can submit a questions and anyone can answer, but I answered a question last week and it got approved yesterday. Frustratingly slow. Actually having a look now, despite it being a pretty basic question, I haven't had any replies. So, you are definitely going to need to reach out a lot further if you want to promote your project to people who already have a basic idea of what crowdfunding is. I ended up using Facebook Ads to target people who liked music festivals and also knew about Kickstarter, but I will talk about that in a different post along with the results from my paid Facebook Ad campaigns. Facebook groups I joined, which I'll share in a later post also, seemed very inactive and spammy. There is a reasonably helpful subreddit which you can share your link on, but unless it's a tabletop game or some sort of fiddly gadget it's not the best place to promote either. More to come on this subject in the future, but I wish I'd looked much deeper into this before launching.

5.  Rewards that are handmade, custom items are the hardest to fulfil.

Okay, so this point isn't based on my own experience, as yet I only have three backers that I need to make custom crowns for. But all the info I've read since especially around creating exciting rewards for your pledges has warned against offering handmade, custom rewards, Obviously, this forms the main part of my project, but what I should have done is had some sort of non-handmade reward. Enamel pins are popular but there are loads of ideas for amazing pledge rewards all over the web and in Kickstarter Campus. Here is a great list of 96 ideas for creating rewards that will engage people but not cost the earth to fulfil. Had I have known this previously, I would have included something small for £10 backers. Maybe a hand drawn postcard, or an enamel pin if I had of had the wherewithal to get them made first (although this could have been part of my budget if I had planned things better!)


I hope that these has inspired you to research certain elements of launching a crowdfunding campaign and creating a marketing strategy for crowdfunding projects. There is so much to learn! Please give me a follow on your RSS reader or on Instagram @katyclouds if you want to follow my Kickstarter project more closely. I'll be sharing a lot more about what I have learnt over the next few weeks.