KickstarterForum.org

My top tip for crowdfunding, specifically for Kickstarter, is to have people ready to back you straight away. Get your friends, your coworkers, even your mum to back you when the project launches. You'd be surprised how a good start effects the whole project.

1. EMAIL- personal emails like mentioned above!
2. Facebook ads- it can help if you tailor the message to appeal to the selected audience and give them a reason to support your Kickstarter
3. Being active on all social media all the time!

My best tip would be, planning. I know its tempting to go ahead and launch straight away, but you inevitably regret it, as I have done. My advice would be to have backers ready to go the moment the project launches. Kickstarter likes projects with good momentum and are likely to put projects with consistent traffic to the 'Staff Picks' or 'Project of the Day'.

There is some great information here. Thanks guys!!

Hire a good videographer. If you know someone and have a personal relationship with them beforehand that's even better. They'll be more inclined to help the campaign succeed. Get as many different people you know involved with the video creatively as possible, share the video with people who will in return share your campaign.

All awesome tips! Thank you for sharing . Think this thread will be a great resources for project creators that are just starting their project.

Have a lot of Family and Friends... and twitter followers.

-Be prepared to face tons of stress and very long workdays
-Promote your campaign everywhere
-Think very well the rewards you'll offer
-Don't die trying

Hi everyone,

First post here I'm into the last week of my Kickstarter and I thought i'd share a couple tips. I'm sure some of these might be already stated on other topics, but you never know

As most of you know, they are three circles of backers (Family&friends, acquaintances and those completely unaffiliated with you or your project).

The best recommendation I can make is: pre launch your project. Tell everyone, organize a sit in, a coffee date with friends, a Facebook event, something that will keep those close to you aware of when you are launching, and give them the opportunity to be with you and become a backer with you around. The most crucial time for your kickstarter are the first 48 hours, and the last 72. If you start out with at least 20 backers, and 20% of your goal in the first 24 hours, you're on the right track.

FIRST CIRCLE
1) When someone tells you they'll bet on the project, see if you can go with them and explain the process. They'll appreciate you took the time and that you take their help seriously. This will probably inspire them to give you a bigger donation. NEVER TALK PRICE! If someone asks you: how much should I put? Don't say a certain amount. Explain what you are trying to achieve, in how much time, and what it means to you to have their support. You will be surprised most of the time. People are generous and like to feel that they've made a smart and good choice. If you direct that too much, they won't be as happy about their donation, and probably won't feel like talking about it to others.
Don't get angry at friends or family that don't give anything. There are a myriad of reasons why, and you don't know all of them. However, be very thankful and enthusiastic about those that DO help. Let them know that it matters to you a lot.

SECOND CIRCLE
2) A bit more tricky. These are friends of friends, or people you've seen only once or twice. Be casual about the project, but let them know that it would be a big help if they chipped in. Tell them you will owe them one, and that if ever they do a similar project, you'll be all over it (and try to be true to your word if it so happens!) People will respond well to you as long as you don't ask for specific amounts. Remind them that every bit helps. Use humor when you can. People do not part easily with money, unless they feel either a connection to you or the project. This circle is a bit of both.

THIRD CIRCLE
3) The toughest of course. There are many recommended ways. The only one I have found fruitful was site like Rock Paper Shotgun, ifanzine, etc. Small communities, not too many backers but a couple with sometimes a nice article. Twitter is a nice idea, but I haven't seen the fruits of our communication on it. Forums (like this one) can be interesting, but you'll want to present your project in a succinct and exciting three/four sentences. Pull people in with a catch phrase that best describes the experience of your project. If you see questions, answer them as quickly and best you can, those that ask them either become your harshest critics or your most loyal fans.

Hope this helps a little, or gives an outline of a strategy to those of you that will want to present projects on Kickstarter (or any of the other crowdfunding sites out there).

My kicsktarter is in the signature, have a look and don't hesitate to ask questions, back or shout it out

Cheers!
Matthias Crévieaux
Armogaste
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14297523/epilepsy-quest-2

Hey everyone. This is my first post - I'm in the middle of what has been a pretty successful campaign for the Porter Key Knife ([url]everyman.us/kickstarter[/url]).

For us there have been a couple things that have been huge for us. First, we spent some money to have our video done right. It seems a professional video has helped portray a quality product and resulted in very high view to conversion rates.

The second thing we did was purchase a press contact list from [url]prand.co[/url]. We bought it before we started the campaign and spent a few hours the night before our campaign launched writing emails to the contacts on the list, following their "best practices" document that they include when you purchase. What's great about their list is that there's a good mix of huge stuff that if you get will fund your campaign within the hour (Gizmodo, Lifehacker, TechCrunch, Uncrate) and then more attainable stuff that causes a solid trickle throughout your campaign (Cool Material, Gear Patrol, Gear Junkie). For us we got a bunch of the attainable stuff and one of the big dogs and it's accounted for 40% of our sales so far ($20K). The list was only $99 (granted we still had to send out the emails ourselves, but it's responsible for over $20K! Also worth noting, we didn't even email everyone on the list, just the ones that we felt we had a solid chance at.

Third (related to #2), we used a gmail plugin called Streak that allowed us to track what emails had been opened/viewed. Based on that info we re-reached out to a handful of the sites again half way through our campaign. It was nice having a second wave of press half way through.

Hope some of that is helpful! And good luck to those in the middle of campaigns and to those who are about to start!