KickstarterForum.org

1. Putting “You” First.
If you have not read the classic book, How To Win Friends and Influence People, now is the time!

Ironically, although we live in a highly individualistic and egocentric society, the individuals that prosper most economically are those that put other’s needs, wants, and desires before their own. You think I’m joking?

Pick out a problem, need, or want that everyone faces. Let’s say the desire that most people have to feel like they can reach their potential and be in control of their own life. Now, imagine an author that writes a book that inspires millions of individuals to take action and strive to live out their dreams. From having read this imaginary book, people end up having a better quality life, are grateful, and are more than willing to pay another $10 for their next book, or even recommend the book to a friend.

Although the author invested time and energy into producing the book, it is only after it has become helpful for another, that he or she prospers. By making your primary motivation to add value to other people’s lives, you will receive dividends well into the future.

Instead of senselessly promoting your project to bloggers, twitter accounts, on forums, and to your social network, first seek to understand the person you would like to support your project, then state the clear benefits to that individual, and finally, go to your full lengths to help the individual before asking something of them.

Read more: http://www.crowdcrux.com/5-kickstarter- ... uld-avoid/

Great article. My big question is this...when you say make it about them (as far when you want other people to promote your show?) What would be in it for them? How do I frame my project in a way so that they would want to promote it? Thanks!

It depends on who you're trying to persuade to promote your project. For example, if you are running a Kickstarter campaign centered around a new music album and you would like a smaller music blog to feature you, you could offer to tell X number of your friends about their blog and sign them up. You could also offer to do a guest post where you talk about what you have learned from being a musician.

It all depends on what the blogger cares about: more traffic? more subscribers? having write less articles themselves?

I'd first identify what motivates the person you are trying to persuade to promote your campaign, and then offer a mutually beneficial arrangement, or how by featuring or promoting your campaign, it will benefit them (if it will).

If you are trying to convince a forum owner to promote you on their twitter, maybe offer to do some forum moderation for several days or a week to pay them back or that you will actively reply to posts for a week.

Sal

Thanks Sal. This is all great info! I'll definitely be coming back with more questions as I ramp up promotion of my project.

Great articles! They have been really helpful! I just launched my first Kickstarter project today and am so nervous about making it!! Incase anyone wants to check it out, here's the short link! http://kck.st/11oodC1

All this information is great, but I feel a little overloaded. So much to do! It can be a little daunting for someone who's not familiar with that marketing conversion rate, especially since we don't have a large established network and audience to start off with.

Dawit wrote:All this information is great, but I feel a little overloaded. So much to do! It can be a little daunting for someone who's not familiar with that marketing conversion rate, especially since we don't have a large established network and audience to start off with.

Yea, you have to wear many hats when running a campaign. There's not many ways to get around it unless you have a strong family/friend base that can assume different roles and learn everything there is to about those roles. Alternatively, if you are running the campaign as a team or have money to hire people to help out, that can also ease the stress.

It's sort of like you are having to push multiple boulders up a hill at the same time - Marketing to your target market, social media, contacting friends and family, creating a video, copywriting, reward tiers, generating media buzz.

However, lack of sleep is fortunately only limited to 30-60 days.

Sal

This is a great article. Every good salesman knows that you have to create the reason why your potential customer needs your product. What need does your project fulfill? The answer can be as simple as "my project fulfills a need for entertainment" or as complex as "my project fills a need for clean water resources in third world countries"
A successful campaign will not start with "I want..." If you can find a reason why someone needs your product, someone will.

I can honestly say that my current Kickstarter project began before I even knew I was going to run one. I had been getting G+ invites, and I did have a G+ account for a while, but I never used it. So I decided it was time to check it out, and become involved. I found a G+ community called Map Making for Games, which is right up my alley (I'm a pro fantasy cartographer - I create fictional maps for games and books).

So I began posting my many (hundreds) of maps I've done as practice, contest entries, commissions, works for my own game projects. Responders to my map posts started asking questions regarding what software I use, how I did this or that. So instead of just responding, I took a half hour of time created a rough step-by-step tutorial of how I would create such a map or solve a design problem. After posting 7 (I've done 12), members of that community began suggesting I assemble these tutorials and put them into book form - they'd buy it, they said.

Somebody else suggested I do a Kickstarter, he'd jump in. I responded that I didn't need a Kickstarter, although my rough draft versions needed cleaned up and more textual information - I already created almost half the intended amount of content for a proposed 25 tutorial book. I had plenty of sample maps to provide with each tutorial to showcase the techniques used in different examples (3 per tutorial). I have experience writing, designing and doing layout for books rich in graphics print ready for a large print house (meeting their tight specs). I just need to create more tutorials, do a pro layout job, set it up for POD printing and away we go. My only real cost was paying a pro editor to follow up my written work.

However, strong supporters of Kickstarter in that community responded that for one thing, at least for the RPG market, Kickstarter is an excellent marketing platform, it puts real exposure on your project before it's created, in a sense creating an active market for your would-be-product. Besides, writing, creating effective and aesthetically pleasing map tutorials, sample maps, and layout, if only in time spent, is costly. A Kickstarter can pay for your hourly wage in completing such a project. Then I got volunteers wanting to help do the writing, or at least proof-read and test the tutorials in applications they were familiar to better support the concept of tutorials guide with techniques used in many different graphics applications. Most tutorial books are application specific (using Photoshop to do X).

So I was compelled to run a Kickstarter by a zealous community eager to support it. I started only to show off my maps and post free map-making tutorials. I was already giving it away, when they talked me into to selling it them, instead.

It did happen quickly though, I started posting on G+ only 3 months ago, 2 months with my project as a G+ community.

That's how my Kickstarter began. Incidentally, I'm 4 days into the Kickstarter and 2/3rds to goal!

Ok, if I had discovered the cure to cancer this is all well and good but really I just want to share something I've made and get it out to those who might enjoy it. Is there room for those of us who aren't trying to change the world with our project? Since I already am doing that through the volunteer work that I do. Or do we have to live in a world run by marketing everything?