KickstarterForum.org

I am a newcomer to kickstarter.
When I got involved with my team, I was just out of university, just stepping into the practical world of advertising.

To be honest, I had never heard of kickstarter before, but when I found out about the whole concept of crowdfunding, I was blown away, a whole new aspect of marketing just opened in front of me.

It was crazy, how people backed projects they believe in, more often than not without any gain. It was almost overwhelming.

We got together all the aspects of our product 'Razzmatazz'. and launched the campaign.

It was not a product of my creation, but I became so close to the whole project. It was the first project I had been marketing at this scale.

I was desperate for this to get successful. I wanted to do everything, and I did as per my knowledge. Contacted techwriters, spent money on companies claiming to boost the project, what not.

After giving a great start, the funding starter slowing down, to a point that now it seems almost impossible for 'Razzmatazz' to reach its goal.

I know it is unfair for me to expect kickstarter success in my first run, when greatly experienced people also sometimes struggle on this platform.

I sometimes feel that I would keep trying no matter what till the last day and sometimes I am losing hope and want to give up.

I am going crazy now.

I really need some suggestions and any sort of help.

Thank you

Hey There! I completely understand where you are coming from and these issues are extremely common. Here are some suggestions regarding your campaign's promotion:


Have you given Reddit a go? While it isn't good 'Reddiquette' to post your campaign, letting people know about your product in niche related subreddits may build some interest and if anyone says they would like to back your campaign, kindly send them a private message with more information, then a link to your campaign.


There are several crowdfunding press release hosting websites that accept free submissions like Ayudos and CrowdfundingPR. The paid options generally aren't worth it but there is always the possibility of someone coming across your product there who is interested in backing it or publishing a story about it (if they are a journalist/blogger).


Launch a Headtalker campaign and make sure to promote that so that it goes off on the 3rd last day of your campaign. Headtalker is really easy to use and its free as well: https://headtalker.com/


Setting up a giveaway for the product using gleam.io can be a good iea as well (assuming you are able to give one away). For a recent campaign I hired a freelancer for $30 to submit the competition to 150 websites for me and we also promoted that amongst the current supporters network on social media. We managed to draw in 500 entries in 2 weeks which is great as you are able to promote your product to them via email. If you learn more about how gleam.io works you can actually give additional entries for people who view your Kickstarter campaign page which can be a good way to potentially draw in more backers.


If you have a press release I can offer you a free listing on our new crowdfunding blog website but that will not be live until mid-late next week. I will make sure to add your campaign to our tweet schedule as well.


One of the best things you could focus on now is getting publicity for the campaign. Send emails to journalists/bloggers and let them know what you are doing. There are are few different guides that you can find online for free regarding this, including a helpful writeup on the 4 hour work week website here: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2012/12/18/ ... mails-etc/


Where have you been featured thus far? Are you still contacting journalists/bloggers and reaching out to press regarding your campaign? I am available to assist you with your press outreach strategy if you'd like. Feel free to reply here, send me a pm, or email me using the email in my signature below.


Thanks mate! All the best with the campaign


Best Regards,

Jake
Team Backertree!

I would agree with Jake slightly, but I'm not sure why he's telling you "there isn't much you can do to save the campaign" when you've already 64 backers + 25% funded with over 2 weeks to go...that's bad practice and not good advice! I noticed Jake's copied alot of wording I've used on this forum in his posts, which is good to read - but if a project still has a chance to succeed then you still need to try.

Ok the next steps would be who you're connecting with and listing on your page all the sources, features and places that have written about you and the Razzmatazz. I guess you don't have a budget to promote or invest in this project so you need to make do with what you've got already. Create a "Featured In" graphic and add the logos of the places that's mentioned you, put it at the top of the page.

People want to connect with you, but they don't know who's behind the project. Add a photo of yourself + others, plus a description of what they've worked on in the past.

Show photos of the Razzmatazz being used and made - again people can connect with photos and imagine how they'd use it.

Best of luck!

Hey Hyperstarter and other readers, just to clarify; Instead of saying "there isn't much you can do to save your campaign", I should have said, "Most of your focus should have been during your prelaunch efforts, and there is less you can do after a campaign is live". I have just corrected this point in the above response.

I'd also like to clarify that I have not copied your forum posts, in fact I have done 100+ myself so I have no idea what you mean. There is only so many ways you can word something so my apologies if it is similar to another post you have made in the past (but I would like to know which post was copied). I have actually used the exact same post format since I joined this forum and I will continue to do so for as long as it is around. Also, if I did not think that a post had a chance of succeeding, I would not have put together a post of 450 words explaining several strategies that could be used to get the word out about the campaign.

I (and I am sure everyone else here) really appreciates the support being given to creators and while I understand you are trying to create a business in the industry, it isn't a good idea to refute the people who are trying to help others.

I really do hope that you succeed with your campaign Sugandha. I am always available to chat if you have any questions or need advice on any of the crowdfunding aspects you are currently working on. All the best with the campaign!

Kind Regards,

Jake
Team Backertree!

Hi, Just passed by here trying to find more reviews/experience on headtalker (it's hard to gather if it is equally as good as thunderclap....).

I glanced at your kickstarter, one quick thought was your image is a little hard to notice in my opinion, black on black. I wonder if there's more you can do... have you tried other images to see if that gets more traction/notice? Maybe something more explanatory. One thing marketing ppl has taught me is people are very lazy and you need to make info as eyecatching and easy as possible.

It wouldn't hurt to experiment a little now. Even if the campaign fails, you can use the experience for a future relaunch, or just understanding marketing efforts in general.

best of luck!

One more thing on images if you don't mind (visuals is my strong point), google "rasberry pi", what jumps at you?
http://cdn.instructables.com/FLY/713V/H ... MEDIUM.jpg
--of course its not the same as you are doing but i'm using it as an example. The picture is more than a picture, it tells a story. Especially to your techy audience.

Even the rasberry pi LOGO (assuming it's very recognizable to your audience, sorry i'm not one) could go a long away and jump at you in the kickstarter pages, MORE than just the caption "rasberry pi". Think of apple's logo on some phone case or apple app vs. an image with no apple logo. I think the logo has the potential to draw in all apple users it might not otherwise have.

thx, gl!

This post has been moved to the General Chat + Introduce Yourself section.

Thank you all so much for all the valuable suggestions. I feel motivated again to take whatever actions needed to reach the goal.

I have already tried the paid services to boost the campaign, and as backertree mentioned, it does not really work. I am trying to focus now on social media marketing.
I have been contacting different blog writers, have not got response back from most, except just a few.
I agree with asum, that the project images and graphics could be better, will work on that . Can i just use Raspberry Pi logo? don't I need any permission from them?
Hyperstarter, I have compiled the logos of the websites, where we got featured, thanks for the suggestion and motivation.

All your suggestions are highly valued and deeply needed.

thank you all again

Hi,

I'm not a lawyer. So I was thinking there was 'fair use' of logos.. but this might be confusing. The point is does someone coming in might confuse it to be endorse by them. It might be safer to not use. Do a quick search on kickstarter you'll see most 'raspberry' projects don't show logo--there is only one that does. So seeing that cautions me not to.

However, the search would quickly show a lot of chips... so I think you ought to show that.. or show that in action if you can.

thx, angela
https://headtalker.com/campaigns/bags-b ... nwaydsgnr/