What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign?
  • BrandonLow
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    What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign?

    by BrandonLow » Wed Sep 16, 2015 2:33 pm

    Hi,

    My Kickstarter campaign is going to be launched next week. So while I am doing all my final preparations, I would like to ask you experienced people on what could possibly go wrong during the course of a kickstarter campaign? Please list down whatever comes to your mind!

    Thanks :-)


    Aegis PRO - World's Safest Headphones: 415% funded on Kickstarter, raising $103,919!
    http://bit.ly/1MRUwmh
    Website: http://www.aegisacoustics.com
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    giftsandcoupons
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    Re: What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign

    by giftsandcoupons » Wed Sep 16, 2015 4:46 pm

    Basically it depends what stage you're at. Do people know about you? Do you have a list of people who know what you do or what your product does - they're expecting/anticipating your launch? Will you be promoting and have a list of media contacts?

    For your KS page, make sure it all makes sense. Address all the problems first time viewers may have with your project, use big graphics, explain who you are, the people behind the project and who has written about the project.

    Also make sure the rewards are really rewards and relate to your project :)
    http://www.giftsandcoupons.com/submit - Get more exposure of your Kickstarter / Indiegogo Project

    http://www.giftsandcoupons.com - We Showcase the Ultimate Gifts
  • BrandonLow
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    Re: What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign

    by BrandonLow » Fri Sep 18, 2015 2:17 am

    Thanks for the info!
    Aegis PRO - World's Safest Headphones: 415% funded on Kickstarter, raising $103,919!
    http://bit.ly/1MRUwmh
    Website: http://www.aegisacoustics.com
    Twitter: @aegisacoustics
    Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AegisAcoustics
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    giftsandcoupons
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    Re: What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign

    by giftsandcoupons » Fri Sep 18, 2015 4:19 am

    No probs! When you're ready to launch you can get in contact with me as our gift ideas users might be interested?
    http://www.giftsandcoupons.com/submit - Get more exposure of your Kickstarter / Indiegogo Project

    http://www.giftsandcoupons.com - We Showcase the Ultimate Gifts
  • T.O. Athlete
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    Re: What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign

    by T.O. Athlete » Fri Sep 18, 2015 3:58 pm

    Hi Brandon,

    I just completed my first week of our KS campaign and here's what I've learned that can hopefully help you out.

    1. After the first 4 days we were at about 10% of our $30K goal which I was happy about.....and then crickets. After my friends and family who I had reached out to pledged, the only other organic pledges I got was from backerclub.co which is a no risk way to promote yourself to people who back lots of KS project. I do not work for them at all nor do I have an affiliation with them, but they produced around $600 worth of backers for me. You pay a fee up front and if you don't get at least $300 in backer support and reach your goal, they give you your money back. you don't pay unless you reach your goal which I really liked. All other people who will approach you will offer to promote you for a fee that they certainly don't give back to you if their service doesn't work. BackerCo sends an email blast over the weekends, I highly recommend you submit your project to them and get on that blast.

    2. I only started reaching out to bloggers once my campaign started which I now regret. Send people your preview page before you launch.

    3. Send our more emails about your campaign to friends and family than you think you should....some of the closest people to you will support right away, others will not and or forget to when they said they would. About 20% of the people I reached out to pledged.

    4. Spend as much time promoting the hell out of your project before you launch, then spend even more time during the first few days...those are the most important...I found out the hard way. I was counting on an article in a local paper (they interviewed us) to come out 3 days after I launched and they pushed it a week after which hurt. Do the work now...everyone told me this and I didn't listen...people with successful campaigns told me this and I didn't listen. I'm telling you as someone who is now struggling....learn from my mistakes. And it's not because my product isn't good (which is why some projects never go anywhere)...we have lots of feedback from friends and family and people on the internet saying our concept is super cool....apparently not cool enough to pledge. (great feedback from backers about my project which make me happy).

    5 and most importantly - A person who was very successful on KS who I reached out to said this to me and I wish I would have listened. He said don't launch because your page is done....take extra time to promote or send out samples to news outlets or blogs and wait to launch. I didn't listen and I wish I had. Good luck.

    I hope this helps and didn't scare you. I still have high hopes for my project and I'm still pounding the pavement, but if I can help someone who is about the launch not make these mistakes it will at least make me feel good.

    And I'd be remise if I didn't plug my page...lol. Take a look.

    http://bit.ly/AthletesCollective
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    giftsandcoupons
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    Re: What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign

    by giftsandcoupons » Sat Sep 19, 2015 12:47 pm

    I think you need to put 90% of your effort into getting everything together BEFORE the launch of your campaign. Test it out, get the media involved, make proper contacts and get people interested so when you launch you've already got a pre-made target audience and the other publicity would follow.

    You can't do everything all by yourself unfortunately, that's why you need to rely on others to get the word out...my 2 cents.
    http://www.giftsandcoupons.com/submit - Get more exposure of your Kickstarter / Indiegogo Project

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  • BrandonLow
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    Re: What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign

    by BrandonLow » Mon Sep 21, 2015 1:47 am

    Hi all,

    Thanks a lot for the invaluable advice. I have heard a lot about promoting the project during pre-launch and hope I have done enough, but I'm still trying my best to reach out to as many people as I can.

    Everyone says that it is crucial to get the media involved, but my question is does anyone how to reach them in a cost-effective way without spending lots of cash?

    T.O. Athlete, that's an interesting project there! I have shared it with some of my sporty friends :)

    All the best!!
    Aegis PRO - World's Safest Headphones: 415% funded on Kickstarter, raising $103,919!
    http://bit.ly/1MRUwmh
    Website: http://www.aegisacoustics.com
    Twitter: @aegisacoustics
    Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AegisAcoustics
  • Shabbir
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    Re: What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign

    by Shabbir » Mon Sep 21, 2015 9:06 am

    There are so many factors that should be kept in mind to get successful in crowdfunding campaign. Here i have listed some critical factors which should be kept in first priority.

    1) Do Proper Research: A detailed research is a key to success. Most of the campaigns have incomplete research and that’s one of the reasons that they face failures.Research about the scope of your idea, the right crowdfunding platform, marketing the idea, social media strategy Etc

    2) Select Correct Platform : Choosing the right is a challenging task.Based on your idea you can choose a popular 3rd party platform like kickstarter, indiegogo etc or you can run your specific platform or a specific campaign page on your own website based on your idea & needs which saves your 3rd party fees. Yes its possible with FUNDRAISINGSCRIPT to run or create your own campaign page or platform with Ease. For more details you can visit : http://fundraisingscript.com/?id...

    3) Tell your story : The trick to success is to indulge a personal story with your idea. This helps you to trigger the emotions of the investors.You can also showcase a problem and provide a solution in such a way that it can improve their life.

    4) Display a stunning video : We found that a campaign with video will raise 114% more funds than an ordinary campaign without video. Based on these findings, we recommend you to post your campaign with a 3 minute crystal clear video.

    5) Share your campaign : Unleash the power of social media website by sharing your campaigns in it. If you do so, you will get exposure and visibility from other users of these sites.

    6) Express your gratitude to the backers : Once the project is launched, you should thank all the investors who helped you to launch your project in a successful manner through incentives and rewards.

    This are some core & Universal tips to run your successful campaign on any of platform. Implement this tips to run your campaign successful

    You can also refer to our blog post : http://fundraisingscript.com/blog/2015/ ... e-backers/

    GoodLuck!
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    Cristina
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    Re: What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign

    by Cristina » Mon Sep 21, 2015 11:18 am

    This post has been moved to the Kickstarter and Crowdfunding Questions Only (Strict) section.
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  • kelly101
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    Re: What can possibly go wrong during a kickstarter campaign

    by kelly101 » Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:16 pm

    We have been having the same experience with our campaign as T.O.Athlete. It seems that only a tiny number of your subscribers actually come from Kickstarter viewers - of which there aren't many. I am really surprised by how few views the products on KS get - even when listed in the top twenty.

    Every one I spoke to has the same advice - make sure you have a list of backers before launching - which begs the question, what is the point of using Kickstarter? Why not set up a prepay website, that way you don't loose 8% of you revenue to a site that doesn't actually contribute anything to your campaign?
    http://kck.st/1hqqdFb

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