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Building a Prelaunch Community For Kickstarter

There are multiple strategies to generate momentum during a Kickstarter campaign. Let’s briefly go over each of them, including all the secret tips and tricks to ensure success.


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Walkthrough Video

You can watch a walkthrough video about Kickstarter Marketing, here.

 

 

EXAMPLE of different ad campaign and funnel types for Kickstarter, laid out in a logical sequence for efficient market testing:

EXAMPLE of different ad campaign and funnel types for Kickstarter, laid out in a logical sequence for efficient market testing:

 

 

Funnels

Not all strategies are required for success, but at the very least you will require a funnel that generates a mailing list or community:

 

Landing Page Funnel

The landing page funnel is the most common funnel for prelaunch campaigns. They consist of social ads which lead to a landing page with an email signup form – usually including some special offer:

Overview of Landing Page Funnel

 

Social Funnel

Some projects use a social funnel using an Instagram, Reddit, or TikTok page, where the bio link directs users to a simple sign-up page to insert their email, subscribe on Patreon, or join a Discord community.

NOTE:  These social media pages can be growth-hacked using Pagelike or Spark Ads with the "Followers" objective.

Overview of Social Media Funnel

EXAMPLE SOCIAL BIO:

Example of Social Funnel

 
EXAMPLE SIGNUP PAGE: 

Example of a Social Funnel Signup Page

 

Synergizing Funnels Together

The landing page funnel and social funnel are not separate components.

You can connect your funnels together by re-using your top-performing posts on social media as advertisements:

Connect the Social Funnel to Ad Funnel


If you have a TikTok, Reddit, or regularly post your project in Facebook Groups, you can easily identify what content works best organically.

Try turning your best-performing organic posts into Facebook Ads – often, they will also become your best-performing ads:

Re-use top posts as social ads

Similarly, with Facebook Pages, you can press the “invite” button next to people’s names who “like” your ads or page posts. This will send them a notification to follow your page, allowing them to stay connected and eventually dive deeper down your social funnel.

You can boost posts on your page using the “Engagement objective”, and invite those who engage with your posts to follow your page:

Example of Inviting post likes to become page followers

 


VIP Community

While mailing list signups convert into backers at a rate of anywhere from 1% to 10%, there is a better way to warm up your leads.

After somebody visits your landing page, you can direct them to a “Thank You” page that gives them a special offer:

  • Free-entrance community, where they can enter for a chance to win a reward tier or free early access key
     
  • Paid VIP Reservation, where they put down $1+ to lock in an early bird discount

  • Paid VIP Exclusive Add-on, Variation, or Upgrade, where they put down $1+ to receive exclusive VIP Add-ons, variation, or upgrade.

Additional offers may include taking a feedback survey, or simply to follow on Kickstarter.


These VIPs convert into sales at a rate of 15% to as high as 60%.

 

Check out a full list of example VIP Offer pages in the Template Store for the 'Rocket' Shopify theme, here.

EXAMPLE of Join Community:

Example of Community Invite special offer

 

EXAMPLE of VIP Reservation:

Example of a VIP Reservation Special Offer page

 

EXAMPLE of VIP Exclusive Add-on:

Example of a VIP Exclusive Add-on Special Offer page

 

You can also repost your best posts in the VIP Community back onto your Grassroots page, and reshare those posts into other groups, forums, subreddits, etc. – leading to more followers, signups, and VIP members.

 

Overview of VIP Community and VIP Reservations

 

If you are running a Facebook Group for your community, you can link your group to your page and invite people who follow your page to join the group.

 

Send Your Best VIP Posts as Emails

You can nurture your email leads by creating a monthly highlight email containing your best posts in the VIP community.

Overview of Virtuous Cycle

 

When you make a post that is popular within your VIP community, copy the content into an email in Shopify Email. 

Include a call to action to join the community (or any other marketing goal), along with a button-link leading to the community.


This will help to grow your VIP list, getting you more feedback on content and ultimately more conversions into sales.

Cycle your best VIP content back to your Mailing List

 

This will help grow your VIP Community, getting you more feedback, insights, and ideas on how to generate more powerful content – and ultimately more conversions into sales during the live campaign.

 

Street Team Brigades

A Street Team is a guerilla marketing tactic that involves asking your most loyal fans to support or promote you during key moments.

While your VIP community can function as a Street Team at the most basic level, it is recommended to make a call-out for members to join a private chat room or group where you can directly message each other:

Street Team Brigade Formation


With a Discord Server, you can set up Role Reacts to allow members to self-select a street team role, and push notifications to them:

Using Role Reacts to create a Discord Street Team


You can also send an invitation to join the Street Team to your mailing list – consider creating a segment in your mailing list of a 60%+ open rate:

Overview of Street Team Guerilla Marketing

 

Make sure to be clear about the responsibilities of the street team before they join – their responsibility is to provide extra support on important posts on Reddit, external groups, or forums by liking, commenting, or upvoting.

In exchange you can give them extra perks, such as access to an alpha demo, special backer rewards, a personalized thank you gift, etc:


Consider setting up Affiliate links for your Street Team members, where they earn free rewards or credit on Backerkit when they refer new VIP reservations or backers.

 


Repeating Success on Kickstarter

After completing your prelaunch and are ready to launch on Kickstarter, you have already verified your best content. 

It’s time to re-use it and repeat that success on Kickstarter!

 

Facebook Ads to Campaign Details

Reuse your best ad image and text as the Project Image, Title, and Subtitle:

 

Overview of Live Campaign strategy

 

This will have a major impact on organic traffic and organic conversions, as you’ve already proven them to be most effective!

Transferring winning ad content to the Kickstarter campaign page

 

If you need to make minor adjustments – such as a removal of a bullet list or red arrow in the image, or the inclusion of a product shot in front of concept art – make sure to test the new creative variations a week prior to launching your crowdfunding campaign to verify the best variation.

 

Landing Page to Campaign Page

Once again, it is recommended to re-use the layout, design, and formatting of your landing page as the Kickstarter Page content:

Overview of Live Campaign page design

 

Attach new additional information to the end of the Kickstarter page, such as the description and images of rewards, a reward tier chart, team bios, etc.

Transfer content from the landing page to the Kickstarter Campaign Page

 

Putting It All Together

As mentioned, not all strategies are required or recommended per product.

Video games, entertainment, hardware tools, pet products, fitness, fashion and beauty, etc. tend to do well with social funnels – while other products will require a landing page funnel driven by social advertisements.

Similarly, video games and Dungeons & Dragons supplements will do well with a Patreon Subscription system, while physical products make sense with a $1 VIP Reservation system.

Hosting a Facebook Group or Discord Server for your VIPs can be valuable for products that involve a popular discussion topic, hobby, or lifestyle.

Complete overview diagram of all Kickstarter Marketing Strategies

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