I’ve learned firsthand from recently launching a Kickstarter campaign that creating a crowdfunding campaign is not hard but succeeding at it is. Most campaigns fail. Of the 305,667 projects that have been launched on Kickstarter to date, only about a third (107,995) have been successfully funded.
Of those nearly 108,000 successful projects, only 174 companies have raised over $1 million. One of those companies is Ravean, a startup that makes heated jackets and other heated products. Last year it raised $1.3 million on Kickstarter in 60 days, with another few hundred thousand dollars of sales in the aftermath via Indiegogo.
Ravean co-founder Bryce Fisher says one of his secrets to fundraising success shouldn’t be a secret at all. He uses vendors who provide services specifically to entrepreneurs running Kickstarter campaigns. In a recent Periscope interview with Josh Steimle of MWI, a digital marketing agency that offers Kickstarter campaign management services, Fisher shared how five of these companies helped his team turn their Kickstarter campaign into a huge success.
Untorch
What is it: An automated referral program for email signups. Untorch creates an email capture form, provides each sign up with a unique URL to share and keeps track of referrals for users.
How it worked: “Say you start a campaign on Facebook and are going to give away a hoodie. People click in and it goes to a landing page where it says you can win a free hoodie if you share this with five other people. In about 10 days we had 1,500 email sign ups.”
BackerKit
What is it: A third-party app that facilitates all the follow-up and accounting for surveys that also pushes upsells to backers after the campaign. BackerKit also automates shipping and distributes digital downloads.
How it worked: “BackerKit facilitates upsells, and we made over $100,000 in upsells after the campaign.”
Related: The 10 Most Funded Kickstarter Campaigns Ever
FundedToday
What is it: A crowdfunding consulting firm that helps projects raise more money through its proprietary Lookalike Audiences on Facebook.
How it worked: “When we hit $750,000, we were essentially out of our marketing budget. FundedToday has hundreds of Lookalike Audiences so when a new campaign comes in, they just match it and run your campaign against that crowd. In 10 days, we raised half a million dollars.”
Related: Which Entrepreneurs Will Benefit Most From the New Era of Crowdfunding?
Kicktraq
What is it: A Kickstarter campaign discovery and tracking platform. Besides providing analytics to individual campaigns, Kicktraq also publishes content on crowdfunding campaigns.
How it worked: They used it to analyze the success of their Facebook demographics targeting by inputting only “Kickstarter, Indiegogo, crowdfunding” as keywords: “If you looked at our Kicktraq, we did three to five times in traffic just by making those small changes, so it was a pretty significant change.”
Kickbooster.me
What is it: A referral program for Kickstarter that rewards affiliates with a percentage of the of the pledges they bring in.
How it worked: “They provide an easy platform for both the Kickstarter campaign creators and your customers to use.” With dedicated sections for campaign creators and affiliates, Kickbooster helped Ravean connect with evangelists for their heated jacket line. Kickbooster brought in over 50,000 visitors to the campaign, 15 percent of total visitors.
Related: 7 Lessons They Don't Teach You In Crowdfunding School
Bonus Tip
The hottest stories ripped from the headlines, from crime to courts, legal and scandal.
