The crowdfunding platform Kickstarter offers a huge range of opportunities to ask the general public for help in investing in a variety of projects. From personal labours of love to innovative new products to businesses needing a little extra help with the initial capital behind a new idea, the platform relies on the fact that unless the goal is reached, the project usually doesn’t acquire the funds which would otherwise need to be acquired by remortgaging, getting a second mortgage or trying to apply for numerous business loans. 

So, it’s critical that the projects raise enough attention, excitement, and buzz to carry itself across the finish line in order to acquire the cash. But how can you ensure that a Kickstarter campaign is successful? Well, you can start by taking tips from some of the most enduring success on the platform.

Generate Interest

The first step to being successful on Kickstarter with a crowdfunding campaign is to create interest in whatever you are raising money for. If there is no interest in the first place, nothing will inspire people to give their money. With 36.84% of projects being successful as of April 2019 and raising around $4.2 billion altogether, your project is essentially a pitch. 

Whether you entice supporters with exciting prizes for donations or manage to get some big enough backers to give the project legs on social media, generating interest is the first step in creating a successful crowdfunding campaign. For instance, as online casino Betway’s research into the most successful Kickstarter campaigns shows us, Oculus Rift was able to gain a huge amount of interest by offering hardware that hadn’t previously been seen on the market for VR gaming. 

Indeed, the technology described by Oculus Rift meant that backers weren’t just giving money to have a slice of Oculus Rift, but were helping to fund the possible future of gaming and technology in general. As such, the project achieved its £250,000 goal – bringing in $2,437,429 from 9,522 backers – and showed that by generating interest not just in the product, but in the essence of the project, the Kickstarter project succeeded.

Engage Backers

With so many Kickstarter campaigns being launched – May 2019 has seen a total of 445,000 projects in the platform’s ten-year run – it’s critical that audiences that could back your project are engaged with adequately. In order to not just win initial investment, but to have the project shared with your new ambassadors for it, community engagement is vital. One project that did this perfectly was the adult playing card game Exploding Kittens. The project channelled the personality of the company and showed what the backers would be expected to receive with the finished product in the way they engaged their audience. 

The project ended up taking the title of the most backers for a single campaign – with 219,382 raising the $8,782,571 (exceeding the $10,000 target), already providing an audience that was primed and ready to engage with the product when it eventually launched. Indeed, Exploding Kittens gamified the process and showed its unique personality, backed by the previous success of similar game Cards Against Humanity. By engaging backers effectively, Kickstarter projects can ensure that their project gains enough backers and, in turn, enough support for when it launches.

Crowdfunding on Kickstarter is a smart way to attempt to raise funds for a project, and following in the footsteps of previous successes can give your project a chance to be successful. So, by generating enough interest and then finding a unique way to engage backers, your crowdfunding campaign should have enough of a chance to succeed.