KickstarterForum.org

[schang91]

Hi everyone,

My name is Shun Chang and I have been developing exceptional tablet/smart phone holders that not a design is comparable to mine (as I think haha). Finally, the 3 designs are ready to launch. This is going to be my very first KS campaign and I am very excited but nervous at the same time. One of my biggest concern will be the funding goal. As my products involve with mold/tooling that cost over $120k to make aluminum die-cast parts, aluminum arms, plastics and etc... yes, my products will be one of the top notch luxurious looking with highest quality out in this market... designed and build to last on top of key features as space saving, hidden with charging. I am trying to hit the main stream audience with volume for nice price break. However, again, due to the high tooling and manufacturing (material and labor) costs, I need help to figure out how to set KS funding goal that is realistic at the same time I won't have to lose much.

Your comments are greatly appreciated!

Shun

[nomlinz]

You need to work with your manufacturer to understand the cost to manufacture your product at different quantity levels. From there, create a plan for the worst-case scenario, and make sure that you can get to it by conducting a thorough pre-launch to collect emails for your campaign.

Here's some low-budget and high-budget strategies to use to get those emails:

Low-Budget Strategies To Build a Crowd
Friends, family and personal contacts
Getting a detailed list of anyone who you’ve ever met or somehow connected to you is a great first start for doing this.

So, let’s talk about how to create and organize a list of contacts.

Doing so will help you build an audience of who to communicate with.

There are people:

- Who are discovering you through your product
- Who you know or who are your friends and family and you’re connected to.

People in the second group might not have any idea you’re working on this but you have some connection with them. This segment is what we’re focusing on right now. We’ll split them into different tiers:

Tier 1: someone who you know pretty well and you’ve had contact with in the last 2 years. If you reach out they’ll say “oh yes, of course I know who this person is”.
Tier 2: someone who is an acquaintance. Someone you’ve met at some point in your life and have not contacted so often. Maybe a business colleague with. Someone who you’ve met through a mutual friend or someone you’ve just met once.
Tier 3: people who you haven’t met yet. People you’ve connected with through LinkedIn or friends you’ve made through Facebook.
The reason why we split them into different categories is because you’ll be speaking to those people differently according to your relationship with them. You’ll be speaking to them very differently depending on if you have a shared history or if you’ve just met a few times.

Export your Gmail address book

Go to contacts in Gmail
Click “export”
Select “all my contacts”
Select “CSV” format
Export your Facebook friends email list

Create Yahoo email (only purpose is to export list, we’re not using the email at all)
Click “Contacts”
Click “Import from Facebook”
Click “Continue”
Go to “Contacts” app on Mac
Click “Add Account”
Add “Yahoo” account
Select all contacts
Click “Export as vcard” (do this about 500 contacts at a time since there are file size limits)
Upload to vCard to CSV converter
Copy the first name and email into the same Google Sheets as the Gmail contacts

Once you have all your contacts in one big sheet, you’ll start deleting rows of those who you don’t know or who you don’t want to talk to about your project. The other rows that are leftover manually sort them into different tiers so you’ll know how to communicate with them about your campaign.

Boost on-the-ground tactics
Expand your reach by investing your time into other on-the-ground tactics.

-Sell on the street to passers-by
- Go door-to-door, asking for recommendations
- Host a party at the house of a potential customer
- Attend conferences specific to your industry
- Speak at local MeetUps or public library events
- Submit your project to the local newspaper

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Spend your time finding people, talking to people and building relationships. That’s the only way to get your idea, project and brand out there.

With these low-budget strategies above you have the opportunity to be directly connected with people.

There’s a higher chance that you’ll be communicating with these people 1-on-1 through phone calls, direct email, face to face conversations or even Facebook Messenger chatting.

This is highly valuable since you’ll be able to get customer feedback and insight even before you launch your crowdfunding campaign. You’ll be able to get answers to any questions you might be unsure of and even get answers to questions you never knew you had.

Talking to so many people and practicing your project pitch day in and day out will also help you nail down your pitch for when it does come time to create your crowdfunding campaign page.

And now, for a high-budget strategy:

If you have some dollars to spare, consider moving into using the higher-budget strategy most campaigns use to start building their crowd.

Paid advertising is a great way to generate interested leads for your project. Especially if you don’t have fans yet.

Facebook, Instagram and Google are the best so far at helping entrepreneurs generate email leads and build up a remarketing list.

For first-time entrepreneurs, Facebook and Instagram will be your best bet, the prices are low, the targeting is incredibly detailed and the reach is tremendous. Feel free to read about this in more detail on this post here: https://crushcrowdfunding.com/pre-launch-101-creating-a-list-of-super-engaged-backers-before-you-launch/

So, how many emails do you need?
Ok, so assuming that the absolute worst case is that you do need $120k to successfully deliver this product (side note: I'd push for you to also look into shipping and fulfillment for the product because freight to distribution centers/warehouses and fulfillment to each backer will also cost money). Let's work backward to see what type of email list you need:

There’s an INCREDIBLY simple formula you can use to determine how many leads you need to collect:

N = A / P * E

N = Number of leads required at launch

A = Total amount you need to raise (your funding goal)

P = Price point of your main reward tier

E = Email list conversion rate (this number can range from 0.05%-5% depending on your list)

That's it. No tricks.

Just plug and play to know the EXACT number of leads you need right off the bat.

An example:

I have a $1,099 product with a $120,000 goal on crowdfunding.

I see a 2% conversion rate on my email list thus far and believe it will hold for my Day 1 email.

N = ($120,000) / ($1,099 * 0.02)

N = 5,460 (rounded up)

Therefore, I need get 5,460 leads in order to meet the goal on Day 1.

BOOM!

If you've gotten this far, here's some bonus content for you!

How much you need to budget for lead generation

If you’re running lead generation advertisement, there's even an exact amount you should budget for to reach that goal on Day 1.

Firstly, you need to look for an average of $2 CPL (cost per lead).

Anything lower than that and you’re getting into non-converting email list territory. Anything higher than that the audience is not targeted enough and it is just not worth it to gather more of them.

Here's the formula to figure out the EXACT budget you need to gather enough leads via advertising:

B = N * $2

B = Budget for generating leads via advertising

N = Number of leads required at launch (from above)

Again, that's it. No tricks at all.

Now take these two simple formulas and go out to CRUSH IT on crowdfunding!

[schang91]

Thanks for the input but it is irrelevant to my question.

[nomlinz]

schang91 - what I'm saying is that since you need $120k minimum to produce, that should be your funding goal. And beyond that, I also outlined the steps you can take to get enough leads in order to get to your goal. Hope that helps clarify it!

[schang91]

gotcha and thanks!