Zero to Millions: How To Launch A Kickstarter In 2025

if you want one guide to show you everything you need to launch a successful Kickstarter this year then you came to the right place because for the last 10 years I've helped over 1,000 product creators raised over $125 million with crowdfunding and in this video I'm going to share everything you must know to make your Kickstarter a success you'll learn how to find your Super Fan how to run meta ads even how to get funded on the very first day and a lot more all organized into 17 simple steps that even a complete beginner can

follow now this system has been used by creators from all different product categories with all all different budgets and at all different stages of business so whether you have a tabletop game a tech product glamping project or anything in between follow these 17 steps and you will have a successful Kickstarter launch this year all right let's dive into the first step positioning your product in August of 2022 Audrey launched her first Kickstarter campaign called cuet unfortunately it failed to get the funding she needed so she canel it and 8 months later she relaunched the same

exact product on Kickstarter only this time it raised over $150,000 so what was different well let's pull up the two campaigns side by side in the first campaign Audrey positioned her product as many monitors for your desk and in the second successful campaign Audrey positioned her product as the ultimate simple yet powerful data tracker she didn't change her product in the second campaign she changed how she positioned her product and that simple yet powerful change of positioning was key in helping her raise six times more funding her second time around so what makes good product

positioning well I like to say that good product positioning convinces your Target customer that your product solves their problem this is a lot easier to say than it is to do but there's a framework I like to use that will help you clarify your product positioning and it's called The consumer-based Brand Equity or cbbe framework it has four different levels that will help any Creator position their product to sell starting at the base we've got salience this is where you answer the big question what are you but here's the key you've got to keep it

simple what your product is and how it solves a problem should be crystal clear it's like when someone asks you what you do for a living you wouldn't say I dabble in a multifaceted array of Ventures no one knows what that means instead you'd say something like I'm an engineer I'm an accountant or I have a business that sells products online when it comes to your product you want to use words that your target audience understands so keep it simple and don't overthink this part moving up to level two we're talking about performance and imagery

this is where you show off what makes your product truly special let's start with performance performance is all about what your product does way better or different than your competition does it last 10 times longer is it 50% of the price is it a new and interesting theme for a board game don't hold back here this is one of the few times in life where it's okay to brag next we have imagery this is like the setting where your product story takes place where will people use your product who will be using your product how

will they use your product paint that picture so your target audience can clearly see themselves using it level three is about judgments and feelings this is where people are asking asking how good are you really starting with judgments you want to think about the doubts people have about your product and then get in front of those doubts for example for neck hammock we knew people would have doubts about the effectiveness of such a simple device to help with neck pain so we leaned into the science behind cervical traction and the fact that it was created

by a doctor and licensed physical therapist now on to feelings this isn't some Kumbaya stuff I'm talking about instead this is about identifying the emotions you want people to feel when experiencing your product are you going for fun and youthfulness or serious and professional for example let's compare the feelings you get from zbec snap and Wilder which are two launch boom campaigns these are the first GIFs that appear on their campaign pages and they feel pretty different right with a Sleek white background and subtle Zoom video editing zbec gives off more of an Innovative professional

and cool Vibes while wildor on the other hand uses soft warm colors to evoke feelings of love support and connection as you can see the feelings you choose will lead you to different words and images in your marketing and at the peak of the pyramid resonance this is the what about you and me moment it's where loyalty lives and where connections are cemented you want customers to see your brand as a kindred spirit with a shared Mission and values for example one of the campaigns we helped launch recently was the Crooked Moon it was created

by seven best friends who love Dungeons and Dragons including their story in the product positioning created connection or resonance between their customers and themselves this is one of the reasons why they went on to to raise over $4 million and become the most funded DND campaign ever on Kickstarter use the CBB framework to position your product the right way and once you do this you'll have an incredibly strong Foundation to build the rest of your Kickstarter launch on top of all right now on to step two product imagery if a picture is worth 1,000 words

then a good product image is worth a th000 backers because good visuals translate to instant appeal and there are two main types of product imagery you can use use to get there photorealistic renderings and photography first up let's talk about renderings these are like the magic of Photoshop for your product renderings allow for precise control over product appearance materials lighting and environment and these can be a lifesaver if your prototype isn't ready yet all you have to do is find a 3D render artist on a site like upwork and you can start your marketing while

finalizing your physical prototype an important note though photorealistic renderings are not allowed on Kickstarter but they can still be very useful in your marketing during the pre launch next we're talking about the real deal product photography you want to get three types of product photos Studio photos location photos and action photos of your product Studio photos are like the glamour shots of your product throw your product on a white or colored backdrop and highlight every angle and feature for example check out these Studio shots from launch boom Creator author clock who went on to raise

over $1.3 million on Kickstarter we shot the author clock straight on at a 45° angle profile and back for location photos you you want to showcase your product where people would use it lucky for you you already thought up all those locations during the imagery section of the cbbe framework let's see the location shots for our campaign for the top shelf which raised nearly $ 1.3 million Canadian dollars on Kickstarter we showed off the bag in locations like the Wilderness a busy City and while working this way backers could visualize how they would use it

now for action shots you want to use these to Showcase product benefits better shown through motion or interaction focus on one specific action you're trying to to show and capture that in a photo for example here's an action shot from our campaign for the tandem shower which raised over $774,000 as you can see it shows the action of a couple taking a shower together which is the main benefit of the product but action shots aren't limited to photos they can be video too here's one from the campaign for the pepper Cannon which raised over $1.1

million these show how the pepper Cannon can grind a bunch of pepper super fast all right now with your product imagery done we can move on to step three building a reservation funnel so what in the world is a reservation funnel well a reservation funnel is a way to collect email addresses and more importantly $1 reservation deposits during the pre-launch those that put down a $1 deposit are rewarded with your best launch deal and we like to call them VIPs here's why this is so important without the $1 reservation it's virtually impossible to know how

likely it is that someone on your email list will actually buy your product when you launch on Kickstarter which means it's very easy to waste money money on marketing building email lists when you don't use a reservation funnel instead adding a special VIP offer like a discounted add-on or guaranteed discount that gets people to put down a small deposit in the pre-launch let you know who's actually interested in buying now the steps in the reservation funnel are simple I'll show you how we did it for our campaign for botney who raised over $1 million on

Kickstarter first create a landing page using the product positioning and product imagery you created in steps one and two the goal here is for someone to give you their email address next show an exclusive VIP offer in exchange for a $1 reservation deposit botney gave an exclusive add-on called Brilliant Blue Botanicals but it doesn't stop there once they check out lead them to a thank you page where they are invited to join exclusive VIP community in this case they use Facebook but a Discord server can work too you might be thinking is getting the $1

deposit really worth it the short answer yes and the data backs it up we found that on average someone that puts down a $1 deposit is 30 times more likely to buy than someone that only gives their email address that's a huge difference and not having enough VIPs can be the difference between failure and success for your Kickstarter because here's the thing the pre-launch email list you'll build with the reservation funnel is going to allow you to hit your Kickstarter funding goal on the very first day yep you heard that right botney for example use

their pre-launch email list to blow past their $5,000 Kickstarter goal raising over $15,000 in the first 24 hours quick tip the reservation funnel I showed you from botney was created using launch launch kit that's a software we built at launch boom that powers all of our launches if you want to learn more about launch kit I've included a link in the description below all right let's move on to step four setting up your email marketing before you start building your pre-launch email list you need to set up your email marketing strategy that's because it's not

enough to just talk with the people on your list you need to talk with them the right way but before we get into the details about the exact emails you should send you have to understand two important best practices of email marketing best practice number one limit your calls to action every email you send should call the reader to take an action and in the marketing world we apply call this a call to action or CTA think of it as guiding the people on your list down a path that takes them closer to becoming a

backer for example a great call to action is for someone on your email list to upgrade to VIP for $1 ideally you only have one call to action per email so keep it focused best practice number two quality over quantity nobody likes getting a bunch of emails in their inbox every day and bombarding your list with a ton of emails is an easy way to hurt your open rates and see more unsubscribes you want your pre-launch list to be excited to back your project not to be annoyed every time you pop in their inbox my

advice is to keep things simple there are two sequences of emails you want to send first your welcome email sequence which is a series of two emails that welcomes them to your pre-launch list once they first sign up and second your launch announcement sequence which is a series of two emails that are sent in the week before your your launch that's it don't get tempted to send weekly updates to your subscribers we've actually found that to be the quickest way to make people get frustrated and unsubscribe from your list instead keep it simple and only

send the most impactful emails now in a later step we'll dive into the launch announcement email sequence but for now let's talk about your welcome email sequence this sequence should be sent out to new subscribers to your email list automatically and setting up the automation is easy with any modern email service provider like MailChimp but I wouldn't recommend setting up just one welcome sequence instead you should set up one for both your non-vip and VIP segments let's start with the non-vips these are the people on your email list that have shown interest but haven't put

down a $1 deposit yet you want to create two emails in the sequence the first one will be sent to them right when they sign up for your list you want to thank them for signing up and include a call to action to upgrade to VIP for $1 for example here's what the first welcome email look like for the Crooked Moon next you'll want to add a second email to the sequence this will be sent one day after the first and focus on one trying to get them to engage by answering a question and two

upgrading to VIP for $1 you can see how the Crooked Moon did that with their second email next let's talk about the welcome email sequence for your VIPs VIPs are the most excited about your project calls to action here are focused on giving them more ways to stay up to date with your campaign the first email in your welcome sequence should be triggered when they put down the $1 deposit because they already have upgraded to VIP I recommend either inviting them to follow your Kickstarter page or to join a VIP Community where they can interact

with you and other VIPs for example here's what the first email look like for the Crooked Moon which does exactly that now the second email is pretty similar to the non-vip email ask them a question and then use the same call to action as your previous email for example here's what it looked like for the Crooked moon now that you know which emails to send you'll need to get them set up in an email marketing platform and there are many to choose from like mailer light or clay but we like to use MailChimp here at

launch boom as long as you use one that can set up automations and can send normal email campaigns you'll be all good all right now that your email strategy is ready to go let's start by actually getting some emails on your list that brings us to step five driving traffic with meta ads now that you have your reservation funnel built you need to tell people about it and by far the best way to do that is with Facebook and Instagram ads AKA meta ads now creating a good ad really boils down to getting two things

right first you need to Target the Right audience on meta and an audience on meta is really just a collection of interests and like it or not meta knows a lot about what people are interested in now to make this process easier and a lot more fun I suggest using the Super Fan framework think about who would love your product stretch your imagination a bit here give them a name create a little backstory give them an occupation a family and an income but the most important part here is to ask the following questions what do

they do for fun what brands do they buy from who do they follow and what do they watch and listen to for example here's what the Super Fan looked like for our campaign for the pade sente which raised over 1.6 million on Kickstarter they liked video games especially the retro arcade type they liked the Finer Things in life like Ferrari Supreme and mon block Wes they were also a little bit of a nerd and liked reading wired or watching the latest MKBHD video on YouTube these are all interests that can be grouped together and then

targeted on meta so first think of who your Super Fan is and then you can easily build your audiences second thing you'll need is to create a good ad which is really made up of copy and imagery let's start with your ad imagery this can be a photo or video and is the thing that will stop people from scrolling their feed to pay attention to your product we found that studio shots or location shots like the ones you got during step two can perform really well here for example check out these ads for our campaign

for nitropress which raised over 649,000 the first is a nice Studio shot and the second is a beautiful location shot and both worked really well for video there's a lot of different styles you can try but one of my favorites is the product walkthrough template for example check out this ad for our campaign for tidy board version 2 which raised over $354,000 this is a fast cut video that walks through how to use the product you'll want to test different ads and audiences until you find the right combinations that get you the lowest cost for

$1 reservation and when you find the best performing combinations scale up your ad budgets until you have a big enough pre-launch email list to launch your campaign but before we get to your launch there are a few more things we need to get done first which brings us to our next step building your campaign page the campaign page is so important yet so many creators screw it up this is not the place to tell your story you're trying to get people to buy which means treat it less like a best-selling novel and more like a

direct response advertisement here are three tips to make a campaign page that sells first think in headlines you may spend hours perfecting every word on your page but I hate to break it to you most people aren't going to read them instead they're going to skim and what do they read when they skim your headlines for example check out what the page for our campaign for Sentry jacket look like as we skim down the page the headlines tell us a lot of important information introducing the centry jacket the allnatural high performance 100-year jacket Timeless silhouette

for Timeless wear functional fit and functional form 100% natural 100 Years of Adventure from just reading those headlines you get a pretty good understanding of the main benefits and features of the product Second Use a lot of gifs gifs are great for showcasing those action shots you got during step two for example let's pull up a few on the Sentry jacket page in the flattering fit and functional form section they used two gifs to showcase the different looks you can get from the jacket or let's go to the Twill weave silk lining section where there's

a gif of someone using the inside pocket while showing off the silk lining third use your pre-launch data to influence your campaign page design one of the coolest Parts about all all the advertising you'll be doing during the pre-launch is that you'll learn so much about what works and what doesn't take those learnings and directly apply it to your campaign page for example check out the best performing headline on the landing page for sentury jacket and now let's look at the headline on their Kickstarter page they're basically identical that's because the Livingston team already knew

the headline worked because they tested it during the pre-launch do the same thing take your best headline and make it your Kickstarter headline take your best ad image and make it your campaign image you get the idea all right it's time to move on to the next step creating your campaign video ah the campaign video if I'm being honest I have a little bit of a LoveHate relationship with it it is important and can be very persuasive in getting someone to buy your product but it can also be a huge Cash stuck I've seen too

many creators insist on spending way too much money on their campaign video in nearly every case I think the video shouldn't cost you more than $115,000 after that there's diminishing returns and I'd rather just put that savings into something more productive like ad spend and by the way I think most firsttime creators should spend a lot less than $115,000 let me show you a video we created that actually cost less than $10,000 to produce it was super effective hey man you busy yes you are busy and it's time to let your house know it meet

busy box the wireless status box that helps you work uninterrupted and enter deep focus at home now like I said before this video didn't cost a lot to produce why well first off it had a great script and was largely driven by a voiceover it was shot in one location with a few actors and those actors could easily be you or your friends it made use of stock video to make the video more Dynamic while keeping the cost super low this campaign went on to raise $332,000 on Indiegogo and Steve the founder even got on

Shark Tank which I think is awesome now assuming you don't have video production experience the hardest part about creating your video will be getting it shot and edited that's where a lot of the costs come in you can keep the cost a lot lower by writing your own script and hiring contractors to help you get it filmed and edited there are also really good agencies that specialize in campaign videos but I would recommend going for their lower cost packages in most cases we just talked a lot about spending money so let's switch gears and talk

about making money it's time to move on to step eight choosing rewards and pricing you can think of rewards as the buy options for your Kickstarter campaign the these are the things that people back and they are super important to get right I'm going to give you three different reward strategies that we've used on thousands of campaigns But first you need to understand these six key pricing Concepts that we use because these concepts are why these pricing strategies work so well first up discounting you know the classic get it at 50% off strategy this is

one of the most popular pricing strategies within crowdfunding second price anchoring if you saw a product for $100 today and then tomorrow was $50 you'd think you were getting a great deal right that's price anchoring and it can be a very powerful tactic within crowdfunding third scarcity this is where you limit the amount of something being available this can be very persuasive because people do not like to miss out on stuff fourth urgency this works just the same as scarcity except it uses limited time instead of limited quantity fifth the Paradox of choice this is

a concept from Barry shorts which points out that when humans have too many choices they often make no choice at all and for that reason we want to keep our Rewards as simple as possible six value stacking as the price increases the value associated with that reward actually goes up another popular name for this is bundling all right now that you understand the six key pricing Concepts let's get into my top three reward strategies first up discount stacking this is best for creators who one are only launching one main product and two are not in

the games category for example let me show you how this worked for our campaign for the desk Nest here's how the rewards were broken down VIP special for $99 launch special for $111 super early bird for $115 early bird for $119 and the kickstarter special for $139 these are all different rewards but each is selling the same exact product the only difference is the discount being offered each of these rewards use different limits of time and quantity to incentivize backers to get in earlier this is working really well for death Nest right now who are

actually live on Kickstarter and have already raised over $350,000 second up the no-brainer deal let's say you plan to sell an add-on that is complimentary to your main product that costs you very little to make you may be a good candidate for the no-brainer deal for example let's see how our campaign for the back blade 2.0 used this strategy first off here were the two items that were available for sale on the campaign the back blade 2.0 which was the main product and a four pack of extra blades which was the complimentary add-on because we

had the add-on of the four pack of extra blades we could create two different rewards first the starter pack which came with just the back BL 2.0 this was was $24 or a 30% discount off retail and second the full pack which came with the backo 2.0 and four extra blades this was only $29 or a 38% discount off retail when people came to the campaign they realized that they could get a lot more value if they just spent $5 more on the full pack which is why we call it a no-brainer deal this worked

really well for back blade who went on to raise over $316,000 on Kickstarter third we have value stacking this works great if you have multiple Standalone products or if you're in the games C category with value stacking when the price goes up so does the value being offered that's because you'll bundle different valuable items together in each reward tier for example let's see how the campaign for kelp did this first off they had the following items to sell on the campaign kelp standard edition kelp deluxe edition and the brilliant behaviors mini expansion because kelp had

two different main products plus some add-ons they bundled them together into different value-based reward tiers they had the standard edition for €45 the deluxe edition for €60 and the deluxe bundle for €68 which included the deluxe edition of the game plus the brilliant behaviors mini expansion again each reward tier offered more value which only incentivized backers to spend more money this worked super well for kelp as they went on to raise over 1.4 million hey real quick if you want to go even deeper into everything I'm talking about you should check out my book crowdfunded

it's actually the bestselling book on crowdfunding in the world with 4.7 out of five stars from 269 reviews and I published a new edition in a of 2023 where the CEO of Kickstarter and Indiegogo endorsed it anyways you can put up on Kindle print or audiobook that I recorded myself link to check it out is in the corner of this video and in the description below all right it's time to move on to step nine setting your funding goal at first glance setting your funding goal on Kickstarter should be easy right I mean shouldn't it

just be the amount you need to make your product well for many creators the answer to that question is increasingly becoming no you see crowdfunding is not just used as a funding tool but a marketing tool and it can be used for both at the same time by the way but many creators are using it more for marketing than for funding and depending on how you define success for your campaign will tell you what you should set your funding goal at to help you figure this out it's important to answer some questions first what are

the fixed costs to create your product if you lost money on the crowdfunding campaign would you still bring it to life if so how much are you willing to lose with the answers to those questions ask yourself which of these two strategies you identif identify with more one funding strategy you need to raise a certain amount of funds to create your product if you don't it's very unlikely you can get funds from somewhere else or two marketing strategy you already have the funds to create your project Kickstarter is your way to get Mass exposure and

you're okay with losing some money on the campaign if you answered funding strategy then the answer to setting your funding goal is simple set the funding goal at whatever the amount is you need to create your product and to figure this out you'll have to be further along in the product development process that means at a minut minimum having a quote from your manufacturer to how much it will cost to produce your minimum order quantity now if you answered marketing strategy then the funding amount should be whatever you believe you can hit on day one

of the campaign because getting funded quickly has huge benefits such as increase social proof attracting press and getting free traffic from Kickstarter to figure out how much you can raise in the first day it's pretty easy you can take the number of emails on your list and calculate what percentage of the list you believe will convert into a backer multiply that number by your price point you can get a good estimation of how much you'll raise on the first day for example one of our campaigns bare Mountain camping Adventure had 1,826 people who put down

a $1 reservation in the pre-launch we conservatively estimated that 30% would turn into a backer with the lowest price point of $39 we generate $2,364 on the first day so the goal was set at $55,000 because we thought we could blast through it and that's exactly what happened the VIP list ended up converting at 51% and contributed over $889,000 in sales to the campaign so maybe our original estimates were a little too conservative but no one complained about that all right with the funing goals set it's time to move on to step 10 choosing your

launch date I'm going to tell you the exact month day and hour you should launch your project how well we have data from over 342,000 Kickstarter campaigns that was analyzed by Kick notify the data clearly shows when the best time to launch your Kickstarter is before I tell you that let me explain how to understand the data I'm about to show you I'll be showing bar charts to make it easier to visualize the purple bars represent the number of launches and the yellow people icons represent the average number of backers per project the higher the

purple bar or yellow icon the more of that thing there is so first let's look at the data for the best day of the week to launch as you can see Tuesdays have both the most launches and average number of backers per project this means it's the best day of the week to launch why is this well email open rates tend to be the highest on Tuesdays and email is typically how creators are announcing their launches so a higher open rate is going to send more backers to a campaign next let's look at the data

for the best time of the data launch all of the times are an Eastern Standard Time clearly the morning is the best time to launch if you launch somewhere between 7 to 10:00 a.m. you'll be good this makes sense since the majority of kickstarters Market is in the US so trying to take advantage of the entire day in the US is typically the best strategy that is unless your audience is primarily based in a completely different time zone for example if over 50% of your email list lives in Europe then launch between 7:00 and 10:00

a.m. in that time zone next let's look at the best month to launch what pops out to you immediately when looking at this chart probably that there isn't too much difference between all the months except for one month I'm looking at you December yep December is the worst month to launch that's because December is the month of holidays and gifting in many parts of the world both of those things don't play very well with crowdfunding when people are taking a holiday they don't buy a lot of stuff for themselves especially when that holiday revolves around

buying gifts for others people don't buy gifts with crowdfunding because it's a pre-order and they won't receive the product for a long time by the way I would also advise against launching in November if you can avoid it the end of the month is where we see huge sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday so Brands will start spending a lot on Advertising which just creates more competition and increases the cost of advertising for you so the takeway here is that May is the most popular month by a slight margin but really any month is

okay as long as it's not December or November but there is one more thing to take into account here seasonality you want to launch in the season when people will use your product not when they will receive your product for example let's look at our campaign for the ghost on chist which is a cooler to be used Outdoors when do people use coolers the most well during the summer right so that's when they launched and you want to know when people actually receive that product in January when it's cold people aren't using coolers this may

seem counterintuitive but backers buy stuff based off of the desire to have something now even if they won't receive that thing for a long time so if you have a seasonal product launch during that season all right now that you know when to launch let's launch this puppy on the first day of their campaigns poate raised over 1 million botney raised over 100,000 and nanoil raised over $387,000 blowing past their funding goals in a matter of minut how in the world did they do that well to answer that question we have to go back one

week before launch day this is where you'll start the hype train with your pre-launch email list there are two emails you'll send to your email list 7 days before you launch and one day before you launch that's it sending too many emails is the quickest way to get people to stop opening your emails and if that happens then all the money you spent collecting those emails will be wasted after you send those emails the next Milestone will be your launch send one email in the morning and one email in the evening yes two emails in

one day once you launch it's okay to email your list a lot more because you have something to sell if you do this right you'll blow past your funding goal on the very first day and in most cases it will happen in minutes that flood of backers will shoot you up in the rankings on Kickstarter which will bring you more visibility to your campaign and I'm talking about a lot more visibility usually between 20 to 30% of the total funding amount will be from Kickstarter itself for example for botney it was actually 31% which meant

that over $334,000 was sent by Kickstarter which is honestly Bonkers now once you get funded quickly make sure you take a minute to celebrate but not for too long you still have a lot more time left in your campaign and a lot more opportunity to raise even more money which brings us to step 12 driving traffic with meta ads part two yep we're talking about meta ads again because in nearly every big campaign you see the driving force of continued funding is from meta ads so let's talk about how they work and how you can

use use them unlike the pre-launch where you have to predict your return on ad spend once you are live you can see exactly how much money you are making for every dollar you are spending on Advertising that means you can now make decisions on increasing or decreasing your ad budget much more easily one of the easiest advertising wins you can get will be to set up remarketing remarketing is where you target people who you have already marketed to in the past for example I recommend remarketing to your entire pre-launch email list some of you may

be saying why should I advertise to people who already signed up on my email list this is part of what I call the surround sound strategy when you launch you want to be everywhere doing this will ensure that people who sign up on your list won't miss your launch for example take a look at the REM marketing efforts for vava who ended up generating a 30 times return on ads SP from remarketing to their list let's pull up one of the ads that was used to do this as you can see the copy directly speaks

to the VIPs hey vava 4K laser projector VIPs you want to do something similar now this ad was super effective we spent a little over $3,500 on this ad and generated over $107,000 in direct Revenue after remarketing you can try to attract completely new people to your campaign let's start by talking about two audiences you should Target first a lookalike audience of your VIP list and second your best performing pre-launch audiences to create a lookalike audience of your VIP list just upload it to meta and it will create it for you a lookalike audience is

when meta takes a seed audience in this case your VIP list and then creates a completely new audience with similar interest and demog graphic information this is a way to FastTrack the audience creation process and let meta do a lot of the work for you next let's talk about the ad copy there are a few copy tactics you can use first social proof like how overfunded your campaign is second reviews like testimonials or press mentions and third hyperbole where you lean into a favorite feature and use a very strong adjective like insane ultimate or genius

for example check out this ad from our campaign for Lomi which raised over $7.2 million we leaned into social social proof by saying it had already raised $2 million and this ad got a 4.77 times return on ad spent all right now you understand how to use meta ads to keep boosting your campaign let's dive into the next step using PR and influencer marketing have you ever been to a restaurant and heard someone ask the server hey what do you recommend how often did that person go with what the server recommended nearly every time right

that's because humans are heavily influenced by the recommendations of others even if that person is a complete stranger and the data backs us up 90% of people claim to trust a brand more when it's recommended by others again even if those people are complete strangers this is why PR and influencer marketing work so well trusted third parties will make a recommendation about your product and other people will buy your product because of it so how do you do it well PR and influencer marketing are a little bit different from one another so we'll tackle each

one at a time let's start with influencers influencers come in all sizes so let's talk about the different types out there as you can see there are five main types of influencers ranging from Nano to Mega all separated by how many followers they have now here's the thing while Mega macro and mider influencers might seem more enticing because of their follower count I recommend setting your sites on micro and Nano influencers why because micro and Nano influencers are one easier to reach two typically have much higher engagement three specialized in specific topics are Industries and

four are more open to commission agreements so for all those reasons micro and Nano influencers often deliver a much higher return on investment than their counterparts with more followers but wait how do you go about finding these influencers well for example let's say you're launching a travel backpack like the nomadic travel bag campaign here's how I'd go about finding influencers start with YouTube search for travel backpack reviews and boom you'll find a list of YouTube channels that you can reach out to you can do the same thing on Tik Tok or Instagram once you found

your influencers it's time to reach out but how do you make your Outreach stand out from the crowd well when reaching out keep keep it personal instead of formal complement the influencers work and explain why your product aligns with their audience but here's a reality check influencers rarely work for free so be prepared to invest something based on shopify's recent data the going rate is about $100 per 10,000 followers but here's a little secret Nano and micro influencers are more open to commission agreements so consider setting up a kick booster account which will allow you

to easily set up an affiliate program for your Kickstarter campaign not every influencer will say yes but when they do it's like having a trusted partner that you only have to pay when you get a sale all right now let's move on to PR first thing you want to do is create a press kit this is simply a collection of assets that journalists and media Outlets want it's honestly really easy to make create a folder on something like Google drive or Dropbox and fill it with photos and videos of your product then place it at

the bottom of your campaign page and link to it for example here's what it look like on the campaign page for eot Trek a client of ours who raised over $514,000 if we click on the press kit you can see a collection of images that press could use in their articles with the press kit made it's now time to reach out to some journalists but how do you know who to reach out to the easiest way to figure out who to reach out to is to go to campaigns who have the same audience as you

and see who covered them for example let's say you have an outdoor product that would appeal to eot Trex audience who I just showed you you could go to their campaign page and see who they were featured by eot Trek got covered by Men's Journal outside magazine Forbes gear junkie and a few others next let's go to Google and find these articles for example I can typee in eot trck gear junkie and see that an article pops up let's click on it then click on the journalist name then click on one of his social profiles

I'll choose LinkedIn and from here you can send the journalist a message remember Outreach is a numbers game not everyone will respond but the more you reach out the higher the chance of getting coverage all right now with your PR and influencer marketing strategy locked down let's keep this momentum going with step 14 boosting your campaign all right I'm going to tell you something not a lot of people like to talk about there's a period in many crowdfunding campaigns we lovingly call the Valley of Death maybe a little dramatic but there's a reason why I

got this name it's normal for campaigns to get a lot of funding at the beginning and at the end of The Campaign the middle part is the valley where it can be easy to lose momentum so here are three tactics to help you avoid this Valley of Death the first is cross promotions this is where you reach out to other live Kickstarter campaigns to see if they want to promote you and vice versa this works is you'll include each other in one of your campaign updates for example here's what some of the Cross promotions look

like for our client's campaign for Alpha shovel as you can see they included the pocket Samurai at the end of one of their campaign updates and the pocket Samurai did the exact same thing for Alpha shovel all in all cross promotion Partners like pocket Samurai drove nearly $10,000 in sales for the alpha shovel campaign the second tactic is backer newsletters these are companies that have their own backer communities that you can promote to there are actually quite a lot of these newsletters and some are definitely better than others for example ones that I've seen work

really well right now are first backer from Gel up pledge boxes newsletter and Backer many make sure you do a little research before you go with one and try to only work with newsletters that work on commission or have a very low fee like a few hundred the third tactic is platform promotions this one really depends on which platform you launch on on Kickstarter there is no way to pay for promotions indogo on the other hand will gladly talk to you about different promotions they have and how much they cost but let's go back to

Kickstarter one of the best ways to get promoted is to first get the coveted project I love badge not only does it look great but it also gets you more visibility on Kickstarter I already know what you're thinking how do I get that badge well here's exactly what kickstarter's team has told me to focus on first create something that is truly Innovative and unique and second design a very aesthetically pleasing campaign page lastly it's more likely you can get the badge if you get introduced to someone on their team and as a Kickstarter certified expert

ourselves we may be able to help make that happen all right with the valy of death avoided it's time to move on to step 15 finishing your campaign strong we're approaching the finish line but you don't want to celebrate just yet I mean we've all seen what can happen from that instead you're going to Sprint through the Finish Line there are two areas you want to focus on here the first is email marketing and the second is meta advertising starting with your email list there are three emails you want to send one will be sent

3 days before you end and the final two emails will be sent on your last day that's right you you should send two emails on the final day one in the morning and one in the evening if you have Kickstarter exclusives you'll want to talk about those in your emails the second tactic is meta ands again yes I'm only bringing up one more time because you want to change your strategy a little bit here first off who should you target with your ads well besides continuing to Target audiences that are still working from before I'd

start remarketing again again remarketing is when you target people that you've already marketed to in the past here are the different remarketing audiences I would Target one your entire email list and two everyone who went to your Kickstarter page and did not buy for your ad copy and AD creative you'll want to update the messaging a little bit the main change will be to lean into urgency since the campaign will be ending soon for example let's pull up this ad from our campaign for vava which raised over 2.1 million as you can see we leaned

heavily into the limited time remaining in the campaign by using phrases like ending soon and last chance do the same thing for your campaign and you'll finish your campaign strong bringing in a spike of funding and send your campaign to new heights but just because your campaign has now officially ended doesn't mean you can't keep raising funds because now it's time to move on to step 16 setting up late pledges so you made it past the finish line now what well for one it's time to make your product but while you're making your product why

not continue to make sales well that's where Kickstarter late pledges come into play by turning on late pledges you can continue to make sales on your Kickstarter campaign for example masters of Realms turned on late pled edes immediately when the campaign ended the campaign looks basically the same as the live campaign except now there is no timeline here are three tips to keep in mind when setting it up one announce late pledges in a campaign update let everyone know that they can still back the campaign if they missed out second make your late pledge rewards

a slightly worse deal than your live campaign one of the main incentives for people to back your live campaign is typically to take advantage of some type of deal this could be a discount or a limited exclusive item and it's a best practice to not offer the same deals to late pledges that way you can make sure that the people who supported you early are rewarded the most third if you're using late pledges don't set up another store I've seen some creators want to set up Kickstarter late pledges a pledge manager pre-order shop and their

own e-commerce store thinking they will cast a wider net and get more sales but actually the opposite happens treat Kickstarter late pledges as your one pre-order store while you're creating your product drive all traffic to this page this will make potential backers less confused and make it way easier for you to manage fulfillment lastly it's important to note that with Kickstarter late pledges the backer's credit card is charged immediately this is unlike your live campaign where backers credit cards are charged when your campaign ends this is a good thing it means you'll get a steady

stream of cash flow while you manufacture and fulfill your product and now with late pledges all set up there's only one more thing to do step 17 use a pledge manager by this point you'll have hundreds thousands or maybe even tens of thousands of customers customers who can't wait to receive your product and there's one thing that will make delivering your product to these customers way easier that thing is called a pledge manager you see when someone backs your campaign they don't actually give you much information besides their name and email and whatever reward they

chose you're missing some really important stuff like their shipping address or what variance like size or color of your product they want that's where pledge manager comes in it allows you to easily get all this information from your backers after your Kickstarter campaign ends broadly speaking you have two options when it comes to choosing a pledge manager first Kickstarter itself at the time of creating this video the native pledge manager on Kickstarter is very basic but I wouldn't be surprised if they release a more featur pledge manager soon by the time you watch this they

may have one so make sure you check on their website the second option is thirdparty pledge managers essentially other companies that offer pledge management software again at the time of making this video The thirdparty Pledge managers are the best in my opinion for example I'd go check out pledge manager.com who is currently the official partner of Kickstarter regardless of which pledge manager you choose here are some tips first use your pledge manager to sell more product this is one of the most powerful parts of a pledge manager because you are already asking backers to do

important stuff like confirming their shipping address and choosing Vari information why not see if they'd like to buy anything else put in all your add-ons from your campaign and if you don't have any more add-ons just put your main product for sale again at a discounted rate by the way every time we've used this upsell feature backer always buy more stuff which makes it a no-brainer in my book second charge for shipping on your pledge manager and not on Kickstarter that's right I do not recommend charging for shipping during your live Kickstarter campaign instead use

the pledge manager to charge for shipping after charging for shipping later will ensure you are able to charge the most accurate rates based on backer's validated delivery addresses Third charge taxes on your pledge manager if you're wondering if you have to pay taxes on the money you get from Kickstarter the answer is yes it is Rec Iz as income and if you're in the US even the individual states are going to want their cut a good pledge manager will make charging for taxes based on location very easy so make sure you set that up all

right you just learned the 17 steps to launch a successful Kickstarter this year my goal was to pack as much value as I could for free so I really hope you learned something from this video and if you did I only ask you for two very simple things one please hit that like button and two please subscribe to the channel both are super easy to do and help me to continue to make awesome free content for for you lastly if you're serious about launching your product and you want some help my team and I would

love to chat whether you're launching a tech product a board game or even a new boutique hotel we can help you and you can join a community of over 1,700 other creators who are launching their products too just click the link on this video or in the description below fill out a few questions and I'll get you connected to the right expert on my team all right that does it for this video I'll see you in the next one [Music]