5 Tips to Running a Successful Kickstarter Campaign

Shippo partnered with Your Comic Story to support their Kickstarter campaign for their new educational comic book for kids called “My First Startup.” If you become a backer of the campaign, the awards include access to e-commerce resources like shipping labels via Shippo, business cards, and help creating landing pages. Their team has learned a lot in the process of creating their campaign…

Running a successful Kickstarter campaign is like riding a bicycle: you need get a strong start and keep pedaling. Those 30 or so days are guaranteed to be a flurry of activity, with compulsive checking of your progress and automatic coffee refills. These five tips will make the process a little easier and help you feel a lot more sane to get through your campaign in one piece:

1. Plan far ahead

It’s not enough to plan weeks ahead. Thinking you’ll get the basics down early and figure out everything else as you go is a recipe for disaster. A successful campaign plans every important detail months in advance: the Kickstarter video, contacting the media/bloggers, building up an active fan base that will promote you, rewards and stretch goals, and more. When preparing for our Kickstarter campaign for My First Startup, our comic book that teaches kids entrepreneurship, we started gathering contact information of relevant media and other organizations months in advance (which helped us get coverage in Inc., Entrepreneurship, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and others). Also, don’t forget to plan for what happens after your Kickstarter is over and ensure that you have capacity and plan for shipping the rewards.

2. Your (Facebook) friends are your #1 backer base

Don’t be afraid to ask your friends to help you. Yes, Facebook friends count. First of all, they actually know you, so they’re more likely to give you money and tell others about your project. Second, they will get enough buzz for your project for others to notice. This is no time to be shy.

3. The first day is everything

Speaking of early buzz, try to get as much support in terms of backers and amount on your first day. That gives you a better shot to be noticed by Kickstarter and the media. And getting noticed is definitely a good thing. In practical terms, this means that you should be ready to spend the first day messaging every Facebook friend about your Kickstarter campaign (which is what we did for My First Startup).

4. Be strategic about your rewards

Your rewards are not just there to show off your signature. One of the main reasons to have different rewards with higher amounts is to get your campaign a boost towards the goal. For example, our Custom Comic Book reward creates a comic book for the backer about them (or someone else, if it’s a gift). And in the process, it moves us much closer to meeting our funding goal.

5. It’s not over until it’s over

However many days you set for your campaign, each of those days is a chance to make it more successful. Even after you meet your funding goal, you can raise more money and do an even better version of your project. It’s a battle out there, so start every day by thinking of new ways to give your Kickstarter campaign a boost. And then do it!

Hope these five tips help your Kickstarter campaign. And take a look and back the My First Startup campaign here.

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This post is contributed by David Kieve of Your Comic Story, whose team creates comics for all kinds of special occasions – to make all stories more fun!

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Plan for success from the get go for your crowdfunding campaign, and for the business. Don’t leave shipping to until the last minute. Turn it into a tool to delight your customers and drive sales from the very beginning of their customer journey. Also check out Shippo’s guide to crowdfunding campaign shipping. 

Shippo is a multi-carrier API and web app that helps retailers, marketplaces and platforms connect to a global network of carriers. Businesses use Shippo to get real-time rates, print labels, automate international paperwork, track packages and facilitate returns. Shippo provides the tools to help businesses succeed through shipping.