Define the perfect Backers for your Crowdfunding Campaign!

The first question most of my clients ask me during our meeting is: what is the first step to take in order to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign? It could surprise you, but in this new video, we’re not talking about setting goals or rewards... we’re talking about setting the right target for your project!

Setting the right target is the most important objective, because the entire campaign’s materials are gonna be tailored to that precise target. Only in that way your Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign would be as effective as possible.  

When we first talk about the target definition, we don’t want to mistake it for the final user of your product or service, which means people that will find and buy your product on the shop’s shelves.

Actually, we need to focus the attention on the backers, which means people that are really interested in your product and follow you each step of the way. Not every final customer would be the one that backed your project from the beginning. Truly it will be the opposite, every backer will be the final customer of your project. 

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Thus said I’m going to define the perfect target considering two different information: demographics and behaviors.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Let’s start with analyzing the first information: the demographics, which means age range, gender, and location. 

1) Age Range

Considering the age range, we need to choose that according to people that could be interested in our project in crowdfunding.

For example, if you’re going to launch a luxury watch on Kickstarter the price would start around $150 per piece, which means that probably you wouldn’t want to take into consideration people below 25 years old. The main reason is that they probably can’t afford it or won’t have the economic freedom to purchase it. Either way, you wouldn’t want to consider an age range that goes above 55 years old, and that’s because the majority of crowdfunding backers are around 25 to 55 years old. 

Just remember, don’t be afraid to select a wide age range for your target, you could always narrow it down after you get the first responses from the market!

2) Gender

Now it’s time to define the gender target. 

Unless we built a project for a specific gender, you would want to go for both of them, and then, based on the market’s responses, you will consider allocating more budget to the most performing and responsive gender. 

Just to give you an example, the brand of my student, called Mbrechees, raised around $20.000 on Indiegogo (I will soon do a video about their campaign, so stay tuned!), they launched a particular horseback riding pants for women, so, clearly, men never were in their target at all! 

3) Location

Last but not least, location.

And… that’s where the situation is getting serious.

What I always repeat to my client is: even though your project has the potential to be backed from all around the world, start by focusing on one location at a time. 

What’s the reason? Well, it will seem the ‘’effortless solution’’, but mainly because it is going to be much easier to manage, so less variable, less languages, less materials to prepare. Secondly, it is going to be more efficient in terms of cost! 

More data we’re going to collect from one country, the faster we’ll be able to improve the acquisition cost and the conversion rate from that country. So, you’re going to choose a country that will appreciate and understand your project, also according to its market distribution. 

Another example to make it clear: A client of mine, Abel from the Caline Wars team, is creating an RPG video game about cats and dogs. That would probably be successful in asian countries such as Japan, China, Korea, with a very strong game culture, but it would be tricky to enter the market, just think about language barriers, different marketing strategies or the lack of knowledge on the main US crowdfunding platforms.

Therefore in this case, as ambitious Abel’s project may be, it will be more effective to start targeting from the US, which still has a wide market for video games! 

Take in consideration one country at a time, then when you’ll reach a good acquisition cost and conversion rate it will be easier to test different countries, trust me!

BEHAVIORS

It’s time to analyze the second information to nail the perfect target: the behaviors of our potential backers. 

Just ask yourself: ‘’to what kind of people i’m referring to?’’ ‘’why would they be interested in giving me their money?’’ 

Let’s use as example a new fancy fitness app. 

We need to think about at least three or four types of buyer persona and their behaviors, so in this case we will look for people who:

• spend time to stay healthy and fit
• hardcore app users
• passionate about the latest tech updates

That’s the right target! They’re not just random app users, and most importantly, they’re curious about new stuff and new trends. In this case you found the perfect target, and they’re going to back your project! 

These people are not afraid to spend money on something that doesn’t exist yet, actually, they’re pretty thrilled to try something no one has ever tried before! Technically speaking they’re ‘’early adopters’’, and you would need these kinds of people in any case! 

The coolest thing is that Kickstarter and Indiegogo already host a lot of early adopters, because they tend to back a lot of crowdfunding project, so at this point, our job is to gain their attention, but don’t rush, we’ll see that in the next videos! 

And that’s a wrap! So guys, what I recommend you is to get a white paper and a pen and start reporting all the information related to your potential backer profile in the way that I've shown you. Only in this way you’ll have a clear idea of people interested in your project! 

Set the first brick to place and start searching for the right audience.

Don’t worry I got you covered! I created for you the cheat sheet for this little homework, and you can find it inside my blueprint pre-launch manual called: 3 simple steps to success on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

You’ll find the whole strategy set to run a proper pre launch phase to successfully launch your project in crowdfunding, plus you’ll find a cheat sheet for every topic contained. 

Don’t forget to smash like the up above video and subscribe to my channel,  to stay updated on fresh new content that I’m gonna drop weekly! 

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