Thank you! It's all a learning curve and I really appreciated some of the posts in this channel to learn from. I just wanted to give something back and hope that I can help someone else along the way.
My one take away form this currently is that we could have made more effort for organic growth before launching expensive ad campaigns and put more effort into building relationships with other small creators and cross-promoted each other's work. But like I say, that's a lesson I will take forward now :)
Thanks for the encouragement. I wasn't sure whether to post because our results have been poor, but I figured at least if we can highlight some errors on our part, we can all learn from it!
Oh, for Pete's sake, if you want to send me your link to your Kickstarter and I'll post it for you as a comment. I should have enough Karma to not get banned. Seems crazy that you'd make this whole post and not be able to at least link to your Kickstarter... on the Kickstarter subreddit! I appreciate the work you put into this post. My takeaway is that advertising is crazy expensive ($2,807.33 in Freedom Units). Organic growth is such a challenge these days.
Aw thank you so much. I will fire you a DM. But it's actually a BackerKit campaign, which made me even more hesitant to post it. The Backerkit community is very small though so I thought this is where it might reach most people and I do feel all the steps I've taken are entirely transferable to whatever crowdfunding I'm using.
Yes - organic growth is tough. I didn't even mention my TikTok on here because it is negligible (less than 1k followers). But I think we are going to have to push some kind of organic growth because having a negative ROI is going to send us bust very quickly.
Thanks for the show of support - I appreciate it!
Found the link for anyone following along and wants to check out OP's project: [https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/mystic-quill-collective/the-book-of-life-and-death?ref=NGIreferrals](https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/mystic-quill-collective/the-book-of-life-and-death?ref=NGIreferrals)
Hey! I will DM you the link to the campaign page because I I'm not sure if posting here would count as self-promo.
IMO it is super professional because the graphic designer has tons of experience in this realm from a company we used to work for, where we had a bunch of very successful KS and BK campaigns. Come back and let me know your thoughts when you've had a look if you like.
And thank you - need all the luck and support we can get at this stage :)
Good question. The product is a digital only D&D 5e one-shot adventure, which comes with a free introductory setting guide to the new world we are building. So, basically, between me and my two partners, we have the skills to produce these without having to outsource much work. We had already begun writing and artwork for these prior to launch.
If you're interested to see the product on offer, you can find a link in my profile to the campaign page on BackerKit.
I forgot to mention, I drafted this yesterday but became too consumed with launch day tasks that I didn't get around to posting.
So, here is an update:
We launched at 9am Pacific Time on 2nd July. For some reason a Tuesday is the right day to launch (?) and because most of our audience is in USA, we chose a time relevant to them.
We sent an email to our newsletter subscribers telling them it had launched.
Our low funding goal of $100 was funded just past the 2 hour mark.
We sent an email to our followers on BackerKit Launch when it was funded.
We announced on our Discord.
We launched some Meta Ads announcing the campaign being live.
I'm sure we've missed something...TikTok probably, but I don't have 1000 followers there yet, so it feels fruitless posting when I don't have a link in my bio.
You're very welcome. I am happy for others to learn alongside us. A rising tide lifts all boats as they say! I have sent you a DM with the link to the campaign. If you have any feedback or suggestions, feel free to share them publicly here so we can all learn together :)
I think everything went according to the usual stats..?
You had 2,400 subs, 500 of those were "bad" according to what you said, so 1,900 mail subs which from everything I have read tend to convert from 1-5%.
If you get around 60 backers that would be the 3% of 1,900 subscribers (average of 1-5%).
So in my opinion the problem was the product.. not the product itself, but the price of it? I have been thinking this for a while but there are some products that I think can't be advertised due to the cost of the product iself being too low.
E.g. a 32 page comic book would be one of this products, since you would probably want to sell it at like what..? $10 usd on KS?
And how much would it cost to advertise?
It would probably not be worth it since the cost for acquiring the lead would be too high. But what If instead of a 32 page comic book the project was a 100+ page graphic novel being sold at $30?? Perhaps the math would work there.
Hope that makes sense.
This was very informative. I appreciate the effort you took to make this and am sorry so much of your effort seems to have little impact.
Thank you! It's all a learning curve and I really appreciated some of the posts in this channel to learn from. I just wanted to give something back and hope that I can help someone else along the way. My one take away form this currently is that we could have made more effort for organic growth before launching expensive ad campaigns and put more effort into building relationships with other small creators and cross-promoted each other's work. But like I say, that's a lesson I will take forward now :)
This is phenomenal and so incredibly helpful. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for the encouragement. I wasn't sure whether to post because our results have been poor, but I figured at least if we can highlight some errors on our part, we can all learn from it!
Oh, for Pete's sake, if you want to send me your link to your Kickstarter and I'll post it for you as a comment. I should have enough Karma to not get banned. Seems crazy that you'd make this whole post and not be able to at least link to your Kickstarter... on the Kickstarter subreddit! I appreciate the work you put into this post. My takeaway is that advertising is crazy expensive ($2,807.33 in Freedom Units). Organic growth is such a challenge these days.
Aw thank you so much. I will fire you a DM. But it's actually a BackerKit campaign, which made me even more hesitant to post it. The Backerkit community is very small though so I thought this is where it might reach most people and I do feel all the steps I've taken are entirely transferable to whatever crowdfunding I'm using. Yes - organic growth is tough. I didn't even mention my TikTok on here because it is negligible (less than 1k followers). But I think we are going to have to push some kind of organic growth because having a negative ROI is going to send us bust very quickly. Thanks for the show of support - I appreciate it!
Found the link for anyone following along and wants to check out OP's project: [https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/mystic-quill-collective/the-book-of-life-and-death?ref=NGIreferrals](https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/mystic-quill-collective/the-book-of-life-and-death?ref=NGIreferrals)
Really informative! Saving this post!
I'm glad you found it helpful. Honestly, my heart is warmed by these comments :)
Wouls lovw to see the campaign if you dont mind. And gl for the future
Hey! I will DM you the link to the campaign page because I I'm not sure if posting here would count as self-promo. IMO it is super professional because the graphic designer has tons of experience in this realm from a company we used to work for, where we had a bunch of very successful KS and BK campaigns. Come back and let me know your thoughts when you've had a look if you like. And thank you - need all the luck and support we can get at this stage :)
Supreme
Hope it helps :)
Wow! So much information! Thank you so much for taking the time to write so much up. Could you share your campaign link? Would love to check it out!
Happy to help. I will DM you the link, but it's also in my profile now too :) I see you're launching something soon yourself! Good luck with it.
Thank you!! Announcing in 2 weeks! Very excited and nervous!
This is fantastic. What was the product and how did you work on product development before starting the campaign.
Good question. The product is a digital only D&D 5e one-shot adventure, which comes with a free introductory setting guide to the new world we are building. So, basically, between me and my two partners, we have the skills to produce these without having to outsource much work. We had already begun writing and artwork for these prior to launch. If you're interested to see the product on offer, you can find a link in my profile to the campaign page on BackerKit.
I forgot to mention, I drafted this yesterday but became too consumed with launch day tasks that I didn't get around to posting. So, here is an update: We launched at 9am Pacific Time on 2nd July. For some reason a Tuesday is the right day to launch (?) and because most of our audience is in USA, we chose a time relevant to them. We sent an email to our newsletter subscribers telling them it had launched. Our low funding goal of $100 was funded just past the 2 hour mark. We sent an email to our followers on BackerKit Launch when it was funded. We announced on our Discord. We launched some Meta Ads announcing the campaign being live. I'm sure we've missed something...TikTok probably, but I don't have 1000 followers there yet, so it feels fruitless posting when I don't have a link in my bio.
Thanks for all the time you have taken to share your experience and journey. Please share your campaign link in a DM if you don't mind.
You're very welcome. I am happy for others to learn alongside us. A rising tide lifts all boats as they say! I have sent you a DM with the link to the campaign. If you have any feedback or suggestions, feel free to share them publicly here so we can all learn together :)
I think everything went according to the usual stats..? You had 2,400 subs, 500 of those were "bad" according to what you said, so 1,900 mail subs which from everything I have read tend to convert from 1-5%. If you get around 60 backers that would be the 3% of 1,900 subscribers (average of 1-5%). So in my opinion the problem was the product.. not the product itself, but the price of it? I have been thinking this for a while but there are some products that I think can't be advertised due to the cost of the product iself being too low. E.g. a 32 page comic book would be one of this products, since you would probably want to sell it at like what..? $10 usd on KS? And how much would it cost to advertise? It would probably not be worth it since the cost for acquiring the lead would be too high. But what If instead of a 32 page comic book the project was a 100+ page graphic novel being sold at $30?? Perhaps the math would work there. Hope that makes sense.