Tag: Engagement

Now that you have an idea of who your audience is, it is time to start interacting with them. I highly recommend reaching out to your audience well before your project begins. That way you, are part of the community and not some stranger trying to make a fast buck. Of course that’s not what you’re trying to do, but if the audience doesn’t know you, it might come off that way.

If you’re passionate about the subject matter, chances are you’re already part of an online community. If not, now is the time to start looking. Look for any blog, podcasts, online video shows, forums, or social networks related to your subject matter. Start joining these online communities and try to get a sense of what they’re all about. You don’t have to contribute right away, but you can if you want.

The important thing is to try to understand what the culture of each community is. When you feel comfortable, start interacting and talking to people about your project. You’re not trying to sell it to them, you’re just trying to get their feedback. If you want to learn more about how to reach out to online communities effectively, I recommend Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Crush It. He is one of the best online marketers and is great at interacting with communities to build an audience.

Do you know anyone off-line that is interested in your subject matter? Ask them what communities they are part of. You can also ask them if they are willing to help promote your idea. Even though Kickstarter is built to spread ideas online, don’t be afraid to reach out to people off-line. The combination can be very powerful. Off-line contacts will probably communicate very differently from online contacts. They may send private e-mails and messages to their friends. Those personal forms of communication can be very powerful when trying to recruit support for an idea.

With some projects, talking about your idea early may not be possible. For example, if you’re making a product in a very competitive space, you might not feel comfortable about telling people the details of your project. That’s okay, but you should still become part of these communities. Maybe you can help in other ways such as giving advice or posting useful links. Do whatever you can to be helpful to others, so when the time comes, they may be willing to help you.

A Kickstart’s Guide to Kickstarter TOC:

pssst…you can read all of this offline by downloading the e-book.

Now it’s time to really think about your audience. It will be made up of people from various niche audiences, whose interests are similar to the subject matter of your project. Think about all the different groups of people that might be interested in your project. I do not mean the demographic or any other generic marketing term. I do not mean people who like photography or paintings or any other genre of art. Who is the specific subset of people that are going to LOVE your project? The more specific, the better.

The hard part about defining your audience is that you might not be entirely sure who is going to like your project. That is why you are really going to need to do your homework. You need to have at least one group of people in mind that the project might appeal to.

Ultimately the more niches you can target, the better your chances will be. If you keep targeting the same people they will get tired of hearing about it. People are going to like it or not. Sending it to them more often probably won’t change that.

If you are lucky, your project may even appeal to people you had not thought of. However, failing to identify potential groups before your launch will make reaching your goal extremely hard. It’s OK to have some unexpected support, but it’s risky to leave everything up to chance.

A Kickstart’s Guide to Kickstarter TOC:

pssst…you can read all of this offline by downloading the e-book.

Saying that no one cares about you isn’t exactly true. It’s not that NO ONE cares, it’s just that most people aren’t going to randomly or instantly fall in love with your idea. Of course, that is what we would like to happen. We want the world to stop and for people to be unable to continue with their day until they have backed our project. But how often does that happen to you?

Most of the time we ignore the hundreds of marketing messages we receive every day. However, every once in a while, we come across something we just can’t live without. When that happens, we usually have strong emotional ties and care deeply about it.

In order for your project to be successful, you need to find the people who are going to have a strong emotional connection to it. It’s not going to be everyone, and you don’t need or want everyone. What you need is a core group or niche of people who will love your idea and bring their friends along.

It only takes a few

One misconception about the way Kickstarter works is that you need hundreds or thousands of people to back a project. This isn’t true at all. Just because money is being raised by “the crowd” doesn’t mean that the crowd has to be that big. Most projects are funded by a relatively small group of people.

My first project, Identifying Nelson, was funded by 170 people. This is a relatively small number considering our goal was $15,000. We didn’t get thousands of random people from the Internet to back our project. We just got a few people, mostly family and friends, who cared enough to make our project happen.

A Kickstart’s Guide to Kickstarter TOC:

pssst…you can read all of this offline by downloading the e-book.