I have recently had my second kickstarter success and ran a much better campaign the second time around, so i thought I would share some of what I did. Creators should be aware that it is important to engage with the right audiences to drive traffic to your page. The first project I did I relied very heavily on Twitter and my social media connections. It was a success, but also had the main product (a calendar) at a fairly low pledge level, so I wasn't asking people for a lot of money. The second project cost a lot more to make each individual item (jewellery) and as such the costs for backers were much greater. I went into it knowing I would have to drive traffic.
1. Pre-pre launch I have been building up social media connections for a few years, Just out of personal interest.
2. Pre-launch. For months I was prototyping the jewellery items and posting details on Google+, Twitter and showing family and co-workers the products. I also announced the launch several times in the run up to the launch day, which meant I had backers on the first day and got the campaign off to a good start.
3. I used crowdfundingPR to create a press release.http://www.crowdfundingpr.org/microscope-fashion-accessory-3d-printed-jewellery-dna/ I then sent this link and also a written press release to various websites/blogs that i thought might be interested. I also sponsored an article on CrowdfundingPR. http://www.crowdcrux.com/marketing-your-kickstarter-campaign-using-twitter/
4. I used a PR press release marketing person on http://www.fiverr.com/ to send out my press release to several different press release websites. I also used a person on there to increase my rankings in the search function.
- I don't know how effective this was but I did get a lot of other sites writing articles about my kickstarter as a result.
I am pretty sure this helped drive people towards my campaign.5. I wrote a guest article on Forevergeek after contacting them directly. http://www.forevergeek.com/2014/02/3d-biology-microscope-printer/
6. I blogged, tweeted, posted on Google+ etc. regularly throughout my campaign. I also promoted updates etc. I joined and became an active member of several Google+groups before I launched. A good group is Kicksnarker, which actively criticizes poorly thought out campaigns. Don't go on there to spam your project (you will be snarked if you do) but do go on there to read what users pick up on and how not to run a project.
7. In the final couple of weeks I ran a Google Adwords advert for the kickstarter. I have heard people preferring to do this and drive viewers onto a landing page that then forward onto Kickstarter, but I didn't bother with this. i got a few very enthusiastic backers from doing the advert, worth it for the little I spent (~£50).
Does anyone else have any details about their successful campaigns that they can share?
