What advice do you have about all of those marketing services that promise backers?
Have you received emails from marketing and PR services that promise more backers or overnight pledges? We know that these messages may sound tempting, so this week’s Campus Convo discusses how other creators consider these offers. They also share some useful recommendations on what works (and what doesn’t). Read below:
Getting help from a PR service is a good idea, but, to be frank, don’t spend too much money on this. For my Kickstarter campaign, which raised over 100K, I knew how to do a lot of the marketing myself, so I simply enlisted a PR service to distribute emails for me, simply because that was something I wasn’t too familiar with. That was a hundred bucks, and it helped the campaign a little bit.
That said, a good campaign will pretty much sell itself, and any PR agency telling they are the sole reason for any campaign’s success is most likely not telling the complete truth. The value of a PR agency will only be added value, it won’t make your campaign, and shouldn’t cost too much if you know what you are doing.
The best way to succeed in Kickstarter is not to expect magic, get-rich-quick shortcuts. Build a following by doing good things. Keep doing good things and build a reputation. At that point things will start to get easier. Everything you do in public should be seen as an act of marketing. Give your backers a great experience including:
- Great communications
- Great instructions
- Interesting, good quality projects
- Attractive pricing
- Innovation, experimentation and fun
- Underpromise and overdeliver
Real marketing companies will partner with your before you launch your campaign, not in the middle. Also, good marketing companies generally build a relationship, not with a single generic pitch, but over time and get to know your audience, product, and company (In other words, they engage in skillful marketing of their own services.)
Drawing in fresh ‘outsiders’ is the most challenging part of running any campaign. Eventually, every project exhausts their friends & family (people they have email addresses for) and the general population shopping on Kickstarter, the only option left is to draw in new candidates. What we learned from 10 successful campaigns:
1) PR agencies with access to blogs where your type of customer hangs out work. Expect to pay $5K — $7K, which should be no more then 10% of your total raise. Not just any agency will do, you need to choose one with a track record of delivering in your category.
2) Crowdfund Ninja, Krowdster, Fundzinger, Brainiacs from Mars, Backer Club et al, there are dozens of them that promise traffic and pledges. While ‘scam’ may be a strong word, we have tested most of them, one by one, during ‘quiet’ times in the middle of our projects to calibrate the ROI — none delivered enough new backers to offset their cost. They just don’t work, period.
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