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- Phoenix, AZ ( Ahwatukee )
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Its 3 days to the end and we sit at 11%. We have known for several weeks that things probably weren’t going to work out but I want to take a few minutes to share what we learned before we go MIA for the next couple of weeks to move on to the next steps.
For background we were attempting to raise just shy of 10k for tooling and production of our putting aid.
Press
Think you have enough press lined up? You are probably wrong.
Right, wrong, or indifferent we were nervous about starting press too early and losing that instant action from people that would want to pledge right then. We started our press a few weeks prior to launch and that was 3 months too late. Thats right folks if people like the idea of your product for Kickstarter they will still be interested down the road. Get out in front of them early and build the buzz, build lists. This is a game of eyeballs. Known the editorial schedules of the big players and give them time to help you. We have a meeting set up with a major golf magazine writer, but guess what, that isn’t going to happen until well after the campaign ends and if they run the story it will be even further down the line.
Video
We ignored a critical statistic. 21%. that was the completion rate of our video. 1 day in we should have made a modification, and listened to the feedback. Our video was too long and explained too much. People want to get the point and get it quick. We also had no call to action in our video. If people are dumping out of your video it isn’t because 15 seconds in they get it, its because you have bored them and they are done.
Landing Pages/Traffic Analytics
Kickstarter doesn’t tell you anything. Your analytics are next to nothing. Unless you are running your traffic through a landing page you have no way to know how you are acquiring users. Segment your traffic the best you can and customize landing pages with a call to action, be that sharing your project or directly pledging.
Paid Advertising/Tracking
You will have to run some paid traffic to fill gaps in press coverage. Have a budget and as advised above run that traffic in such a way that you can track a conversion rate. It was late in the campaign when I realized even though I was buying cheap traffic (thanks @JasonR ) on Facebook, I was paying about $60 to get $30 in pledges. That was an expensive mistake but one that was worth learning.
Know Your Audience/Understand the Hurdles
Our audience consists of golfers. The demo that we were gaining were 35+ males for the most part. We got multiple emails a day for the first week that could all be summarized as this. “Umm How do I buy this thing?” “I like the product, but I don’t get the Kickstarter thing"
We spent around 70 hours that week trying to explain to people what Kickstarter was and how it worked. Mostly via email, we usually lost people around the point that it clicked that they wouldn’t get their product for 2-3 months still.
If you have a product that will be embraced by the kickstarter community and you can market directly to them, you are in good shape. If they don’t you have the following steps:
1.acquire traffic
2.get them to love your product
3.make them understand kickstarter
4.hope they have an amazon account
5.pray to god they have the patience and want to go through all the steps to support you.
Fail Fast
For the love of god, don’t fall into the trap of “theres a ton of time left”. If you aren’t funded some significant percent that first week and getting enough traffic to stay ranked in your city… you are probably failing. If you are going to fail spend time learning why you are failing and what you can do different in the future.
The Good
We have gained some further market validation, we now have a list of people that want to buy our product. We have made INVALUABLE contacts. We are moving forward with self funded production and making plans to launch the product.
If you have any questions I will be more than happy to answer them but it may be sporadic as we have some work to do.
For background we were attempting to raise just shy of 10k for tooling and production of our putting aid.
Press
Think you have enough press lined up? You are probably wrong.
Right, wrong, or indifferent we were nervous about starting press too early and losing that instant action from people that would want to pledge right then. We started our press a few weeks prior to launch and that was 3 months too late. Thats right folks if people like the idea of your product for Kickstarter they will still be interested down the road. Get out in front of them early and build the buzz, build lists. This is a game of eyeballs. Known the editorial schedules of the big players and give them time to help you. We have a meeting set up with a major golf magazine writer, but guess what, that isn’t going to happen until well after the campaign ends and if they run the story it will be even further down the line.
Video
We ignored a critical statistic. 21%. that was the completion rate of our video. 1 day in we should have made a modification, and listened to the feedback. Our video was too long and explained too much. People want to get the point and get it quick. We also had no call to action in our video. If people are dumping out of your video it isn’t because 15 seconds in they get it, its because you have bored them and they are done.
Landing Pages/Traffic Analytics
Kickstarter doesn’t tell you anything. Your analytics are next to nothing. Unless you are running your traffic through a landing page you have no way to know how you are acquiring users. Segment your traffic the best you can and customize landing pages with a call to action, be that sharing your project or directly pledging.
Paid Advertising/Tracking
You will have to run some paid traffic to fill gaps in press coverage. Have a budget and as advised above run that traffic in such a way that you can track a conversion rate. It was late in the campaign when I realized even though I was buying cheap traffic (thanks @JasonR ) on Facebook, I was paying about $60 to get $30 in pledges. That was an expensive mistake but one that was worth learning.
Know Your Audience/Understand the Hurdles
Our audience consists of golfers. The demo that we were gaining were 35+ males for the most part. We got multiple emails a day for the first week that could all be summarized as this. “Umm How do I buy this thing?” “I like the product, but I don’t get the Kickstarter thing"
We spent around 70 hours that week trying to explain to people what Kickstarter was and how it worked. Mostly via email, we usually lost people around the point that it clicked that they wouldn’t get their product for 2-3 months still.
If you have a product that will be embraced by the kickstarter community and you can market directly to them, you are in good shape. If they don’t you have the following steps:
1.acquire traffic
2.get them to love your product
3.make them understand kickstarter
4.hope they have an amazon account
5.pray to god they have the patience and want to go through all the steps to support you.
Fail Fast
For the love of god, don’t fall into the trap of “theres a ton of time left”. If you aren’t funded some significant percent that first week and getting enough traffic to stay ranked in your city… you are probably failing. If you are going to fail spend time learning why you are failing and what you can do different in the future.
The Good
We have gained some further market validation, we now have a list of people that want to buy our product. We have made INVALUABLE contacts. We are moving forward with self funded production and making plans to launch the product.
If you have any questions I will be more than happy to answer them but it may be sporadic as we have some work to do.
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