VIP Access Funnel
VIP Access Funnels work best with products with a base price above $100.
The VIP offer takes place after an email lead has signed up for your newsletter. Instead of a “thank you” message, they are presented with an offer to place a $1 deposit or reservation (or $5, $10, or even $100).
The price of the VIP deposit should be less than 10% the final product price.
Check out a full list of example VIP Offer pages in the Template Store for the 'Rocket' Shopify theme, here.
EXAMPLE OF $1 VIP DEPOSIT PAGE:
At this stage, it is very effective to offer a VIP Exclusive Add-on, such as a free expansion pack, extra battery pack, exclusive DLC, giveaway of signed prototype / early access key / “all in” reward tier, etc.
EXAMPLE OF $1 VIP EXCLUSIVE ADD-ON PAGE:
The main use of the VIP Funnel is to help locate buyer intent.
You can track VIP purchases via the Meta Pixel, and optimize your ads to find more VIPs.
Many times, clients will find that multiple audiences generate cheap email leads, but some of those winning audiences will not generate VIPs. With a VIP funnel, you can reduce wasted ad-spend by identifying your audiences with the greatest buyer intent.
Another key advantage to a VIP funnel is it validates if the price is right for the target audience.
If your cost-per-VIP is expensive after including an VIP Exclusive Add-on, then the two main options are either to lower the MSRP, or reposition the product on the landing page to increase the perceived value:
Conversion Rates of Leads
When setting up your funnel, it’s important to determine your marketing goals so you can place appropriate Calls-to-action at each touchpoint.
Your marketing goals may change throughout your campaign. You can exchange the call-to-action at various touch points at any time.
NOTE: The conversion rate of email signups will be higher without using a VIP System. This is because the VIP System identifies and segments the highest-quality leads within your existing email list, thus moving them into a different “bucket”.
Here are examples of marketing goals and their conversion rates into sales:
- Email Signups
- Conversion Rate: 5% to 10%
- Conversion Rate: 1% to 3% (using VIP system)
- Acquisition Cost: up to $1 (in-app leadform)
-
Acquisition Cost: $1 to $3 (landing page)
- Kickstarter Followers
- Conversion Rate: 5% to 50%
- Acquisition Cost: $1.50 to $4 (direct ad traffic to prelaunch page)
- Acquisition Cost: $2 to $5 (landing page, hero banner button)
-
Acquisition Cost: $4 to $6 (landing page, post sign-up offer and email)
- Community Members (ie. Facebook Group or Discord)
- Conversion Rate: 5% to 50%
-
Acquisition Cost: $4 to $6 (landing page, post sign-up offer and email)
- VIP Reservations
- Conversion Rate: 5% to 50%
- Acquisition Cost: $5 or more (landing page, post sign-up offer and email)
Other marketing goals may include survey responses (50% of email leads take the survey, on average when successful) or Steam Wishlists.
Exclusive Sign-up Offer
An attractive opt-in offer can help drive email signups, community growth, and VIP reservations.
To receive the offer they must sign up via email, join the community, or make a VIP reservation purchase.
Email signup offers may include:
- Coupon Code
- (for products available to purchase immediately)
- Be Notified of Early Bird Discount
- VIP Deposit Discount offer
- VIP Exclusive Add-On or Exclusive Backer-Reward item
- Watch or read a Tutorial, Download templates, Recording of a Call, etc.
- Read the first 3 Chapters of a Book, comic pages, or film script scene
- Download a QuickStart Guide → (Dungeons & Dragons products)
-
Special DLC or Custom Items when product ships → (video game)
- (exclusive character skins, pets, audiobooks using murf.ai, etc.)
- If the new product is from a well-known brand: give them a secret password to access special features, levels, or characters within a previous product
Exclusive VIP Add-on
What do your potential customers want to receive or what do they value, in relation to the type of product you are creating?
Prioritized? Discounts? Exclusivity? Recognition? Experiences? Intimacy? Security? Support? Answers?
VIPs can also be called Early Supporters, Ambassadors, or Insiders.
For more exclusive VIP add-on ideas, you can view an extended list at the bottom of the reward tiers guide, linked here.
VIP Reservation:
- Lock in the Early Bird discount price → (physical products over $80)
- Automatic upgrade to Deluxe Edition from Base Edition
- Send them cool stickers in the mail now, before the campaign goes live
- Bonus extra or collectible add-ons
- (extra battery pack, swappable covers, collectible enamel pin, free add-on worth $X value, etc.)
- Material or capacity upgrade → (physical product)
- (upgrade leather watch strap to metal band, faux to real leather, increased storage, etc.)
- Personalization or Name engraving → (physical product)
- Art Print or Postcards of characters, by the artists → (books, graphic novel)
- Special Book Cover or Edging → (books, graphic novel)
- (printed or gold edging, limited edition cover, foil cover, glow-in-the-dark cover)
- Early Access to Playtest Materials or Demo → (video game, D&D)
- Exclusive Mini-Expansion Set → (card game, board game)
- Exclusive Downloadable Content or Features → (video game, digital apps)
Discord or Facebook Group:
- Chance to win Early Access copy or “All In” reward tier → (video game)
- Alpha, Beta builds or play test → (video game)
- Exclusive content drops
- (freebie with order, desktop/mobile wallpapers, Console dynamic background theme, etc.)
- Chat with the team and rest of the project community
- VIP-only polls
- (such as helping choose development directions, participate in design decisions)
- Monthly content releases
- (such as a newsletter, zine, or DnD supplements)
- Exclusive events
- (such as livestream community nights, live video/podcast to see it in action)
Reward Surveys
Reward Surveys are used to collect backers’ shipping addresses and any additional information you need from them to fulfill their order (such as choosing their preferred colorway or other bespoke customizations).
To send out surveys, you can use Kickstarter’s built-in survey tool.
If you are not using “Secret Reward Tiers” to give your VIPs their discount, you can also use the Reward Survey with non-Early Bird tiers to verify if the backer was a VIP and also used a different email address than when they signed up to become VIP and fulfill their VIP deposit or add-on manually:
EXAMPLE:
“Did you sign up as a VIP prior to the Kickstarter Launch? ($1 reservation)
If yes, please provide the email you signed up with.”
How To Fulfill VIP Rewards
In February 2025, Kickstarter added functionality for Secret Reward Tiers. A secret reward tier is a special link you can send to your VIPs via email for them to access a special private reward tier that isn’t available publicly.
According to Kickstarter:
"To set a reward as a Secret Reward, simply choose “Select backers only (Secret Reward)” for 'Audience' under the ‘Availability’ section when creating the reward.
After the reward has been saved, you can go ahead and share the link provided for that reward with your backers.
When your project is live, those backers can then use that private link to access and pledge to the Secret Reward. This reward won’t be visible to anyone accessing your project page without that link."
However, if you are running a legacy project prior to February 2025, please use any of the following tools or methods, or simply use my Backer List editor tool called the VIP-BACKER Order Sheet CSV Processor, downloadable for free here.
FOR LEGACY PROJECTS PRIOR TO 2025:
With Backerkit, you can easily create segments within your list of backers. You can assign a segment additional credit that can be used to offset Shipping or Add-on costs, or manually assign them an exclusive add-on.
The following steps can also be performed in a similar fashion using PledgeBox, Shopify, or PledgeManager.
To create a segment, go to the Backerkit Pledge Manager for your project, and then click “Segments”.
Click “Create a New Segment”, name the segment, and select your filters.
Once you have segments created, click the Segment in the Segments Dashboard, and press “Segment Actions” to apply a Complimentary Credit or Manually Add an Item (click this link for the official documentation).
Consider asking a question in your reward survey to identify people who used a different email address with their Kickstarter account:
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