17 Feb Using Influencer Marketing for Your Kickstarter Campaign? Here’s Everything You Need to Know

When it comes to promoting your Kickstarter campaign, you have to use every kickstarter marketing strategy in the book – and that includes the ever sought after but the ever evasive influencer marketing.

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.