The dreaded Kickstarter mid-campaign slump can be the worst. If you don’t reach your funding goal within the first week or two and things start slowing down, you might wonder if you’ll ever reach your funding goal! You’ve already emailed everyone you know and reached out to your list of journalists and bloggers to contact. What do you do next?
Some campaigners choose to run very short campaigns so they can go at them with high energy for about a week, and then move on to the next steps: completing the project and distributing rewards.
This requires a lot of preparation work, but it’s one way to speed up the crowdfunding process. We recommend running your Kickstarter campaign for 20-30 days. This gives you the time you need to get people excited about your launch and to win over other people as your project gets more popular.
In this post, I’m going to share a few ways that you can get out of the Kickstarter mid-campaign slump and prepare for a strong end to your Kickstarter campaign:
1. Add new reward tiers
Adding new reward tiers can be a good way to spark more interest when things start slowing down on Kickstarter. The Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaign is famous for doing this. If early bird discounts filled up fast you can open new reward tiers with similar discounts that ship a little later than the first ones. This way you can invite a wave of new pledges, and backers who supported you at the beginning still get priority over backers that came late in the campaign.
You can also add rewards based on feedback from the backer community or use any creative ideas that you might have come up with. The idea here is to try not to add to your overall budget unless you’ve surpassed your crowdfunding goal already. If you haven’t calculated costs properly for your campaign, pick rewards that won’t cost much (or anything) to ship, like Skype calls with backers and sharing PDFs or digital content.
2. Plan an event
Planning an event, like a launch party, can give people something to look forward to and keep them talking about your project. Having an upcoming event gives you an excuse to spread the word on social media and email backers to give them more details and find out who can attend.
Events can include things a concert for backers if you are a band, a live screening of a new movie you just finished, a party to celebrate reaching a milestone, and more! The idea of this event is to create a buzz, so you can try to hold off announcing it until the middle of your campaign if the event is farther away, or plan it so that the event happens during your mid-campaign slump so you can do some valuable networking!
Sometimes it can be hard to get the attention of bloggers and journalists at the beginning of a Kickstarter campaign because you haven’t raised much yet. If you’re off to a slow start you can try again when you have more information for them.
If you follow up with journalists and bloggers during the mid-campaign slump, you can let them know that you have raised X% of your goal since you launched. Make sure you have an interesting story to tell about how you came up with the idea for your Kickstarter, and any other information like pictures and quotes that will make it easy for bloggers and journalists to pick up your story.
Look for leaders in your category who your target audience look up to. Having someone who writes about innovation and is respected in your industry cover your campaign can get you more views and pledges. You can also always submit a press release for your campaign to get the word out.
4. Post updates
Post interesting, relevant updates over the course of your crowdfunding campaign to email backers and let them know how your project is going. This can lead to more shares and increased pledges, something that you will definitely want during your mid-campaign slump.
Remember to share updates that are useful! Posting constant updates can also annoy backers, so share things that give them a behind the scenes view of your team or the project you are raising money for. Update them on milestones reached, any new developments, issues you run into, exciting announcements you may have, etc.
5. Use stretch goals or add-ons
Introducing stretch goals or add-ons is one way that you can get your backers to come back to your Kickstarter page and consider adding more to their pledges. Again, you need to ask yourself if this will add to your overall budget and maybe plan for it ahead of time.
Backers love the fun rewards creators come up with, especially the ones that are exclusive to Kickstarter! To save cost, add-ons can also include different color variations of a product or other things that don’t cost too much.
6. Communicate with your audience
Getting out of your mid-campaign slump can be as easy as taking your extra time to make sure that you respond quickly to questions via Kickstarter, email, and social media. It’s not the people that you know and supported your campaign early on that you need to focus on the most here, it’s the people who have just come across your project and aren’t convinced yet.
These people who are waiting and might not back your project might not be sure about how crowdfunding works. Maybe they got confused about something when they saw your page and choose not to pledge. These are the people who you need to reach out and talk to. If you are nice and answer their questions they will be much more likely to support you before your campaign ends.
Some tips on this list take a lot of effort, but others are as easy as being active and sharing interesting content on social media. This is something that a lot of us do naturally. We share things we like with friends and family on Facebook or share industry information with colleagues on platforms like LinkedIn.
If your social media accounts are updated and clearly feature working links to your Kickstarter campaign, sharing content on a daily basis can help you get more views and more backers. You can even automate your social media using tools like the ones we talk about in this post!
8. Hold a contest or giveaway
Everyone loves having the chance to be a winner, and what better way to increase engagement in your project during this time of need than a little contest or giveaway? You can be as fun and creative as you like – it’s your project!
I’ve seen creators ask backers to name their invention, submit art for the project, and more. This is a great way to get backers more involved in your campaign and “make it their own”. It can be hard to let go a little but ultimately this type of thing can get your more attention during your mid-campaign slump.
9. Plan a Thunderclap for the end of your campaign
Thunderclap is one of a few crowdspeaking platforms that you can use to spread the message before your Kickstarter campaign ends. How it works: you ask people you know to agree to share the same message at the same time as everyone else on a set day. The more people who agree the better. On some platforms there are goals you have to reach, like getting 200 people to support you.
When the day comes, your message goes out on each individual’s social media pages at the same time, giving you the chance to go viral and get more attention! Your message can be anything, like, “7 DAYS LEFT TO GET IN ON THIS AWARD-WINNING TECH KICKSTARTER! (with a link),” or any other attention-grabbing facts that apply to your campaign.
10. Stay organized and prepare for the final stretch
It can be discouraging seeing your pledges even out after the first couple of weeks, especially when you still have weeks left to go. Just know that your efforts aren’t going to waste. There are always people who will procrastinate and wait until the last second to back your campaign, or people who want to see if it will reach its goal before they support you.
By keeping organized and using some of the strategies outlined in this post, you will be prepared for the last stretch of your campaign. Don’t give up and think that your work is done after your launch, it’s important to keep it up when things slow down too. All of your hard work will pay off in the end when you get that last spike of activity.
Conclusion
Getting through the Kickstarter mid-campaign slump has a lot to do with your mindset as a creator. If you think that simply putting your campaign up on Kickstarter is going to be enough, you’re in for a surprise. It can take a lot of work to get people interested in your project and encourage them to invest in your idea. If you dedicate yourself to getting the word out there and enjoy yourself a little in the process, you will do great!
For more ways to rock your Kickstarter campaign, check out this recent CrowdCrux podcast: Exposing Crowdfunding Secrets and Jedi Mind Tricks.
Feel free to leave any questions or comments below!
