fvreeman wrote:Well - I sure have learned a lot from these posts! I failed at my first launch, and what I got from all the discussion is that the pre-launch preparation is critical. Buzz words like "build your following" and "generate buzz through social media" are completely foreign concepts for me. I can build a fantastic gizmo that I think a bunch of people will want, but I don't know much about this marketing stuff and "social media". So . . . time to buckle down and learn about this world.
It's been an adventure so far.
I'm thinking guys like me need expert help from people who know how to do this social media stuff.
Right now I'm agreeing with James - this could be a whole new way to market and launch multiple products or projects, but first this whole blog/tumblr/facebook/google+/SEO/etc. thing needs to be figured out. That's what I'm doing now. Before I launch again I need a "following" and a "network" and some "buzz" plus "blogs".
Fred,
I talked to a lot of different Kickstarter project owners before deciding to use the platform.
Here are the questions I asked them:
1) Why crowdfund? i.e. what does crowdfunding do for you which other means of advertising does not?
2) Why Kickstarter vs. other crowdfund sites?
For many people, Kickstarter is not really a net positive. It is convenient on one hand for presenting a 'line in the sand', but there are many demographic groups of people for whom creating a Kickstarter account and paying for products which don't exist yet - just isn't going to fly.
The Kickstarter use model which resonated the most for me was from the video game makers.
For them, the biggest headache is understanding how many units of packaging/documentation need to be made fora new game. Obviously ordering too few means the unit cost is higher, but ordering too many means the risk of having to throw away extras. To add to this, many foreign customers of these games like the paper versions and also pay a lower price via Kickstarter (due to VAT taxation, I suspect) than if they were to buy via other means. Lastly a customer who buys once on Kickstarter is accessible for future games, and thus represents a lifetime value beyond that single sale. I was also told that there are significant numbers of additional backers who find games because they search Kickstarter games section for new offerings. Lastly, the folks who play video games tend to be far more active on the Internet and have little or no objection to how Kickstarter works or opening an account there.
Put all that together - it totally makes sense for video game makers, especially ones with a stream of offerings as opposed to a one-off great idea.
Does this apply to others? It is not as clear.
On the fashion/clothing side, for example, the successes I talked to seemed to get to that state because of contacts into online or offline media. Having a positive review on a multi-million unique viewer site, and of course a good product which fits the site/audience, can itself launch 5 or 6 digits of funds raised.
The analogy I'd use is billboards vs. newspaper columnist vs. tupperware party.
The first one works because of massive traffic - but billboards with massive traffic are very, very expensive ($100K+ per month for the Highway 80 billboards in SF, for example).
A newspaper columnist - if you have something interesting and know them personally - can cost you nothing but will yield exposure to all the regular readers of that column. Conversely, you can buy into this also - not as much as a billboard, but not at all cheap. Still, lots of exposure.
A tupperware party is super cheap. You can have a great personal relationship with every person there. But unless you hold one every night with different people, you just aren't going to get your message out to that many.
I've talked to project owners who did zero social media, but paid $20K+ for a spot at the Consumer Electronics Show. The project owner I spoke to that did this, the project had almost no social media mentions - i.e. video views and facebook share numbers were both super low in relation to number of backers, but raised well over $500K. Notice, however, that CES has 200,000 visitors and thus constitutes a large audience which is furthermore specifically interested in new electronics gadgets.