After deciding to launch your campaign, the first thing you need to do is build a Kickstarter marketing strategy. 

In this quick guide, I’ll be walking you through some of the basic steps you need to take to build your Kickstarter marketing strategy so your campaign can succeed. 

What is the Fundamental Goal of a Kickstarter Marketing Strategy? 

The power of Kickstarter and crowdfunding lies in the community – not the money. 

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of assuming that crowdfunding is all about raising money, but essentially it’s about building a strong community of supporters to back your project. 

The fundamental goal of any Kickstarter marketing strategy, therefore, is to ensure that you’re getting a barrage of backers who are willing to support you despite not ever knowing you or using your product. 

What is the Biggest Challenge of a Kickstarter Marketing Strategy? 

Imagine being asked to invest or pay money for a product you’ve never seen or used before – not online nor in physical stores. 

There are no reviews, no user recommendations, no social proof. 

Would you easily spend your money? 

Probably not. 

This makes it significantly challenging to market Kickstarter projects. 

You’re asking people to pre-order a product they’ve never used before. The only thing they have to trust you with is a video of your product, the copy of your sales page, and the promise that you’ll deliver in due time. 

See how this isn’t like any other marketing strategy? 

This is why you need a very strategic approach with your sales copy, emails, ads, and how you want the public to perceive you. 

Marketing is the only way for your campaign to succeed so without a kickass marketing strategy, you may not be successful with your Kickstarter campaign. 

How to Create an Effective Kickstarter Marketing Strategy? 

Now that you know the main goal and challenge of a Kickstarter strategy, here are some things you can do to meet the goal and address the challenge. 

1. Run a Deep Competitor Analysis on Amazon & Kickstarter 

Competitor research is the starting point of your Kickstarter marketing strategy. 

And when I say competitor research, I don’t mean a bunch of Google results. 

Here’s what my team and I do for our clients with competitor/market research. 

Search Kickstarter for Similar Projects 

People often miss this part when they are doing market research. It’s important that you go through Kickstarter to identify similar projects. 

Make a list of the top ten competitors on Kickstarter who are in your industry or have similar products. 

In a sheet, note down: 

• Their funding goal and the total amount raised 
• Their pricing model and how that is justified 
• Their product positioning and messaging 
• What people are saying about them 

You can also use a tool like Kicktraq to get in-depth analytics on top-performing campaigns. 

Here’s how a report of iiRcade, one of our top-performing campaigns looks like: 

Search Amazon and Online Stores for Insights 

The ultimate goal of most product crowdfunding campaigns is e-commerce. 

So if you want to eventually want to move into an e-commerce model after a Kickstarter campaign, it’s good to do your research from now. 

Amazon is a treasure trove of insights. From customer reviews and queries to detailed product descriptions, to price points and discount ideas, you can get most of the information you need to position your product. 

Search Facebook Groups and Instagram Accounts 

Search for Facebook groups relevant to your niche product. For example, if you’re making a kids’ smartwatch, search for groups that the smartwatch brands have created. 

You can also search for relevant groups like teenage gadget groups etc to find out what people want in a smartwatch. 

Next, you can list the top ten Instagram accounts relevant to smartwatches for product photography inspiration. 

2. Creating an Irresistible Offer 

Here’s where crowdfunding for products gets interesting. 

You want to build a community that will become buyers. 

In order to get people to join your community, they need to have an incentive. 

And that incentive is an irresistible Early Bird or exclusive offer. 

So essentially, the people who are signing up to your community are people who will “back” your project by pre-ordering your product at a discounted price. 

An early bird offer or discount is usually 30 – 40% off your retail price. 

The offer will become the pledge amount on the campaign page as shown here.

3. Build a Community on Facebook 

The most important part of a crowdfunding campaign is in the community. 

Facebook provides this perfect opportunity to build a community around your product. 

You can grow the community with interesting content, help like-minded people connect and network. 

Facebook communities are central to crowdfunding success. 

So do make a content strategy plan just for your Facebook community. 

The strategy can include: 

a). Video content specifically product demos and tutorials. 

b). Competitions and quizzes to ignite interest and engagement. 

c). Informative news, guides, and insights relevant to the industry. 

d). Satisfied customer testimonials (when the product is delivered). 

The community will remain active even after you’re done with the campaign and as your supporters grow so will the community. 

When you launch on Amazon or have your own online store, this community will be your strongest asset. 

4. Use Paid Ads to Drive Traffic to Your Landing Page & Facebook Group 

As a rule of thumb, keep at least $5,000 handy just for ads. 

Without paid ads, you cannot drive traffic to your landing page or Kickstarter page. 

The funnel is simple: 

• Drive traffic to the landing page via ads 
• Convert traffic into leads via sign up forms 
• Convert leads into prospects via FB group 
• Convert prospects into customers at the time of launch. 

5. Develop FOMO-Based Email Drips 

Email marketing for crowdfunding is based on FOMO (Fear of missing out) techniques. 

You will need to send emails that drive people to your product page to sign up. 

Emails like limited time offers, exclusive early bird offers, buy before the campaign ends offers, etc are all examples of FOMO tactics that are used to drive urgency. 

At the time of launch, it is only your emails that can drive conversion (boosted by retargeting ads). 

So your emails have to be on-point with the kind of messaging that will drive people to back the project. 

Marketing for a Kickstarter campaign isn’t easy especially if you’re not well-versed in digital marketing. 

But because it’s so niche, not any marketing agency can help you out. 

6. Influencer Marketing for Kickstarter Campaigns

While influencer marketing works great for established brands and businesses (they got the money!), for crowdfunding campaigns, it may be a significant challenge if you’re short on a budget.

Ideally, you want to attract influencers with your product. For instance, one of our clients iiRcade had a product so good, they were endorsed by gaming and tech celebs which led to 7-figure funding in less than a week.

That said, sometimes, you just have to do it the old-fashioned way; that is, make a list of influencers in your industry, reach out to them with a clear goal, and negotiate a deal.

There are three types of influencers – the macro gods (100K followers and above), the semi-gods ( 10,000-100,000), and the newbies (less than 10K). The rule of thumb is to start with the newbies as they will have a bigger and more direct impact on their circle. These influencers are regular folks who have a close-knit community and directly influence with their endorsements. They are the best people you can reach out to for endorsements within a reasonable budget.

Here’s how you can get started:

1. Use a tool like SparkToro or BuzzSumo to find influencers in your niche
2. Make a list of influencers relevant to your niche
3. Set the goal for influencer marketing (signups, backers, awareness)
4. Set a goal of the number of influencers you want to have on board (2, 5, or just 1)
5. Set a budget for each influencer and what you expect from them within that budget
6. Write an influencer pitch that should include expectations
7. Make sure you have a great story to share (personalized stories rank better in convincing influencers to work with you)
8. Communication with the influencers must be organic, authentic and value-driven
9. Establish a one-on-one relationship with these influencers. You might be needing them post-campaign too
10. Reach out to influencers on the medium/channel that your audience are most likely to be found. For instance, if you’re making a video game, your influencer is on Twitter and not on Instagram.

Identifying influencers is not a simple matter of getting a list off of Google. You need to really dig deeper into the type of influencers you want to work with, whether their values align with yours and whether their audience has the purchasing power you need.

Quick Recap

1. Your marketing goal for Kickstarter must tap into the power of the community.
2. You need a strategic approach with your sales copy, emails, ads, and how you want the public to perceive you because you’re asking people to back a project that is not yet in the market.
3. Always conduct an in-depth competitor research on Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Amazon to identify price & product positioning.
4. Create an irresistible offer to promote your product
5. Build a community on Facebook
6. Make sure you have a funnel that turns traffic into backers
7. Double down on your email marketing funnel
8. Reach out to influencers and establish a one-on-one relationship with them
9. Prepare well in advance of your launch date (we recommend 3 to 6 months prior)
10. Work with crowdfunding marketing experts who can help you with strategic marketing

Remember, your Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign can only succeed if you have a strong marketing + promotional plan set in place. Without marketing and promotion, you might fail to meet your goals and make no money at all (Especially if you’re using Kickstarter which operates on an All or Nothing model).

Want to talk to an expert to help you make sense of all this? Reach out to us for a free consultation call!

You May Also Like to Read:

How to Start and Launch a Kickstarter Campaign?

There are specific crowdfunding marketing agencies that are recognized by Indiegogo and Kickstarter to be your marketing partners. 

Check out the videos below for more.

The post How to Create a Kickstarter Marketing Strategy – A Quick Guide for Beginners. appeared first on samitpatel.

If you set a goal too high, you won’t get enough backers resulting in a failed campaign. 

If you set a goal too low, you won’t be able to raise the amount you need to bring your project to life. 

So how do you set a Kickstarter funding goal that is achievable & effective?

Here’s a step-by-step Kickstarter funding guide that will help you decide on what you need to take into consideration when setting the final goal.

Let’s dig in.

Understanding How Kickstarter Funding Works 

Kickstarter uses an All or Nothing funding model – which simply means you either meet your funding goals and get the money or you don’t and get nothing in return.

For example, if your funding goal is $10,000, you will need to meet that goal within 30 days of launch to receive the cash. If you make $8K instead of $10K, you have failed to meet your goal and therefore you will not be receiving any money.

Kickstarter’s funding model is less flexible than Indiegogo’s where even if you fail to meet your goal, you will receive the money you’ve raised already.

Hence, it’s important to set a realistic goal on Kickstarter that can be achieved.

For instance, if you’re a project creator selling wallets, asking for $100K may be impossible to achieve. On the contrary, an amount like $20K for a small product like a wallet is far more believable and achievable.

What to Consider When Setting Goal Amount

A common mistake project creators make is setting a funding goal randomly – without taking into consideration taxes, platform fees & other logistic costs. The result? The amount raised fails to cover project costs, which leads to delayed dealines and poor production outcomes. This is one reason why so many projects on Kickstarter fail even though they had potential. 

When you’re setting the goal amount, make sure you have a strategy in place and take care of basic costs like:

• The cost of production
• Kickstarter’s 5% fee
• Transaction fees of up to 3%
• Marketing fees for writers, photographers, video editors
• Shipment fees

Generally, the rule of thumb is to pledge 5 to 10X times the production amount to cover for unexpected costs like marketing or shipment.

Here’s how you can calculate your costs:

Define your pricing for a crowdfunding audience

Your pricing strategy must resonate with the needs of your crowdfunding audience.

Remember, your crowdfunding audience are not buyers. They won’t go to a website and buy a product. They will be ‘backing’ a project and take on the risk of pre-booking your product, so if the pricing is out of their range & is not justified, they simply won’t back you.

For example, if you’re launching a $30 eco-friendly toothbrush that needs to be renewed every month, while there are other cheaper alternatives in the market, you’ll fail to drive the audience into action.

It’s rare for any project to be original or unique. There are always other variations of the product available in the market, which is why the pricing must be defined by product features.

Again, the instance of the toothbrush, the $30 can be justified if the product is proven to be better than other alternatives in terms of recyclable or sustainability features.

Make sure the following factors are considered when setting the price for your crowdfunding audience.

• How are you different from other competitors in the market?
• How is your price point justified compared to them (this will also be your USP).
• What are the shipping costs of your product?
• What are the manufacturing costs of your product?
• How much of a discount can you really offer and if you do, how does that affect your overall pricing strategy.
  
  

So before setting your crowdfunding goal, you need to have a very strong pricing strategy. Remember when you’re open to the public, you’ll have to defend your price point and justify why your product costs this much if there are already other products of a similar nature available in the market.

CALCULATING MARKETING + PROMOTION COSTS

Your crowdfunding campaign cannot succeed without marketing and promotion.

Marketing and promotion costs that you should keep in mind are:

• Cost of creating a landing page:$27/month
• Cost of FB ads: $5000 – $7,000
• Cost of email marketing: $500
• Cost of retargeting/remarketing ads: $5000
• Cost of hiring an agency: $5,000

So, a total of around: $20,000 if you want to go big.  

If you’re short on budget, then you could spend time prepping at least 6 months in advance before starting the campaign. Build relationships, build your email lists and keep at least $7,000 for paid marketing.

SHIPPING COSTS

Kickstarter funding goals usually include shipping costs.

Before setting your goal, factor in the shipping costs as well so you don’t have to deal with any bad surprises later.

If the shipping costs is too high, you can limit your reach to select countries instead of worldwide.

Lastly, consider logistic costs as well. If it’s a product that requires parts, then it must be added to your overall cost.

CROWDFUNDING PLATFORM FEES

Both Indiegogo and Kickstarter change a 5% service fee from the total funding amount.

That is if you make $50,000 in crowdfunding goals, then Kickstarter and Indiegogo will charge $2,500 as a service fee.

So when you’re setting up crowdfunding goals, make sure you’re also calculating the crowdfunding platform fee cost.

Additionally, Stripe, the payment processing partner will also be charging a transaction fee of between 3 – 5% per transaction.

Keep in all these factors when you’re creating your crowdfunding campaign goal.

CROWDFUNDING TAXES

There’s always a lot of speculation about this but crowdfunding earning is tax-deductible.

The money you earn from crowdfunding is considered as income, so you’ll have to pay taxes as per your country’s rules and regulations.

Again, do consider this when setting your goal.

You want to have enough leftover with all the deductions, taxes, fees, and costs to be able to create or manufacture your product.

How Does Kickstarter Make Money?

Kickstarter makes money by charging 5% of your total funding goal.

So for instance, if your funding goal is 100K, you’ll be charged $5,000 on completion of the goal.

You will not be charged any money if you don’t complete your funding goal.

What can you do to increase chances of goal fulfillment

Kickstarter has a success ratio of 39%. Of 543,344 projects, 212,467 projects were fully funded (as of July 2021). Your chances of failing at a Kickstarter campaign is higher, but, if you focus on three essential aspects of a crowdfunding project, you can increase your chances of goal fulfillment. Most projects fail because creators do not take the time to validate their product, build an audience, and decide on the funding goal that they need to succeed. 

You May Also Like to Read:

What is The Most Funded Kickstarter Project? You’ve Probably Heard of this One!

• Product validation: Will your product succeed on Kickstarter? Are you creating something exciting that people are willing to back? Product validation can be ascertained through surveys, speaking to your target audience, and running facebook ads to test validity & acceptance. You have to be 100% sure your product has a market and that market is present on Kickstarter. 

• Advanced planning: Most project creators hurry through a crowdfunding campaign and fail to plan ahead of time. You must plan at least 3 months and at most 6 months in advance of launch. During these months you will be putting maximum effort in building email lists, inviting people to your private community, generate interest in the product, and create launch momentum. 

• Full funnel marketing: Without aggressive marketing and promotion, there is very limited chances of success. The more people are in your list, the higher your chances of meeting your Kickstarter funding goal. For this, you’ll need to develop full-funnel marketing plans, spend on paid social media marketing, email marketing and PR campaigns to drive audience to backing the project on the launch day. 

Your Kickstarter funding goal can make or break your campaign. It’s the most important component of a Kickstarter campaign, yet, the most underestimated. It’s important then to determine your funding goal and ensure it covers the cost of building, shipping, & promoting your product. 

To know more about how Kickstarter funding works, check out this video!

The post How Does Kickstarter Funding Works? A Quick Guide. appeared first on samitpatel.

In this article, we’ll zero in on what was the most-funded Kickstarter project of all time and what makes a Kickstarter project successful.

We’ll also be answering additional questions as:

• What Products Do Well on Kickstarter
• What is the Most Popular Category on Kickstarter?
• What is the Success Rate of Kickstarter
• What Percentage of Kickstarter Campaigns Fail?
• How much does the Average Kickstarter Make?

Let’s dig in.

Pebble Time as the Most Funded Kickstarter Project

In the history of Kickstarter projects, Pebble Time holds the distinction of being the most funded Kickstarter project, raising a staggering $20 Million in just one month.

It was an extraordinary feat backed by 78,463 enthusiastic supporters, making it the fastest project ever to reach $1 million in a mind-blowing 49 minutes, surpassing its initial campaign goal of $100K by leaps and bounds.

Back in 2012, Pebble Time emerged as a second-generation smartwatch, boasting cutting-edge technology, including an e-paper screen with an impressive one-week battery life, all at an affordable price of $179.

Pebble Time’s tremendous success, however, faced stiff competition when industry giants like Fitbit and Apple released their own smartwatches in 2015. Despite its glorious start, Pebble eventually encountered challenges, leading to the company filing for insolvency in December 2016 and ultimately selling certain assets to Fitbit.

Despite these challenges, Pebble’s journey left behind a lasting legacy and a blueprint on how to cultivate a solid community of supporters. Even to this day, countless individuals continue to believe in Pebble’s exceptional design and groundbreaking technology.

Other Successful Kickstarter Projects by Funding Amount

Coolest Cooler – $13 Million

The cooler built for the 21^st century. It was a high-tech cooler with a built-in blender and tech features ahead of its time.

The campaign was a success with 60K backers, 50,000 of whom pledged more than $200 for the cooler.

As much as this was a stellar Kickstarter success, it was also a huge failure post-campaign. Coolest Cooler was never able to deliver the coolers on time and closed operations, citing ‘trade war’ as the reason for failure.

Frosthaven – $12.9 Million

Frosthaven, the sequel to Gloomhaven is one of the most successfully funded board games on Kickstarter. With 80K backers, the project was funded in just a few hours after the project went live. Frosthaven is expected to ship by 2022.

EcoFlow Delta Pro – 12.1M

The EcoFlow Delta Pro is a portable home battery that attempts to provide multiple days’ worth of backup energy for homes.

This project is an example of the diversity you can find on Kickstarter. From board games to home solutions, you can launch any kind of product on the platform – and if it meets people’s needs, you can quickly get funded by the community.

EcoFlow Delta Pro now successfully sells on Amazon.

Key Lessons to Learn from Top Kickstarter Projects

Regardless of their post-campaign failure, these top Kickstarter success stories had a brilliant mix of marketing + promotional strategies that are fundamental in making a Kickstarter campaign successful.

We’ve analyzed each of these campaigns from the perspective of a crowdfunding marketing agency and we believe here are some key things they did right to achieve the success they did.

If you can follow any of these lessons, you can be very successful with your Kickstarter campaign.

1. Be Sure the Market Has a Need for Your Product

Frosthaven was a sequel to Gloomhaven, an already very successful game. Why did the founder Isaac Childres launch Frosthaven, given that he has an established game company?

His response is a key learning lesson:

“We are a successful brand at this point, but I’m still not at all sure about how many copies of this sequel that I should print. We sold over 200,000 copies of Gloomhaven. Should I print that many? If only 10,000 people want the game and I print 200,000, that’s a disaster.”

Even if you’re an established organization, you have to KNOW if your product is even needed.

If you’re a new entrant, you can get market validation by running surveys and product validation ads on social media. You can also understand public sentiment by discussing your project on Reddit & Twitter.

2. Working with a Marketing Team

No matter how awesome your product, it cannot get to the first page of Kickstarter projects unless you promote the heck out of it.

This means you need a full-fledged marketing team. Or, a crowdfunding marketing agency.

Remember, regular digital marketing agencies are different from crowdfunding marketing agencies. You will need to hire a company that has success stories and case studies in product launches with crowdfunding.

You need to have a budget of at least $15,000 to inject into marketing and promotional costs.

A quick cost breakdown of a basic crowdfunding project:

Strategy + landing page + content = $3,000

Social media ads = $5,000

Product photography = $1,500

Commercial video = $3,000

PR & Promotions = $5,000

If you’re short on budget and cannot afford to hire a team or an agency, you can get freelance talents, however, you will need to give direction and do most of the homework.

All of these top funded Kickstarter success stories worked with crowdfunding marketing agencies to build campaign hype.

Want DIY crowdfunding? Enroll in this crowdfunding training course & learn how to carry out your own crowdfunding campaign.

3. Launching When the Time is Right

Launch time is one of the biggest factors that concerns Kickstarter campaigns. Launch at the wrong time and you could fail in meeting your goal. Launch at the right time and you could be a stellar hit – just like Coolest Cooler.

When it first launched in 2013, it failed to meet its $150,000 goal. The main reason is that November – December are the worst months for Kickstarter campaigns. With Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year, most people are generally out of budget.

Coolest Cooler founder Grepper decided to tweak the product and launch it in the summer! As Americans were gearing up for Independence Day and planning summer picnics, the Coolest Cooler was just what they needed! The campaign was so popular, that we’re still talking about it as one of the top-funded projects on Kickstarter ever, nearly 6 years later.

Here are some of the best times to launch on Kickstarter.

4. A Great Product is the First Success Factor of a Kickstarter Campaign

There’s a serious misconception that we as marketers HAVE to fix.

MARKETING CANNOT FIX A BAD PRODUCT.

There. Said it.

This is especially true if you’re trying to launch a campaign on Kickstarter.

The Pebble Time watch for instance, didn’t need any aggressive form of marketing.

In 2012, they had just the product people wanted. Simple yet exciting technology for nerds, kids, sports enthusiasts, literally anyone who wanted a ‘smart’ watch.

The product spoke for itself. With the right marketing strategy, it became legendary.

People often think it’s easy to succeed on Kickstarter if you just promote the heck out of your product.  What they don’t realize is that if your product is not something the audience wants or can relate to, your campaign won’t make it.

Before you spend tens of thousands on marketing & promotion, make sure your product is a good market fit and it’s something people want.

5. Prepare Well in Advance

The top Kickstarter campaigns were those that had already worked on their social and digital footprints way before launch.

Why? Because again, Kickstarter is all about bringing your community of supporters together to fund your project. The more supporters/followers you have, the easier it will be to reach out to them and get them to fund your project.

You have to:

1. Build an email list of up to at least 500 – 1,000 people
2. Develop relationships with tech journalists and PR professionals
3. Prepare your digital assets in advance (landing pages, website, email funnels etc).
4. Build your founder brand on social media sites
5. Show the actual work being done

There are countless Kickstarter campaigns that have failed without spending adequate time in preparing for launch. You don’t just crowdfund. You have to prepare your business and your brand way in advance before starting a campaign.

The campaign itself will last only for 30 days of which only the first and the last week is where the action lies.

Some Facts to Help You Determine if You Should Consider Kickstarter

We recommend you do a deep dive into top Kickstarter projects of your category and note down key metrics such as funding goal and funding raised, number of backers, and what were some things they did right.

Here’s some additional information to help you decide if you should consider Kickstarter.

What Products Do Well on Kickstarter

Products that people can afford to buy to make their daily activities better do extremely well on Kickstarter. Items like a smart wallet, smartwatch, board games, tech gadgets, are very popular.

High-end projects that come with a hefty price (anything above $200) seldom do well on Kickstarter unless you have very strong product positioning with an impressive digital footprint – much like we did for iiRcade, a high-end arcade gaming box that sold at $399/piece.

What is the Most Popular Category on Kickstarter?

Games! Board games and video games are the most popular categories on Kickstarter with some 1.6 billion U.S. dollars pledged. Two of the most highly funded game projects were Frosthaven & Exploding Kittens. Design, technology, film & video, and music were the next most funded categories.

What is the Success Rate of Kickstarter

As of 2021, Kickstarter has a success rate of 39.30%. This means, out of 542,921 projects launched, 212, 149 projects were successfully funded.

What Percentage of Kickstarter Campaigns Fail?

Of the 542,921 projects, 327, 656 projects were unsuccessfully funded.

How much does the Average Kickstarter Make?

Well, let’s say you have a 0.08% of making a million bucks!

Ok well, let’s be real.

1 out of 1,250 project hits the $1 million mark on Kickstarter – but we’re talking about projects in the games, design, and tech categories.

Now, before you get uber excited, here’s a reality check:

There have been 453,585 projects launched since Kickstarter was founded in 2009.

And only 369 have raised $1 million or more.

The average amount you can raise on Kickstarter is $23K.

Quick Recap

1. Pebble Time made the most Kickstarter money, i.e, $13 million
2. Prepare for your campaign well in advance
3. Keep a budget aside of at least $10,000 for marketing costs
4. Always make sure you do adequate market research before launch
5. Work with a crowdfunding marketing agency (like us!)
6. YOU HAVE A KICKASS PRODUCT TO KICKSTART YOUR CAMPAIGN!

Making money on Kickstarter is possible. If you need to talk to an expert, feel free to reach out to us for a free consultation call!

The post What Kickstarter Made the Most Money & what you can learn from them appeared first on samitpatel.

One does not just simply launch a crowdfunding campaign.

One has to research, perform competitive analysis, assess the success ratio of similar campaigns and then decide to take the plunge.

Here’s how we carry out product research for crowdfunding campaigns for our clients.

1. Kickstarting with a Research Sheet

Your research sheet is the foundation of everything.

The first step in your research for a crowdfunding campaign is to know how your product stands against other similar campaigns.

Your product may not necessarily be the world’s first – and if you want to make that claim, then you need to make sure there are no other products on Kickstarter offering the same.

For example, in this project, there are dozens of arcade game projects, but none of them holds 200+ licensed, retro games for home use.

This research sheet that consists of other similar campaigns on Kickstarter or Indiegogo helps give you insights into how a similar product fared, what strategy and processes were effective, and what funding realistic funding goals can you set.

It gives you the direction you need to plan your campaign.

What each tab means:

Raised: This is the amount that other competitors in your niche raised. This will help you set a benchmark for the backers and funding goal to expect.

Average Price: This tab is critical. It will help you determine your pricing & reward strategy. You’ll have to make a very strong justification of why people should back your project for that price vs others.

Social Media: These are great for ad or content inspiration that you’d need later to work on your page or group.

Check out this strategic post on how to create a Facebook group for your crowdfunding campaign.

Headlines: Your project headline is the most important magnet to get people’s attention. Check other projects to get inspiration for the headline of your campaign page and landing page.

You can also check Amazon to see how some products transitioned from crowdfunding to eCommerce.

2. Getting Your Audience Research Right

Unlike e-commerce where you’re targeting audiences willing to become buyers, in crowdfunding, you’re targeting audiences willing to become backers – that too on crowdfunding.

So one of the biggest challenges with crowdfunding is getting interested audiences to back a project which is why most crowdfund marketers target tech enthusiasts instead of regular folks.

We do it differently though.

We target audiences who have an interest in the product. If there’s a new baby feed product, we target moms. If there’s a new eco-friendly toothbrush, we target parents.

Most of our backers are people who back for the first time who love a product so much, they are ready to pre-book it.

And all of this is possible because we carefully create our audience persona and then perform various tests to measure their response.

Over the years, we’ve perfected this and know exactly what kind of content the audience responds to. Some key questions we ask include:

You can add as many questions to this list as needed to niche down on your audience research.

3. The Holy Grail of Research for Crowdfunding Campaign is the Product Identity Sheet  

Ahh. The product sheet.

It’s a 30-page long document that we send out to clients to fill up.

It has everything you’d need to design a campaign:

• Value proposition
• Features of the product
• What makes it unique
• Top competitors
• Top dream audience
• Pricing justification

…and a whole lot more.

Some key questions that the worksheet should answer:

Identity: Who Are You?

• How do you stand out? Describe yourself in 1-2 sentences.
• How do you use the product? (How does it work – step by step)
• What industry are you in?

Performance: What Value Does Your Product Provide?

• What are your product’s key features?
• What value does your product provide?
• What problem do you solve and how do you solve this problem?
• How is your product solving the problem better than the competition?
• Who are your competitors & what are their price points?
• How affordable is it compared to your competitors?

Imagery: What Imagery is Associated with Your Product?

• What are examples of visuals that could be used for creative inspiration (photos, videos, etc.)?

Judgements: What judgements may people have?

• What positive judgments will people have about your product?
• What negative judgements may people have about your product?
• What concerns, fears, or uncertainties may people have about you, the product, and/or the brand?
• Why should people trust you?

Feelings – What Feelings Do You Want to Convey?

• How do you want people to feel when experiencing your product?
• How do you not want people to feel when experiencing your product?
• What is the voice of your message? (As a friend, a teacher, a doctor, a professional, an expert — what type of language will we be using?)
• What is the tone of your message? (Funny, somber, optimistic, epic, intense, friendly, etc.)

Now whether it’s your staff, your contractors or even your agency managing your campaign, they’ll simply refer to this product sheet to stay grounded.

Remember, the more in-depth you can go with your research, the better you can target the right people to back your project.

The post Three Important Research Documents to Prepare Before Starting Your Campaign Strategy appeared first on samitpatel.

If your campaign funding goal is too less, you won’t be able to bring your project to life. If it’s too high, you might not be able to meet the goal when the project ends (Kickstarter won’t let you withdraw any amount raised if your campaign fails).

So how do you set a funding goal that you can meet?

Here’s everything you need to know.

1. Creating a Pricing Strategy

One of the first things to decide is whether the cost of your product is justified.

For example, if you’re launching an eco-friendly toothbrush that needs to be renewed every month at $30, people will steer clear of it.

Why? Because the market is already flooded with eco-friendly toothbrushes with bamboo toothbrushes being the most environment friendly as well as cheap.

No matter how grand your idea or how affordable the price may seem, if it’s already in the market, people won’t back it.

On the other hand, if there’s a product that’s unique and the price point can be justified, people will be willing to pay and wait for it – as we have seen with tech products like iiRcade, Octopus watch, and many more.

How do you set your price point for the crowdfunding audience then?

Make sure the following factors are considered.

• How are you different from other competitors in the market?
• How is your price point justified compared to them (this will also be your USP).
• What are the shipping costs of your product?
• What are the manufacturing costs of your product?
• How much of a discount can you really offer and if you do, how does that affect your overall pricing strategy.

So before setting your crowdfunding goal, you need to have a very strong pricing strategy. Remember when you’re open to the public, you’ll have to defend your price point and justify why your product costs this much if there are already other products of a similar nature available in the market.

Why would anyone pay you $10, $100, or $1,000 to support a product that seems fancy, but is not exactly innovative or necessary.

2. Calculating Marketing + Promotion Costs

Your crowdfunding campaign cannot succeed without significant marketing and promotion.

You will have to invest some funds yourself into the project.

You can launch a Kickstarter campaign without marketing spend, but that would not really be helpful.

If no one knows about your project, they won’t back you up – unless you already have this huge list of 500 – 1,000 people who are all highly qualified buyers.

Even then, without any marketing, you won’t be able to reach a broad audience.

Marketing and promotion costs that you should keep in mind are:

• Cost of creating a landing page:$27/month
• Cost of FB ads: $5000 – $7,000
• Cost of email marketing: $500
• Cost of retargeting/remarketing ads: $5000
• Cost of hiring an agency: $5,000

So, a total of around: $20,000 if you want to go big.  

If you’re short on budget and just have $5,000 – $7,000 handy, then you could spend time prepping yourself at least 6 months in advance before starting the campaign. In this case, you can add marketing costs to the overall crowdfunding goal so that later you can use that amount to promote your product.  

3.  Shipping Costs

Kickstarter funding goals usually include shipping costs.

Before setting your goal, factor in the shipping costs as well so you don’t have to deal with any bad surprises later.

If the shipping costs is too high, you can limit your reach to select countries instead of worldwide.

Lastly, consider logistic costs as well. If it’s a product that requires parts, then it must be added to your overall cost.

4. Crowdfunding Platform Fees

Both Indiegogo and Kickstarter change a 5% service fee from the total funding amount.

That is if you make $50,000 in crowdfunding goals, then Kickstarter and Indiegogo will charge $2,500 as a service fee.

So when you’re setting up crowdfunding goals, make sure you’re also calculating the crowdfunding platform fee cost.

Additionally, Stripe, the payment processing partner will also be charging a transaction fee of between 3 – 5% per transaction.

Keep in all these factors when you’re creating your crowdfunding campaign goal.

5. Crowdfunding Earning Taxes

There’s always a lot of speculation about this but crowdfunding earning is tax-deductible.

The money you earn from crowdfunding is considered as income, so you’ll have to pay taxes as per your country’s rules and regulations.

Again, do consider this when setting your goal.

You want to have enough leftover with all the deductions, taxes, fees, and costs to be able to create or manufacture your product.

Most crowdfunding project creators set a random goal or a goal that doesn’t really help them cover costs.

When you meet your goals but still don’t have enough to get the production rolling, you fail to meet deadlines…. And when that happens, your backers feel cheated, and you lose all credibility.

So it’s essential that you understand the overall costs of your project, how much money you want to raise to bring the product to life, and how much do you actually have in hand.

One thing for sure is you cannot crowdfund if you have $0 in hand.

Even though it’s supposedly ‘funding,’ it’s more like e-commerce where you’re asking people to pre-order/buy your product based on face value and wait for it to be delivered.

This is why you have to have some money to invest in marketing, creative production of assets like images and videos to even kickstart the project.

Many people falsely believe that they can just go on Kickstarter and get funded.

As easy as that sounds, it’s hardly the case.

Even for crowdfunding, you have to spend money in getting people to visit your campaign page, sign up, and back your product if they find that they trust you enough.

The post How to Calculate & Decide Your Campaign Funding Goal appeared first on samitpatel.

Did you know you can also use crowdfunding for business and launch your online store?

In fact, crowdfunding is expected to be the future of small business financing where the focus will be on community building.

So how does crowdfunding work in helping you launch an e-commerce store?

Here’s everything you need to know.

What is Crowdfunding?  

Crowdfunding uses a platform like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to connect business owners or project creators to an online community who may be interested in investing, funding, or backing the project.

For a complete understanding of crowdfunding, download the Crowdfunding Launch Playbook.

What is Crowdfunding for Business?

Sometimes, project creators or innovators have just enough funds to create a product prototype. To sell the product to an audience, they would need funding.

Banks or VCs don’t often support product funding unless it has immense potential to disrupt the industry.

Most crowdfunding products are a novelty and hence do not have enough viability to attract the support of bank or VC loans.

This is where crowdfunding for business works its magic.

• Project creators launch their products on a crowdfunding platform.
• They set a funding goal that they need to bring the product to market.
• They set various pledge amounts that backers can “pledge” in return for an early bird price.
• The more people “back” the product, the faster it will reach funding goals.

Once the funding goal is reached, the product owner uses that amount to start manufacturing the product and delivers to backers on the estimated delivery date.

With the help of crowdfunding, the project owner has achieved three key benefits:

1. Received funding from a community to kickstart product development.

2. Now has a community of early adopters and buyers who are also creating hype & boosting the brand image.

3. Now has the chance to take this audience off Kickstarter and to the owner’s personal store.

In some cases, these business owners also launch brick and mortar stores which is then visited by their backers who are in the same city/country.

It’s a win-win deal!

Sounds Easy So Why Isn’t Everyone Using Crowdfunding to Launch E-commerce Stores?

Because without an audience or a community, you are selling to crickets.

And an audience won’t come if they don’t trust you.

With crowdfunding, you’re essentially asking people to pledge/invest in your product without:

• knowing you
• any social proof of your product
• any experience of your product.

So as easy as it sounds, using crowdfunding to launch your e-commerce store requires a strategic approach.

How to Launch E-commerce Store Using Crowdfunding?

While there’s a lot of work involved in launching an e-commerce store using crowdfunding, you can begin by taking these basic steps:

1. Conduct a Market Survey of Your Product:

Never begin a crowdfunding campaign without conducting a survey to understand audience expectations of your product.

One of the classic mistakes most product founders do is launch directly without adequate market surveys to understand whether the intended audience will even pay for the product.

If you’re selling something for, say, $300 – $500, on a crowdfunding platform, you need to be sure it’s something people would line up to buy!

2. Conduct an In-Depth Research for Similar Products on Crowdfunding Platforms

Always make it a point to conduct in-depth research for other similar products on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

You can go on to the crowdfunding platform, type in the keyword (for e.g fitness smartwatch) and assess the results.

Go through each and list down key points in a spreadsheet as shown here:

This data is important for you to assess so you can position your price point, messaging, and USPs.

3. Build a Landing Page to Showcase Your Product

If you’re new and just starting out, build a landing page to talk about your project.

Don’t lead your crowdfunding audience to an online store yet.

The way it works is the landing page becomes a squeeze page where your audience can sign in so they can become part of your email funnel.

This way you can reach them directly with product updates and launch details.

Here’s an example of a landing page.

4. Start Driving Traffic to the Landing Page Using Free & Paid Mediums

Now that you’ve got the landing page ready, start driving traffic to the page using a combination of free and paid mediums.

Free channels include email marketing, content marketing, social media, word-of-mouth marketing, groups.

Paid channels include Facebook ads, Twitter ads, retargeting ads.

With all this, you direct traffic to your landing page where they can sign up to the deal.

5. Get Ready to Launch When You Have At least Over 200 Sign-ups

For crowdfunding to kickstart, you need to have at least, over 200 sign-ups.

But make sure you calculate this estimation based on your funding goal.

So, if your funding goal is $10,000 and you expect each person to pay at least $79, then 200 ready backers mean you’ll be looking at around $15,800.

That’s just an initial figure to start with.

During your campaign, you’ll be sending out multiple emails, invest more in retargeting and Facebook ads to direct people to the page.

A crowdfunding campaign is live for 30 days only. You have to make sure you meet or exceed your funding goals.

In case you don’t meet your goals, you won’t be able to obtain any amount from Kickstarter because the platform operates on an All-or-Nothing model. This means if you don’t meet your funding goal, you won’t be able to withdraw any money raised.

6. Moving to E-commerce After a Successful Launch

If your product is a hit and you’ve over exceeded your goals by making a 6 or 7-figure raise, you can now invest that money into building an e-commerce store (of course after making sure it’s spent on manufacturing and ensuring delivery on time).

At this point, you’re scaling.

If you’re still unprepared for an e-commerce store, you can raise additional funds using Indiegogo In-Demand, a platform by Indiegogo that allows successful Indiegogo and Kickstarter campaigns to continue raising funds.

You May Also Like to Read:

5 Essential benefits of crowdfunding: what exactly makes it cool?
How To Achieve Success With A Crowdfunding Campaign? Digital Marketing

Although crowdfunding is supposed to help you with funds for the project, you’ll still need to have some money for marketing and spending on creative assets.

And if you want the help of an agency, you’ll need to have at least $7,000+ set aside.

To Conclude

If you’ve got an amazing product idea but limited funds to get started, you might want to consider crowdfunding. If that proves a success, you can invest the money raised into building your online e-commerce store!

The post How to Use Crowdfunding to Launch Your Online Store appeared first on samitpatel.

It has reportedly generated $5.95 B in pledges from over 19 million backers to fund 529,591 projects such as films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video game, technology, and food-related projects.

Entrepreneurs who want to use crowdfunding to launch their projects use Kickstarter to raise money.

In this quick guide, you’ll find a collection of blog articles and resources we’ve created to guide you through each step of your Kickstarter crowdfunding journey.

We’ll keep updating this guide so you get all the information you need in one place.

Chapter 1: Is Crowdfunding Right For You?

Not sure if crowdfunding is the right choice for you? Everything you need to know about launching a crowdfunding campaign is given in the articles below.

1. 5 Questions to Help You Decide if Crowdfunding is the Right Choice to Launch
2. What are the Different Types of Crowdfunding Models
3. Here are 5 Reasons Why Crowdfunding IS the Best Way to Raise Money
4. Key Benefits of Crowdfunding
5. What are the Top Crowdfunding Sites to Launch Your Campaign
6. How Crowdfunding is Changing the Way Companies Raise Money
7. 5 Key Challenges of Crowdfunding Campaigns to Know Before Starting

Chapter 2: Kickstarter vs Indiegogo – Choosing Between Two Platforms

Two of the world’s most popular crowdfunding platforms are Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008.

Indiegogo has supposedly generated $1.6 B in pledges from 9 million backers to fund 800,000 campaigns from 235 countries.

Despite its impressive metrics, Indiegogo has an 18% success rate as compared to Kickstarter’s 34%.

So which of the two is best for you? Everything you need to know is given here:

1. Kickstarter vs Indiegogo – Which Platform Should You Choose for Campaign Launch
2. Kickstarter vs Indiegogo 2020 – Which Platform Did the Best?
3. Five Important Differences Between Kickstarter and Indiegogo
4. Kickstarter vs Indiegogo 2019 – Which Platform Did the Best
5. Indiegogo or Kickstarter for Games – Which is the Best?
6. How Much Does it Cost to Run a Crowdfunding Campaign on Kickstarter and Indiegogo?

Chapter 3: Getting Started on Kickstarter

So, you’ve chosen Kickstarter to launch your crowdfunding campaign. How do you go about it and what do you need to do to get ready?

Here’s everything you need to know.

1. How Does Kickstarter Funding Work? A Quick Guide
2. How to Start and Launch a Kickstarter Campaign?
3. Can Kickstarter Be Used to Start a Business? Here’s Everything You Need to Know.
4. How Does Kickstarter Work?
5. Kickstarter Fees and Additional Costs You Need to Know When Launching a Crowdfunding Campaign
6. Will my Kickstarter Succeed? 5 Things that Will Determine Your Success
7. What Happens When Kickstarter Campaign Fails?
8. What is the Most Funded Kickstarter Project?
9. What are Kickstarter Stretch Goals?
10. Can Kickstarter be Used to Start a Business?

Chapter 4: How to Start with Kickstarter Campaign Marketing & Promotion?

Now that you’ve got started on Kickstarter, what’s the best way to market and advertising your campaign to get a successful launch?

Here’s everything you need to know

1. How to Promote a Kickstarter Campaign. A Quick Guide
2. How to Use Influencer Marketing for Your Kickstarter Campaign
3. How to Get Engagement for Your Kickstarter Campaign
4. Guide to Build Your Landing Page for Your Kickstarter Campaign
5. How to Write an Attention-Grabbing Press Release for Kickstarter
6. How to Use Digital Marketing to Succeed with Kickstarter Campaign
7. Ultimate Marketing Strategies to Smash Your Kickstarter Campaign Goals

Chapter 5: Facebook Marketing for Your Kickstarter Campaign

Still the world’s most popular social media software, Facebook is an integral part of your Kickstarter marketing strategy. In fact, dare we say, you can’t have a successful Kickstarter campaign without a strong Facebook marketing campaign.

1. Facebook Ads for Crowdfunding
2. How to Build Up Facebook Likes for Your Crowdfunding Campaign
3. A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Custom & Lookalike Audience Set
4. How Much Should I Spend on Facebook Ads? A Budget Guide.
5. Facebook VIP Group Advertising Strategy

Crowdfunding is a long journey that involves deep planning, crucial decisions to make, and very strategic marketing.

This page is your go-to guide for all things related to Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunding. Bookmark it and visit it for any information you need to be successful with Kickstarter.

The post Kickstarter Crowdfunding Campaign – A Complete Step by Step Guide appeared first on samitpatel.

But with Facebook Fan Page posts receiving less reach than ever, companies are desperately looking for another Facebook channel to reach these people.

Facebook Groups give companies a place to share content that’s relevant to a specific audience. It lets you have one-on-one discussions with your audience which is way more effective than a page where the interaction is usually one-way.

If you use Facebook Groups for relationship building, you can drive a significant amount of traffic and sales from the connections you make.

With no cost to starting a Facebook Group to share content with an engaged community, it’s a no-brainer to include this strategy to boost your crowdfunding campaign.

Getting Started on Facebook Groups

1. Log in to your Facebook Profile and on the left bar, click on Groups.
   

2. Create a new group and name it after your product/brand.

Make sure you keep it private for now. However, keep the group as “visible” so anyone can find it but not anyone can join it unless they answer a few key questions. As for the group name, keep it after your product or brand name. So for example, if your product name is Occulus VR, then the group name should be the same.

3. Do remember to upload a relevant image for the group. Ideally, you should have an image that represents your product. Here’s an example from one of our clients Oak Journal.

4. Now that you’ve got the image, name, and group settings arranged, start inviting your firneds to join the group. Community building starts from home! Get your team to join the group and ask them to invite their friends and family too. This way when your actual target customers join, they won’t feel like it’s an empty page.

5. Membership questions are important to vet people before you accept them in the community. These questions will also help you identify your lead sources too. Some common questions you can ask are:

• We will be launching on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform to bring this porect to market. Do you understand Kcikstarter or crowdfunding (yes/no)
• How did you find this group?
• What excites you about this project?
• What’s the one thing about this product that made you sign up?
• Do you agree to meeting the terms and conditions of this community (i.e is no abusive language etc)

How to Engage with the Community

Your Facebook group can only grow if you’re able to keep your community engaged. 

This starts by connecting with your audience and understanding their pain points, their needs, and how your product helps them. 

Here’s a simple example of how a beard brand initiated a discussion about asking what the user’s problem with growing their beard was. This kind of question not only generates interaction but can also provide a business with customer insights & challenges that they never knew existed.

Here are some valuable engagement tactics to help grow your Facebook group. 

1. Welcome all your members by tagging them in the post

People like being acknowledged. When members join your group, give them a warm welcome by tagging them in a post. 

2. Use polls and surveys

Create polls, surveys and quizzes to keep the engagement level high. People love participating in quizzes or polls. You can even use these to create a contest and perhaps offer prizes or cool incentives. 

3. Ask people to share their thoughts and opinions (be sure you can moderate it)

People don’t want to just consume content all day long. They also want to share thoughts and opinions. They want to participate and talk about topics they are passionate about. User-generated content is a great way to build an authentic, enriching community. 

4. Questions that stir engagement

Ask debate-intensive questions relevant to your industry. So for example, if you’re a consumer product company, you could ask, ‘iPhone 11 or Note 10’? Although there is already significant debate out there, people seldom miss a chance to talk about their favorite device or brand. You can also ask list-based questions such as, ‘Who is your favorite influencer?’ or ‘Top Influencers to Follow……’ 

5. Post videos and quotes

Images and videos posted in a group have chances of higher engagement than being posted on the main page where people are more reluctant to engage. Your sole objective is to create content that generates interest, motivating people to engage with your business. You can also ask people to share their pictures and videos to earn a referral bonus or discount. 

Facebook groups have grown popular over the decade, however, they are only effective if you take out the time to create engaging content and also remain engaged with your audience through comments, responses, etc. 

With the combinative power of groups and pages, businesses can use Facebook to its full potential. 

How to Grow a Facebook VIP Group Community to 1k+ Members

There are no hacks to growing a community other than providing your members with quality content and keeping them engaged. That said, a product-focused community is very different from a cause-driven or business community. The more members you join, the higher your chances of raising money on your launch day.

1. Advertise your group on your Facebook page:

You can’t run ads directly to the group, but you can use your page to advertise the group. The fundamental difference between the group and the page is that the group is for private members only while the page is for public. So you could advertise your page, get people to like your page and then move them into joining the group.

2. Send out your group link in email communication:

If you’re sending out targeted emails to customers or leads, you can ask them to join your group to stay updated with exclusive information. Instead of asking people to like your page via email, you can instead ask them to join the group and receive exclusive VIP discounts. This is more effective than asking them to like or share a page.

3. Advertise the group on your website:

Want your website visitors to be part of the community? You can prompt them to join the group from the website. You can do this via pop-up forms, exit forms or on your thank you page – just like how we’ve done here.

Facebook Group Engagement Tips Summary : 

• Accompany every post with an image 
• Engage every day and post a variety of content 
• Plan a content calendar with a variation of posts 
• Dedicate a day for every type of post. For example, Mondays are for Updates only. 
• Share fun, engaging content
• Ask friends and family to chime in initially 
• Promote content from your website and other digital platforms to the group. 
• Create polls and ask for people’s opinions
• Share discounts and referral campaigns 

You May Also Like to Read:

How the New IOS 14 Update Affects Facebook ads for your IndieGoGo campaign & what you can do about it.

You have 60 days until the final launch to make the most out of your group. Remember, the group is a community of your target audience and it can easily grow into thousands of loyal members who will help you boost brand recognition as well as sales.

The post Facebook VIP Group for Crowdfunding Projects – How to Make it Work? appeared first on samitpatel.

Small businesses are panicking. Facebook is fuming.

But not all is as bad (if you choose to ignore Facebook’s rants). The new update lets you prioritize key events to track instead of tracking every movement. While this may seem restrictive, we strongly believe it will help businesses retain their focus & specifically measure for what matters.

So whether you’re a small business or an Indiegogo funded campaign, you can turn this roadblock into an opportunity by taking key actions recommended by Facebook.

Here’s how.

Understand What the iOS 14 Policy Update is About

Specifically, Apple will require apps in the App Store to show a prompt to iOS 14 users, asking if they allow “app” to track their activities across other companies’ apps and websites. Users who opt out of tracking will no longer have ads following them across the internet.

The new feature will keep users’ online life more private by giving them the option to turn off ad tracking within the apps they use. This means apps cannot use data for targeted ads, share location data with advertisers or advertising ID with any other third parties.

How Does this Impact Facebook Ads?

Facebook ads thrive on aggregated data. The impact however is not limited to just ads visibility. It affects web conversions, ad personalization, performance reporting & more importantly, reduced effectiveness as more and more people opt out of tracking.

Pixel actions like form submission, click to download, add to cart, purchase completion will have less numbers reported.

As a result, less pixel tracking activity means there will be less data to work with when optimizing ads.

Lastly, Lookalike Audiences will be the most impacted as users who opted out of the iOS 14 updates won’t be included in retargeting or lookalike audiences.

Facebook objectives affected by this change are:

Traffic, App Installs, Conversions, Catalog Sales.

Another critical change is the limiting of Event Tracking.

For each domain, there will now be only a limit of 8 events that can be tracked – and these 8 events will be automatically assigned by Facebook based on what it believes is the most relevant to your business.

Users who opt out of the tracking will only be logged for one event if they click on a Facebook ad.

Aggregated Event Measurement – Facebook’s Solution to the Changes

In response to the new update where user privacy is preserved & small business can still run campaigns, Facebook launched the Aggregated Event Measurement – a solution that allows for measurement of web events from iOS 14 or later device.

Under this solution, there are several actions that businesses must implement to be able to continue running & measuring campaign performance.

A quick summary of the update:

1. If you deliver ads for conversion events that occur in your business’s app then you need to update to Facebook’s SDK for iOS 14.
2. If you deliver ads for conversion events that occur in your business’s website, then you need to verify your website’s domain. You can learn how to verify your domain here.
3. Configure 8 web conversion events per domain in the Events Manager. Facebook will automatically configure the conversion events relevant to your business based on your activity.
4. You can continue using existing ad accounts to advertise to iOS 14 users, but if it’s for app install campaigns, you’ll need to create separate campaigns due to the reporting limitations from Apple’s SKAdNetwork API.
5. Data reporting may be delayed for up to 3 days. Real-time reporting will no longer be supported.
6. Use broad audience and targeting expansion for audience targeting.

It’s too early to predict how these changes will impact sales & ROI but considering that iOS 14 is now installed on 85 per cent of all iPhones, of which there are 1 billion people, businesses need to up their advertising game.

How Does the New Policy Impact Indiegogo Campaigns?

The new policy & update has created a ripple affect across industries. Third-party platforms that allow for Facebook Pixel integration such as Indiegogo will have to create new solution layers to meet the changes.

Indiegogo, being a crowdfunding platform allows campaigners to optimize Facebook ad campaigns through web event data as well as Indiegogo campaign page traffic insights.

With the AEM protocol, Indiegogo has had to create a solution which it called the Conversions API (CAPI) to continue to allow Facebook Pixel to function optimally on Indiegogo campaign pages.

Why the Need for CAPI & How to Set it Up for Your Campaign

It’s important to mention that domain ownership is the most important point in the AEM protocol. This means advertisers have to verify their domains with their Facebook Business Manager to continue running campaigns.

Campaign pages on Indiegogo are not owned by the campaigners, instead they are hosted on Indiegogo servers. This means you won’t be able to verify your Indiegogo campaign page and hence, Facbeook Pixel will not work on the page.

CAPI is the solution to this problem.

CAPI makes it possible to deliver events from the Indiegogo campaign page directly to Facebook’s server under your domain name.

So if you’re running an Indiegogo campaign, here’s what you can do to continue running and measuring ads.

1. Register a Domain Name Relevant to Your Campaign

The purpose of this domain name will simply be to integrate CAPI in the backend therefore it doesn’t need to be an expensive name. You can even go on namecheap and just buy any domain name you like (do try to make it relevant to your campaign).

• Verify the Purchased Domain the FB Account

 Go to Your Facebook Business Manager –> Settings –> Business Settings –> Brand Safety –> Domains –> Add Your Domain

Once the domain is added, refresh the page, then click on meta-tag verification.

• Recreating the Facebook Pixel Setup with a New Pixel

The old pixel will no longer work, so you’ll have to recreate the pixel again using the API conversion method as given in the AEM protocol. To re-create the Facebook pixel simply go through the same process of creating a pixel, but just choose Conversion API for web events.

• Submit New Pixel & Domain to Indiegogo

Submit the pixel and domain to the Extra tab of the Indiegogo admin account. Once the pixel is submitted, it will be loaded at Indiegogo’s backend.

• Give Indiegogo Campaign Page Access to Pixel

Select the pixel that you want to share to your Indiegogo campaign page access, then send Indiegogo a partnership request. You can get this done by visiting Assigning Partners in your Business manager (Business Setting –> Data Sources –> Pixels à Assign Partners). For CAPI to work smoothly, be sure to grant Full Control “Manage Pixel.”

• Configure Aggregated Events Measurement (AEM)

The last step is to add events to your website domain & assign them to the designated pixel. It might take 72 hours for AEM to show up, however, it will only show up when there are event activities on the campaign page.

Now that it’s all integrated, launch your campaign and check if the data is flowing correctly.

You May Also Like to Read:

Facebook VIP Group for Crowdfunding Projects – How to Make it Work? – samitpatel

Recommended Reading for Details:

1. Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM)
2. Domain Name Verification
3. Guide for Setting Up Events
4. Guide on Setting Up CAPI Pixel
5. Guidelines for Checking CAPI Functionality  

What Does the Future Hold for Facebook Advertising in General and for Crowdfunding?

It’s really too early to be making predictions at this point. Sure the impact is heavy, but then again, it also opens up new opportunities for businesses to discover better ways to advertise rather than to rely solely on one social media channel. More importantly, it allows you to track only metrics that matter, helping you retain focus & monitoring key events over a hundred different events.

The post How the New IOS 14 Update Affects facebook ads for your indiegogo campaign & what you can do about it. appeared first on samitpatel.

Got an idea of how to create and start your Indiegogo campaigns? Let’s go through a basic Indiegogo marketing & strategy GUIDE to see how to do exactly that.

Quick Overview Video ⬇️

Preparation

You already have a Indiegogo campaigns in mind. Be it a charitable cause or a commercial project, Indiegogo makes it possible to put your plan out there and connect you with backers who believe in your goals.

To get started, visit Indiegogo and register your account. Remember to fill all details correctly, especially the payment ones so that your pledges end up where they’re meant to be. Make sure you go through their rules and list of prohibited items.

Once done with your account registration, simply click the ‘Start a Campaign’ area on the main website to get started. This assumes you are already logged in as a registered user.

To get started, Indiegogo will offer you to choose between funding a project or a cause. Select the appropriate option, and you will be required to fill in some basic information regarding your initiative.

You will have to fill out data related to:

• The Recipient: Choose between Individual or Business/Non-Profit. This is an important step that determines how your funds will be disbursed at the conclusion of your campaign. Be aware that this option cannot be changed later, so choose the right one.
• Country: Select the country where your firm or residence is located. You will also have to specify where your bank is located. Please consult the list of countries where Indiegogo is supported in order to avoid problems later on. Please also keep in mind that this information cannot be changed later.

Once everything is in order, submit the information on this page and click Start My Campaign.

But hold on. Your Indiegogo campaigns details are only saved in Draft mode right now. This essentially means that the campaign is not yet public. Please note that campaigns in Draft mode are deleted after 6 months and removed from your account.

Creating your campaign

Now we come to the meat of the process – your campaign creation. You will be taken to Indiegogo’s Create/Edit Campaign Tool.

You will be greeted with options like this:

It is time to fill out all the information the best way you can.

Some tips that can help you put your best foot forward and leave a great impression on your backers:

• Choose an amazing yet relevant image for your campaign. People will be seeing this image as the first thing on your Indiegogo campaign landing page. Make sure it is attractive enough for people to click on it.
• Come up with a catchy campaign title and short description. These elements can be best described as the headline and subheading for your project.

Make it work with Good Content

Now its time to put up some seriously compelling content. This essentially means coming up with a viral Indiegogo campaigns video, and a story that resonates with your target audience. Let’s tackle these two things one by one.

Video

They say video killed the radio star, and for good reason. Videos are the most consumed content type on the internet, so getting it right boosts your chances to resonate with fans and backers.

Tips on making a killer video:

• Short and sweet. Anything within 1-3 minutes is good. Make sure you get your point across by mentioning your Indiegogo campaigns goals and intentions within the video.
• Hook them in the first 10 seconds. You know what they say about first impressions.
• This video can also be used as a YouTube banner ad if done right.
• Give your video a personal touch by appearing in it yourself.
• Your backers want to see what your project is all about, so make sure you give them a sneak peek.
• Ask your audience to join you on this incredible journey in making a difference.
• Give a clear-cut call of action at the end of the video.
• Upload it to YouTube and/or Vimeo. Make sure you add the video URL so that your campaign grows organically.

Tips on getting your story out there exactly right:

• Vital information first, the rest is secondary.
• Be compelling but don’t drag on.
• People want to know why you need the money. Convince them.
• Talk about yourself, your team and any events/experiences that made you embark on this journey.
• Proofread everything.
• Create a FAQ section.
• Break your long text content with images and videos in between.

Funding

You will have to choose what sort of funding you’re opting for – fixed or flexible. You can read all about these two types of funding here.

Once you select the option that works best for you, Indiegogo will finally ask where you want your funds to be disbursed. Assuming you chose from the list of supported countries, Indiegogo will ask for your bank account information.

You May Also Like to Read:

Kickstarter Crowdfunding Campaign – A Complete Step by Step Guide
What is the Best Time and Day to Launch Indiegogo Campaign?
10 Game-Changing Factors For Crowdfunding Success

Last but not the least, Indiegogo campaigns will ask you which currency and funding goal you want. Please be aware that these options can’t be changed later.

Add Team Members

If you have any other people who are part of your project, you can simply enter their email addresses in the ‘New Team Member Email’ field. You can also designate them as editors if you like. Editors can access your Indiegogo dashboard and edit campaign details.

You also have the option of sharing your draft campaign with others via the ‘Generate Link’ option under Extras.

Tip: Make sure you create a short link to your campaign. It’s easier to share and remember with your audience.

InDemand

If you want your campaign to keep raising funds even after reaching your funding goals or passing the deadline, you can do so by selecting ‘InDemand’ option.

It’s launch time!

Now that you are done with everything, it is time for you to move your Indiegogo campaign from draft to reality.

It is a good idea to check everything is in order before hitting the ‘Launch Campaign’ button. Indiegogo will prompt you if any important information is missing. By launching your campaign, you will be liable to Indiegogo’s Terms of Use.

And that’s it. Good luck raising funds for your project.

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