KickstarterForum.org

Hi guys,

Now that my Kickstarter project is in its final stages (and fully funded!), I would like to start sharing some tips and advice for project creators (current and future).

You can see my project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/78 ... age-hoodie

I am not sure where I should start my sharing, so I figured I'd do an AMA instead.

So feel free to ask me anything about my Kickstarter project!

Congrats Airawear! My question is: How long before launching did you have to market your product? And what were the most effective ways of obtaining backers? Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the question trisshala!

If you're asking for a good gauge, I would say at least a month before you launch your product? You should definitely collect an email list of interested backers who want to know more about your product, or are awaiting your launch. An email list of interested backers is a surefire way of ensuring that you'll have support on the 1st day (and getting funding on the 1st day is SUPER IMPORTANT!)

For AiraWear, we hacked together a prototype and went off on a tradeshow to show it off and gather feedback. Fortunately, we got press right off from the event - and that gave us quite a substantial number of emails.

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The most effective way of obtaining backers is your email list. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to start collecting emails as early as you can. Use all sorts of strategies to collect these emails, and your campaign will be off to a good start.

Some strategies are:
- running a giveaway (we used the WP plugin Kingsumo)
- writing and promoting content
- getting some early press (we were lucky to have initial prototypes ready)

Other than that, we've also had good experience with serial backer communities. They are:

- BackerClub
- BackersHub
- BackerKit
- Gadget Flow

We also gained quite a number of backers by running and attending local events. Nobody would ever suggest this to you - but if you're making a hardware product, and it benefits a lot from people trying it, then you should go ahead and run events on the cheap and letting people try it out!

This post has been moved to the Share Your Kickstarter Story (Updates, Campaign Stats, Marketing Strategies Used)

Congratulations on getting fully funded! Would you be able to post your campaign link for those of us who haven't checked out your campaign on Kickstarter yet?

I'm wondering if you had any social media strategy during your campaign? Did anything work really well, or not as well as you expected? And did you use any tools like HootSuite to automate your social media?

Hey,

Sure! This is my campaign link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/78 ... age-hoodie

Thanks so much! We didn't focus too much on social media this time round, so we didn't really have a strategy besides regular postings.