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Nearly a year spent preparing for the final Kickstarter launch and if you don’t get the time or day right, you could end up missing your funding goal by miles. That’s not a good place to be in.

So what’s the secret sauce?

What makes the first hour or first day of a campaign successful?

What can you do to hit $10K or $100K on the first day?

Here’s everything you need to know.

Advanced Planning is a Critical Component to Crowdfunding Success

There’s a reason experts recommend a nine to six months preparation time in Kickstarter launching a campaign. This advanced preparation time gives you the necessary insights into understanding your target audience and their online behaviors.

When planning your campaign, you need to create a chart for all the times and days you can use to send promotional emails and reminders to your target audience.

As you integrate Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel in your landing pages to study target audience activities and behaviors, you’ll have a concrete idea of the best time and day to launch the actual Kickstarter campaign.

For instance, Google Analytics ’ Audience tool will show you, visitors, by week, hour, and month. Based on this data, you can decide on the best month, time, and day to launch your campaign.

Additionally, if you’ve been running Facebook Ads for your campaign, you can also use Facebook analytics to decipher the hours your target audience is the most active to engage with your posts.

These statistics will not only help you identify the best time and day to launch a Kickstarter campaign but will also help you launch all other promotional campaigns at a time your audience is active.

Deciding on the Best Month

The month is often overlooked, but it’s actually the most important factor to consider. For instance, people begin prepping for Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and CyberMonday (all in November) so if you plan to maximize sales during these events, your campaign should be launched at least two months prior in order for production and delivery to take place.

Next, is Christmas, which makes it more necessary to prepare in advance. Generally, September, October, and November are the most popular months on Kickstarter where there is a rise in supporters mainly for those campaigns that promise to deliver by November or Christmas.

January is not a good time to launch a Kickstarter campaign because people are recovering from Christmas spending and are probably taking a break from things. February and March are just right, way before Easter in April. 

May, June, July, and August are usually vacation months and with kids staying home, your audience may not be as active online. 

To summarize, your best months for launching a successful campaign are February, March, April, and then September, October. 

Deciding on the Best Day

So now that you have the best month, what’s the best day!  Well, it differs based on the region and target audience. Although Google Analytics can give a good indicator of the best day, you can also choose to launch on a Tuesday, which, according to Kickstarter reports is the most popular day.

Creators often think weekends are great for launching a campaign, but it’s the weekdays such as Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday that are the most popular.

Generally, creators start their campaigns on a Tuesday and end it on a Thursday night.

Deciding on the Best Time

Ah! Which is the best hour? Well, if you’re following the US market, 7 am to 9 am that is before the beginning of a workday, and 12 pm to 1 pm which is lunchtime is the most popular and successful launch time.

If the US is not your target audience, you will have to rely on your Google and Facebook analytics to determine your audience’s most active hours. If needed, you can even launch an online survey to study your audience’s most preferred times to browse Kickstarter.

To summarize then, the best time and day to launch a Kickstarter campaign is Tuesday, in the month of August at 1 pm.

This is the sweet spot of a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Again, it’s important to corroborate this time with your data. Remember, this is not a one-size, fit-all routine. You will need to rely on your own data and observations to decide the best launch time and day.

Deciding on Campaign Duration

How long should a campaign run for?

Creators usually think the longer they run, the more funding they can get. It’s quite the opposite actually.

If your campaign runs longer than 30 days, you will lose traction. You’ll have to spend double the amount and effort in promotions and ads to keep your project on the front page.

If you run your campaign too short, that is in five or ten days, you risk not meeting your intended goal.

In our experience, 30 days is just the right time to keep the campaign running.

The focus however is to get maximum funding at the beginning and at the end of a campaign.

During the second and third weeks, you can use your promotional activities to push the audience towards the “finale” of the campaign.

Make sure all your promotional content is created in advance and follows a publication calendar.

During the campaign days, you must focus on building a relationship with the audience, providing support, and answering queries as needed.

To Conclude

The best day(s): Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

The best month(s): April, May, August

The best hour(s): Before work, Lunchtime

Campaign days: 30

Create a publication calendar and have all your promotional materials ready and meet all the conditions of the crowdfunding platform before the actual launch. Keep a checklist and stay engaged with your audience during the campaign launch time.

Lastly, don’t forget to learn from other similar campaigns. The stronger your research, the better your plan, and the higher your chances of succeeding with your campaign goals.

You May Also Like to Read:

How Does a Kickstarter Work? – Rules & Key Terms
How to Make 6 Figure Kickstarter Video

 Need help in deciding what works best for your campaign? 

Reach out to us and let us help you run a successful campaign!

The post HOW TO START AND LAUNCH A KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN? appeared first on samitpatel.

So what exactly is influencer marketing and should you use it for your Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign? Let’s find out.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Over the past few years, social media has helped many people to become, ‘influencers,’ meaning these are people who have millions of followers, but it’s not just the followers that makes anyone an influencer – it’s the power an influencer holds in affecting purchase decisions of their followers. For example, if a tech influencer encourages the purchase of a certain smartphone brand, their followers will believe in their recommendation because of their authority or knowledge.

More importantly, it’s the connection of trust that these influencers have with their audience that gives them this power of influence – hence making them influencers.

Recently, there has been a significant buzz on the rise of influencers and the power they hold when it comes to influencing the purchase decisions of their audience. Brands, businesses large and small therefore have been actively pursuing influencers to create a buzz around their products. For influencers, this translates into a lot of money.

Simply put, influencer marketing refers to approaching influencers and getting them to talk or share your product with their target audience. For crowdfunding campaigns, influencer marketing may mean getting influencers to support your brand. In other words, this is as equal to a local brand looking for celebrity endorsements.

Influencer Marketing and Crowdfunding

While influencer marketing works great for established brands and businesses (they got the money!), for crowdfunding campaigns, it may be a significant challenge. Your goal in influencer marketing is a tad bit subtle – you don’t get them to back your project, rather you get them to encourage their audience to support your brand. We all know this doesn’t come easy.

Therefore, as appealing and popular influencer marketing may be, they aren’t effective for every product or crowdfunding campaign. Before you invest time or energy into making influencer marketing a part of your overall marketing strategy, it is important to understand how it works and what you need to do in order to properly execute the campaign.

Who Do I Target?

This is a common dilemma when it comes to influencer marketing. Do you directly go for celebrity influencers who may be famous, household names, but who are impossible to reach and are represented by agents? Or do you opt for subject matter experts who may not be Insta famous, but who have a serious standing in the industry? These may be journalists, business leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, writers, authors or reviewers.

Then there are micro-influencers who have less than 25,000 followers on average, however, they have a highly engaged community which is often also very niche-focused.

While it may be tempting to aim for the big fish, in our experience, you should always start influencer marketing by going after the micro-influencers – meaning the local influencers with highly active, niche communities.

These micro-communities thrive with valuable content and communication. They are the most beneficial for small businesses and are more easily approachable than others.

How Should I Go About with Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing for crowdfunding campaigns is tricky. Unlike established brands, crowdfunding dependent businesses do not have a complete product, either a known reputation. Therefore, influencer marketing will have to be done with a strong story and a giveaway. Why story? Because crowdfunding caters to the audiences’ emotions about a certain product. They need to feel some sort of connection with the product or the founder in order to donate an amount.

Once you have your story in order, reach out to influencers with a clear goal – ask them to create a buzz about your campaign in return for a product. This essentially means influencer marketing may work well post-campaign when you have the money to buy the product (assuming the product is dependent on the crowdfunding money to be developed).

On the other hand, if you have both money and product, you can start early and spend a small amount on each influencer you want to work with.

Whichever influencer group you target or whichever stage you want to use influencer marketing, one thing is important – your communication with the influencers must be organic, authentic and valuable. The more genuine and authentic you are, the stronger they will promote your product.

Be Consistent. Be Well Informed. Be Genuine

Identifying influencers is not a simple matter of getting a list off of Google. You will need to research the type of influencers you want to work with, check their social profiles out to see if they share the same values as you or if they have the audience that you need.

Once you are done with the research, you have to find a way to reach out to them. Do note that you are unlikely to get initial responses, but that’s OK. If you get 10 responses out of 100 influencers, you can focus on securing the 10 instead of worrying about the other 90.

You May Also Like to Read:

Press Release For Kickstarter | Pitch Press Release Without Being Ignored
How to Promote Kickstarter Campaign? A Quick Promotion Guide.
How to Get Engagement for Your Kickstarter Campaign – Samit Patel

Establish a one-on-one relationship with these influencers via phone calls or local meetings. Engage with them regularly on social media. Email them updates. Collaborate with them. Offer a free service or product in exchange for promotions.

Still Need Help? Reach Out to Us.

If all this feels overwhelming, don’t worry. Reach out to us and let us help you with a comprehensive influencer marketing strategy from pre-launch to post-launch and beyond. We help spread the word about your campaign, help you exceed your goal and eventually ensuring your post-crowdfunding business is successful.

Check out the videos below for more.

The post Using Influencer Marketing for Your Kickstarter Campaign? Here’s Everything You Need to Know appeared first on samitpatel.

Whether you’re at the start of your campaign or nearing the end of it, you need to constantly promote your campaign if you want your business to grow and gain an audience.

So how do you go about promoting a Kickstarter campaign and garner support from people across the globe? Here are a few practical suggestions.

Create a Detailed Promotion Plan and Break it Into Phases

There is a lot more to a Kickstarter campaign that simply sharing stuff on social media. A well-executed promotion plan consists of sub-plans such as content creation, social media posting, pitching and messaging, email outreach, media outreach and even paid ads.

The promotion of your campaign is a constant activity which can become overwhelming and chaotic if you don’t have a process or a blueprint plan ready.

Your plan should cover essential pointers such as:

• Campaign milestones and associated goals
• Campaign duration and the figures you want to see within that duration
• Who is your audience and how do you reach them
• What will be your main content assets? (A press release, blog posts, etc)
• Will you have any online/offline promotion events?
• Which media outlets do you want to approach?
• How will you outreach via email?

Most importantly, your plan must address the fundamental goal – Getting solid backers for the campaign. While your initial backers may be friends, family, and acquaintances, you will eventually need more people to support your campaign.

It is also recommended to break your promotion plan into phases. So for example, if Phase 1 is the Launch Phase, you’ll need to have a clear plan on how you want to announce your campaign.

In the second phase, you’ll want to focus on strategies to grow your backers and your audience.

In the third phase, you’ll want to promote the achievement of milestones and so on. Divide your phases according to your campaign milestones and duration for each.

Having All Your Communication Assets Ready

A classic mistake most campaigners make is creating communication assets (videos, blog posts, press releases etc) during the campaign instead of prior to launching the campaign.

The rule of thumb is, you must have all your content material, communication assets, and branding assets ready even before the campaign launch.

During the campaign itself, you’ll be busy achieving milestones and will not have time to tackle promotional stuff. Whether you’re hiring a team or doing it yourself, standard practice is to have everything ready beforehand.

Before launching your promotion campaign, make sure you have the following in place:

• Your branding material (logo, business cards, letterheads, brochures, PDFs etc)
• A basic website or blog (this is absolutely necessary)
• Press releases
• List of media outlets to reach out with email addresses of editors
• Active social media accounts
• A series of blog posts
• A set of pitch emails
• A professionally created video
• Events you want to host

Prior to launching your campaign, you should spend at least 2 months preparing all your content so that by the time you launch, you have everything ready to kick off.

Go Beyond the Ordinary

You’re sharing your campaign on social media, you’re reaching out to the press and you’ve got quite some noise, but this is not enough. Go beyond the ordinary.

Be part of communities and groups where you can find investors, backers, and people who are always on the lookout for a great product or cause to support. Look out for exclusive groups on Facebook or LinkedIn, subreddits on Reddit and online communities for crowdfunding campaigners.

More importantly, set out a budget to invest in social media ads (after you have data on where your audience is the most active). Since social media ads are costly, use this wisely at the various stages of your campaign.

Hiring a Promotion and Marketing Team

By now, you’ve probably realized that promoting a campaign is a critical task and one that can make or break your campaign.

It’s always better to hire a professional team to get the promotion and marketing work done. This will save you time to focus on building your product/service instead of worrying about getting in touch with the next influencer.

You May Also Like to Read:

How to Promote Kickstarter Campaign? A Quick Promotion Guide.
The Framework of a Successful Kickstarter Marketing Campaign
How to Get Engagement for Your Kickstarter Campaign

Most marketing agencies already have media access and can help you achieve your goals faster, better.

Crowdfunding can attract the right investors for you, but it’s only successful if you have a good promotion plan in place. Have any other suggestions or questions? Drop your comments below!

The post How to Promote a Kickstarter Campaign appeared first on samitpatel.