How to have a successful pre-launch
By: Backerland Team
Tags: Project Management, Crowdfunding, Kickstarter, Resources, Indiegogo

Campaign owners can’t just launch their crowdfunding campaign and then expect backers to fund them fully.

The success of crowdfunding comes more from consumers seeking personal connections with their choice of products and identifying with creator’s stories.

Regardless of backer’s intent, most project owners find that raising money isn’t easy. There are a lot of choices when it comes which sites to use, which rewards to offer, how to ship goods across the world and more.

But before all that, having a successful pre-launch for their project is just as important.

With project owners focusing on running a successful campaign and getting funded, the pre-launch stage is often overlooked.

This critical period is where project owners can create support and build the initial momentum to get their campaign funded quickly. Once the campaign launches, many find they don’t the time to do this.

Keep in mind that less than 40% of all projects are funded fully on Indiegogo and Kickstarter.

If you’re thinking of launch a project, the best advice is to prepare 60 days before their launch; and to break up their pre-launch phase into three stages:

Stage 1: Research

If you are about to launch a crowdfunding campaign, chances are someone else already had an idea similar to yours (maybe even the same one) and they’ve already launched a campaign for it.

This is a good thing because it gives you access to vital data. Studying data on the success (or failure) of these campaigns, you can evaluate everything including your marketing strategy, choice of rewards, fulfillment, and who your backers will be.

Previous campaigns allow you to:

Narrow down your target market

Find out how much projects were trying to raise

The types of rewards they offered

How many backers they gathered

Better understand your backer’s mindset

Look at what backers have said in comment or reviews

On Kickstarter and Indiegogo, you can investigate campaigns by simply searching the site for your topic, whether they were funded fully or not.

Your end goal with the research is to further understand your customer’s mindset and help you better position your project.

Stage 2: Outreach

This is where you can start connecting with people who will be interested in funding your project.

Start by contacting your family, friends, and colleagues; when you launch, these initial donations will help you gain the traction you need on your first day.

Hopefully, you’ve started to regularly update your landing page, and have begun collecting emails through Facebook ads, driven mostly through paid advertising across social media.

Next, start building a list of influencers and publications who can help spread the word to their audiences. A quick way to do this is to:

Set up campaign profiles on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Look at online blogs and publications in your category and build a list of authors and editors.

Look on social media for influencers in your niche.

Phase 3: Community Building

You may think this is something you should do after your campaign is already live.

But, having an engaged and active community will help your campaign be funded quicker.

Don’t rely on Kickstarter or Indiegogo for traffic