What I’m about to say is controversial and it’s going to make you feel uneasy, but it will by far improve your chances of successfully raising money on Kickstarter.
The first seven days of your Kickstarter campaign can make or break your fundraising effort, especially if you are aiming to raise upper five or six figures.
The second your project goes live, it’s your responsibility to generate the momentum and wind speed needed to make your Kickstarter campaign take flight.
If you don’t take the initial 7 days seriously, then you will end up running into the lake at the end of the runway and fail to raise funds.
When you click the submit button and are approved by the Kickstarter team, rather than hoping that people will find your project through the website or that your awesome creation will magically be picked up by bloggers, plan for it.
Check out some of these successful campaigns below that have hustled from the beginning to reach their fundraising goal. I’ve included snapshots of KickTraq analytics, which provide some great insights on the number pledges per day and backers per day each campaign attracted.
iSketchnote
The iSketchnote raised $346,127 in 30 days from 2,395 backers. As you can see below, $160,000+ of their pledges came within the first 7 days of their campaign, with a massive spike on the first two days and a smaller spike in the last three days.
Their initial push generated the momentum necessary to soar past their $35K fundraising goal.
In my interview with the team behind this campaign, they stressed that this early success took six months of preparation and hard work.
“I think we launched our campaign at the right moment! We didn’t have any fanbase before our Kickstarter launch but we tried to get close to the Sketchnote community, especially with Mike Rohde (the author of The Sketchnote Handbook).
With the team, we worked hard since January and even before on this campaign (marketing and communication strategy). To finish up we have a good product, which fills a need in the tablet stylus space.”
The Ripple
The Ripple raised $29,154 in 40 days from 439 backers. Unlike the iSketchnote campaign, The Ripple didn’t reach their fundraising goal until almost 20 days into their campaign. However, they met almost 50% of their fundraising goal within the first 7 days of their campaign, with another surge near the 20 day mark and another small spike towards the end of their campaign.
In their interview, they underscored how they rallied their friends and family to pledge early into the fundraising effort, which allowed them to attract strangers as the campaign went on.
“A large majority of our funding has come from a massive group of friends and family who have helped, not only by funding our project, but by sharing it with others.”
Martial Arts: The Trading Card Game
Martial Arts: The Trading Card game raised $8,138 in 38 days from 84 backers. Even though they may not have raised as much money as the above two campaigns and they hit their fundraising goal at a later time in the campaigning process, they still raised the majority of their funds in the first seven days.
The chart below shows that the raised about 50% of their fundraising goal in the first 7 days. Many creators will balk at raising so much in the first week. Isn’t that what the 30 day time frame is for?
Ironically, the beginning and ending periods of a Kickstarter campaign seem to generate more pledges due to a sense of urgency and the novelty effect. Be sure to read “What does all this mean?” for more information as to how you can use this information to your advantage.
When interviewed, the creators had this to say regarding marketing: “We found that finding your industry’s online community and really getting involved with them is super important. Don’t just spam your idea, but also ask for advice and give your opinions and suggestions to others as well.”
What does all this mean?
Do your homework
Don’t wait until your first live day to research similar campaigns, contact journalists about your new initiative, compile lists of influencers in your industry, and build up your online presence before you launch your campaign so that your first week can be spent bringing in pledges, rather than doing ancillary activities.
Rally friends, family, and bloggers.
Start early and plan for your first week to be an explosion of activity. Treat the first 7 days as though you will ONLY get seven days to raise the funds for your project.
Ask all your friends and family to make sure their pledges are committed within the first week. If bloggers are willing to embargo your story, ask them to publish their posts now, the minute your campaign goes live.
The more work you do to coordinate these activities ahead of time, the easier it will be to generate momentum early and begin attracting strangers that might back your campaign.
Aim for 30-50% of your fundraising goal
You should aim to hit 30-50% of your fundraising goal in your first week (for 30-40 day campaigns). No doubt, this will be difficult, but you will have two things going for you: your campaign is novel and you will be reaching out to your friends and family initially, which are the easiest backers to attract.
Plan for three spikes in the fundraising process.
A large majority of Kickstarter campaigns that I have reviewed tend to experience the most pledge growth at the beginning and ending of their campaign (see the Kickstarter Slump).
However, if you plan for a major media story or a mention on a relevant industry group or forum, then you can generate another spike in the middle of your campaign, which will keep up your momentum when it’s most likely to slow down.
Research with KickTraq Analytics
Finally, in addition to researching similar campaigns and studying how they are laid out in terms of reward tiers, video length, copywriting, and PR outreach, it’s important to see how their fundraising campaign progressed over time.
Using the KickTraq “daily data” filter, you can see what backer spikes corresponded with media mentions and how the project team managed to foster discussion, by tying increases in “comments per day” to creator updates.
You can also use the “Latest News” section to track which publications featured similar campaigns so that you can reach out to those publications and journalists when you launch your own.
In Conclusion
Be sure to download the KickTraq chrome app while you’re doing research for your campaign and studying similar projects. You can easily click the stats image that appear over each Kickstarter project, which will take you to that creator’s Kicktraq page, where you will be able to see how pledges grew over time for the campaign and where spikes occurred.
My own research yielded that many successful campaigns generate the majority of their pledges in the first 7 days of their fundraising effort. Let us know the results of your own research by leaving a comment below!
