The incredible growth of the crowdfunding industry in the past few years has brought about a number of new complementary services to make the process of raising money online easier for creators.
These include project tracking websites like Kicktraq and Graphtreon, PR services like CrowdfundingPR (partner site), and BackerKit.
Use the code CROWDCRUX to get a discount on BackerKit’s setup fee.
BackerKit is a comprehensive solution for all of your reward fulfillment and logistics needs. It helps you send surveys, optimize and automate shipping, distribute digital downloads, and more. It also integrates with Kickstarter, Indiegogo and tilt/OPEN.
Together with Shopify, VHX (for digital rewards) and fulfillment companies like Shipwire and Fulfillrite (our podcast sponsor), BackerKit offers creators a wide range of useful services that take away the hassle of managing all of these campaign elements separately.
Here are a few ways that you can streamline your campaign with BackerKit:
The code CROWDCRUX will get you a discount on BackerKit’s setup fee.
1. Surveys
Surveys are essential when it comes to reward fulfillment. They help you narrow down exactly what you need to send your backers before shipping out rewards. They also give backers the option to customize their orders.
BackerKit surveys make it easy for backers to:
- Update their order information
- Answer custom questions for certain pledge levels
- Upgrade their pledge level after the campaign is over. This way, backers get a second chance to pledge higher and you don’t miss out on extra funds for your project!
2. Information Management
Keeping track of important information throughout your crowdfunding campaign makes a huge difference, but it’s also very annoying. To ensure that things go smoothly and according to schedule, you must stay organized.
With BackerKit’s information management tools, you can stay up-to-date with a customer’s survey progress, order status and tracking information, all in one place!
This simple dashboard makes it easy to remind backers to complete surveys, charge credit cards for pledge upgrades, and lock down orders. You’ll get a clear view of your backers’ progress and what needs to be done, or what rewards have been shipped.
3. Optimized and Automated Shipping
For many creators running their first crowdfunding campaign, reward fulfillment, shipping and other business aspects are downright challenging.
Choosing the right shipping options for your specific project means smooth sailing, but failing to think these things through can prove to be problematic and even costly. BackerKit simplifies this process by giving you a number of options to choose from.
As a creator, you can buy USPS postage directly from BackerKit; this includes printable shipping labels, packaging slips, and international customs forms. BackerKit does most of the work automatically, like calculating extra shipping costs and sorting similar order combinations, so you can get a better idea of how many of each type of package you need to ship.
4. Simplified Add-Ons
Add-ons are a great way to increase pledges for your campaign and raise your overall funding meter. BackerKit uses an add-on menu that stores all of your backers’ add-on information for you, reducing the chance of errors that comes with doing it by hand.
Backers can choose to purchase add-ons after the campaign is over, with Stripe payment integration to collect payments without any difficulty.
5. Digital Reward Distribution
Some projects include digital rewards, such as digital copies of albums or films, pictures, print and play board games, books and much more. BackerKit is great because it allows you to ship both your physical rewards (if you have any) as well as your digital rewards – all in one place!
If your digital rewards aren’t ready as soon as your campaign ends, that’s okay! All you need to do is upload them when you’re ready and your backers will get an email letting them know their reward is available.
6. Dedicated Support Team
There are many services out there to help you manage a crowdfunding campaign. Some are more hands-off tools, and others offer direct support.
BackerKit prides themselves in working closely with their customers to make sure that they get the best solution for their campaign. The support you need is there to make sure that backers’ questions get answered, along with yours.
7. Pre-Orders Made Easy
Many entrepreneurs running their first crowdfunding campaign struggle with getting backers and new customers onto their e-commerce website after the campaign is over, so that they can continue to make sales.
This post-crowdfunding issue is easily solved by linking your pre-order page to your Kickstarter Spotlight page. BackerKit’s pre-order process is simple and again uses Stripe to make accepting payments from new customers a cinch. You can also use their embeddable widget to take pre-orders from your own website.
Who is BackerKit for?
Since BackerKit launched, they have helped over 1,000 creators raise $13.1 million in post-campaign funds and surveyed 1.8 million backers. They have also resolved 90% of backer inquiries.
At the same time, they aren’t for everyone. You can listen to my podcast interview with Max, the cofounder of BackerKit to get a better idea of who should use the tool.
Until the end of October creators who use the referral code CROWDCRUX will get a reduced BackerKit setup fee of $149. If you are currently running a crowdfunding campaign and are interested BackerKit’s service, you can sign-up here.
