Lessons from Kickstarter: How to Create Marketing Campaigns That Matter - SAY Media

Kickstarter has become quite the phenomenon In just three years it has helped fund almost 50000 projects to the tune of over 200 million It39s become a key tool for all sorts of creators funding movies music video games books art technology and much much more Pebble a watch with an epaper screen that runs apps from your iPhone or Android device recently became the most successful Kickstarter project ever raising 10 million on a 100000 goal You can get a sense of other projects that are catching fire on Pinterest and it39s not an overstatement to say that Kickstarter may be one of the most important and disruptive platforms in America todayIf you39re unfamiliar with how it works Kickstarter lets creators crowd fund support for a project from the public A project page is created with a goal amount to raise a target date within a month as well as a variety of tiered offerings for those who agree to pledge certain amounts If the overall target amount isn39t met then no one has to pay and the project owner gets nothing If the project reaches its goal or as in some cases goes way way beyond the goal all of that money is collected and provided to the projectWith a platform like this getting so much attention it39s reasonable to ask what lessons marketers can learn I see a few key takeawaysHaving a personal connection with your audience matters The thing that really seems to excite people about supporting creators on Kickstarter is the direct nature of it People like supporting people they like They get excited about being able to directly support someone rather than having a large stack of middlemen between their money and the actual creator When people buy a CD from a store they know that chances are the musician won39t see a dime of that But with a platform like Kickstarter the connection is direct and they know their support mattersThe story matters There are all sorts of ways to pitch your project on Kickstarter but the company has said that projects that include a really compelling video seem to do much better than those that either have no video or a weakly made video If you make the story compelling it really works In fact others have suggested that the quottieredquot offerings on Kickstarter don39t matter that much either If people want to support you they39ll support you The different tiers just let them choose how to support youPeople who take part are invested in your success The great thing about Kickstarter projects is that they39re a great way to get fans to be really invested in a project39s success When people buy a product they don39t care all that much about how many other people are buying it But having the target goal really gets the public invested in the overall success of a project In fact what39s become clear is that people get really invested in seeing projects succeed at massive levels While conventional wisdom might suggest that fans would not like it if a project gets quottoo muchquot money the opposite has been seen in reality Once they39re bought into a project they often want to see just how high it can go and they celebrate the massive successes when new projects break old records They39re a part of the project rather than just quota consumerquotAll of these are lessons that can be useful both inside and outside of Kickstarter Marketing campaigns that matter need to have a real connection a good quotstoryquot and also get people invested in the campaign None of this can be superficial either It has to be a real connection Having a platform like Kickstarter can help drive some of that but in the end the ability to create that real connection is all that mattersMichael Masnick is the EditorinChief of Techdirt a SAY Media partner For more insights from SAY Media visit saydailycomSAY Media is a digital publishing company that creates amazing media brands Through its technology platform and media services SAY enables its portfolio of independent content creators to build passionate communities around key consumer interest areas such as Style Living Food and Tech For more information visit wwwsaymediacomRead all SAY Media39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at SAY DailyCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Lessons from Kickstarter: How to Create Marketing Campaigns That Matter - SAY Media

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