After we determined to develop and launch BackerKit Crowdfunding, we had very bold targets.
We needed to reimagine what crowdfunding may very well be and construct that future along with creators, develop a rapidly-evolving platform that saved tempo with creators’ wants and uncapped creativeness, and ship a creator and backer expertise that was higher each time.
We wish creators to stay their finest artistic lives.
And while you begin pondering by way of the lifetime pursuit of a creator, and the lifetime worth of a backer, you start to suppose within the very long run and much outdoors the one-month, one-campaign-lifecycle field that’s contained crowdfunding platforms, instruments, and experiences because the very starting.
We constructed BackerKit Crowdfunding from the bottom as much as essentially break away from this mildew – one which creators had lengthy outgrown. I’m proud to share that we’ve made important strides in the direction of this imaginative and prescient and these targets in little or no time.
In underneath two years of providing BackerKit Crowdfunding for creators in beta, we’ve launched instruments and options which have already begun to reimagine and redefine key areas of the crowdfunding journey, successfully altering what it means to run a marketing campaign in the present day.
Beneath are these instruments and options that illustrate our imaginative and prescient of contemporary crowdfunding. Among the most profitable creators have wielded them to realize their finest campaigns thus far and even break some {industry} data within the course of.
Construct early buzz and followers with the mighty Teaser Web page 🌟
After over a decade of working with fellow creators, I’ve realized that the commonest explanation for unsuccessful initiatives isn’t the shortage of funding – it’s failing to launch in any respect.
And I get it, as a result of I’ve been there myself. Sharing your challenge to the world is a leap of religion. It’s nothing wanting a brave act. However the easy act of claiming your targets out loud carries energy, and we imagine asserting a challenge is the only most impactful first step a creator can take in the direction of their objective.
What was lacking was a neater and sooner option to do it.
This perception is what impressed us to develop the BackerKit Teaser Web page – a web page that says your marketing campaign forward of your launch date and gives a sneak peek of your challenge to construct pleasure round your crowdfund. It additionally serves as a vacation spot web page that:
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- Informs your present viewers of your marketing campaign launch date.
- Counts all the way down to the precise second your marketing campaign goes stay.
- Invitations new and present followers to comply with your marketing campaign because it unfolds.
- Presents present audiences (by way of electronic mail, social, and so on.) a web page they will comply with and share.
- Gauges curiosity and demand previous to launch.
- Lists your challenge alongside upcoming BackerKit Crowdfunding campaigns.
We’ve discovered this Teaser Web page to be a easy but highly effective device to take our creators from zero to launch, and now we have the information to show it:
80% of creators who publish a teaser web page comply with by way of to launch their marketing campaign on BackerKit.
Since releasing BackerKit Crowdfunding, we’ve labored alongside creators to make publishing a BackerKit Teaser Web page simpler and sooner than ever by seamlessly integrating Teaser Web page creation into the marketing campaign setup workflow. Now you’ll be able to go from signing up for a BackerKit account to publishing your teaser web page in minutes.
Attempt it out – begin a brand new draft challenge now. Want inspo? View stay teaser pages which can be launching quickly on BackerKit.
Flip each launch into a celebration 🥳
Envision your launch date: Your backers crowd the gates. They rely down the ultimate seconds when your marketing campaign goes stay they usually can lastly do what they’ve been ready to do for months – click on that pledge button.
The marketing campaign launch is a uncommon and highly effective second. It could generate sufficient vitality to hold momentum for the whole marketing campaign and might imply the distinction between having good or a ridiculously nice crowdfund.
But when the launch is so essential, why has the marketing campaign launch expertise – primarily watching a web page refresh – gone just about unchanged because the daybreak of crowdfunding?
We needed to reimagine the normal launch to replicate what it actually is – an occasion. In its finest type, it’s a celebration.
On BackerKit, creators can now host a Launch Social gathering web page and expertise to drive and construct upon the vitality you and your backers already deliver to your launch day and prolong it properly into your marketing campaign, and past.
Right here’s what prime creators did to compose a few of the finest BackerKit Launch Social gathering pages and experiences thus far:
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- Collect and activate your followers looong earlier than launch. Like with any massive occasion, you’ll want time to unfold the phrase. Plan your outreach months upfront and share your distinctive Launch Social gathering web page hyperlink for each channel – electronic mail, social, and even adverts.
- Increase followers with follower-exclusive content material. Flip web page guests into followers by providing on the spot entry to unique content material to anybody who opts into following your marketing campaign. This can be a built-in function for Launch Social gathering pages that builds your electronic mail checklist, follower rely, and viewers pleasure. Brandon Sanderson’s Dragonsteel is dropping follower-exclusive content material proper now.
- Arrange dialog starters. Your backers are right here to mingle with you and fellow followers of your work. Heat up the gang by posting polls, discussions, and updates in your Launch Social gathering web page to maintain your viewers engaged and coming again for extra as you close to the launch date.
- Stream the ball drop. Make your launch day a memorable occasion by stay streaming the countdown instantly out of your Launch Social gathering web page and experiencing the glory going from T-minus to launch collectively along with your backers. Mini Museum remembers their livestreamed launch because the “most enjoyable I’ve had interacting with our backer neighborhood ever.”
Personal, attain, and construct your viewers from one central hub 💗
The magic of the crowdfunding campaigns lies in its finite nature. It has a starting, an finish, and between is that this fleeting second that injects urgency spurring your backers into motion. It’s a strong factor.
So highly effective that this finite and fleeting nature of crowdfund campaigns dictated the best way crowdfunding instruments have been developed for creators. This typically led to tedious and damaged processes that went unaddressed for years.
One instance is how creators needed to begin from zero contacts with every new marketing campaign, leading to hours of exporting and importing contact lists from their final marketing campaign to the following and typically from one platform to a different. A nomadic, guide, and unsustainable option to construct and handle an viewers.
That is why lengthy earlier than we developed BackerKit Crowdfunding we provided another – a streamlined electronic mail and backer administration device to which creators may:
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- Import contacts from wherever.
- Centralize viewers constructing in a single place.
- Talk with backers immediately.
With BackerKit Crowdfunding, we’ve integrated these instruments and options into the platform and made enhancements that flip viewers constructing and outreach right into a semi-automated course of. At present, BackerKit creators like you’ll be able to:
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- Personal and handle your complete crowdfunding viewers. By no means begin from zero contacts once more. In contrast to different platforms, BackerKit Crowdfunding robotically retains the e-mail lists you’ve gathered from one marketing campaign to the following, effortlessly managing and constructing your viewers with every new challenge. Simply attain new and previous supporters and monitor pledges to study what number of are new or repeat backers. And when you’ve used BackerKit Pledge Supervisor, your viewers is already right here, saved to your profile, and ready to listen to about your subsequent marketing campaign.
- Carry your viewers, we’ll assist get them to pledge. Cease drafting emails that may very well be notifications. With a one click on you’ll be able to allow the BackerKit platform to inform your backers in your behalf as quickly as you’ve reached key challenge milestones, reminiscent of reaching your funding objective. Your backers are immediately alerted, and you’ll watch the web page visits, pledges, and applause emojis roll in.
- Highly effective, actionable insights by way of enhanced analytics. Know who’s backed you and who wants one other nudge. BackerKit not solely gives strong reporting on which channels and messages are driving probably the most pledges, however it might act on this knowledge by robotically sending your challenge updates to followers who’ve but to again, delivering well timed, noteworthy reminders to affix your rising marketing campaign.
Your viewers is your viewers. Now with BackerKit, they’ve a central house from the place you’ll be able to preserve them heat and invite them to your subsequent occasion, challenge, or marketing campaign.
Don’t simply run a marketing campaign – ship an expertise 🤩
Within the age of Amazon, AI-generated product photographs, and same-day delivery – crowdfunding is a subversive act.
It’s the place folks pledge a challenge that may be made and, if that’s the case, ships a lot, a lot later. It defies the market forces dictating how issues are produced, purchased, and delivered in the present day (ideally as quick, faceless, and low-cost as attainable).
However crowdfunding endures as a result of it’s essentially completely different. And it attracts those that are completely different: creators and backers who imagine within the indie, collaborative, and affected person method to creating one thing distinctive, beloved, and lasting.
Your backers aren’t right here to purchase and bye. They’re right here to assist a imaginative and prescient, join with you, and belong to a gaggle of fellow followers.
They’re right here for an expertise. So let’s give them one to recollect.
Right here’s how one can ship enjoyable, interactive BackerKit experiences all through your marketing campaign to maintain backers engaged, entertained, and anticipating what’s subsequent.
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- Gamify your marketing campaign with locked Achievements. Arrange neighborhood targets round funding, variety of backers, and even actions you need your backers to take. BackerKit tracks all of it, unlocks your achievement when a objective is reached, and notifies your backers to share the most recent win.
- Empower backers with “select your personal journey” polls. Invite backers to share in your artistic course of. Polls with photographs permit you to get direct suggestions on any side of your marketing campaign. You management who will get to weigh in – be they your diehard followers or most people.
- Stream the dream, and stream it typically. There’s nothing extra superior than getting to hang around stay with a creator you’re keen on. That’s why we constructed some superior YouTube Reside and Twitch Streaming integrations that allow you and your backers to work together in actual time on BackerKit. You may name out and thank backers as they pledge and reply viewers questions as they chat them in. You may even schedule streams and BackerKit will robotically notify your followers when it’s time to go online.
- Spark discussions that fireplace up your followers. Make your marketing campaign web page right into a homebase the place your followers can collect and converse round their shared fandom of you. Pose a thought-provoking query, or let backers speak amongst themselves and drop a remark to maintain the dialog flowing. Other than maintaining your viewers heat all through the marketing campaign, discussions permit backers to floor necessary questions, serving to you catch and handle project-related points earlier than they flip essential.
- Immediately reward Backer-Unique Content material. Give backers a present the second they pledge. Whether or not it’s a quick demo, a preview pdf, a customized wallpaper, or a reduction code – Backer-Unique Content material can ship that first of many wow moments for backers, providing a peek of what’s to return and quick thanks for supporting you.
The above are BackerKit-only options and levers you’ll be able to pull to customise your marketing campaign and amp up engagement. However BackerKit additionally powers some impactful built-in experiences that preserve your backers backing, together with:
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- A Backer Prepare nobody desires to cease. This BackerKit pledge prepare indicators back-to-back pledges made to your marketing campaign, and the prepare retains rising so long as a brand new backer pledges inside 10 minutes of the final. A easy however extremely efficient nudge that retains the pledges coming. What’s the longest Backer Prepare thus far? It could shock you.
- A entrance web page powered by your backers. On BackerKit, it’s not about whom you already know; it’s what your backers do this will get you listed on the entrance web page. Tasks with nice discussions, rousing polls, and useful communities are those that get highlighted, whatever the dimension of your challenge.
- One of the best advertising you’ve by no means completed. Posting marketing campaign updates retains backers knowledgeable and engaged. However on BackerKit, your updates may also set off automated notifications to followers who haven’t backed but. This is without doubt one of the best and environment friendly methods BackerKit creators are driving pledges and turning extra followers into backers. Entrepreneurs name this fancy magic “viewers segmentation” and “advertising automation,” however at BackerKit, that is merely the built-in advertising technique you’ll by no means should “do” – as a result of we do it for you.
Associated: Get the total BackerKit expertise. Comply with and again a stay challenge in the present day. >>
Professional-tip: Stack experiences like a boss 😎
Story Engine had deliberate for a 90-minute livestream Launch Social gathering however spontaneously modified their plans on air: they vowed to finish the livestream provided that their Backer Prepare stopped or as soon as they hit their funding objective.
However the Backer Prepare saved chugging alongside, propelling Story Engine to hit their funding objective in simply 4 quick hours. It’s a masterful instance of how one can wield instruments and experiences collectively to maximise the second and make it memorable.
Crowdfunding constructed on prime of BackerKit’s best-in-class choices 💫
We’ve solely coated a few of the many game-changing options accessible on BackerKit Crowdfunding in the present day.
And while you join a BackerKit creator account, you get entry to all of the above plus the suite of choices which have set BackerKit aside for over a decade, together with our industry-leading BackerKit Pledge Supervisor – the primary and premiere pledge administration software program constructed for crowdfunding.
As a BackerKit creator, you’ll additionally get pleasure from:
All you should make it actual. Uncover BackerKit for your self. Enroll and publish your Teaser Web page in lower than 5 minutes. >>
