This year, the US federal tax deadline is April 18, 2023. If you aren’t already prepared to file, you still have some time to get started. Whether you prepare your taxes on your own or hire a professional, you might find that filing after a crowdfunding campaign is a little more complex than filing personal income taxes. In order to accurately report crowdfunded income, you may need very specific data about when you earned money and where that money came from. While we can’t offer accounting advice — and always recommend that you consult with a tax attorney, accounting adviser, or your local tax authority — there are a few issues that the crowdfunding creators we’ve worked with often run into, and that you should keep in mind while getting ready for tax season.

Crowdfunding income must be reported on your tax returns

You will need to pay tax after crowdfunding if backers receive something of value in exchange for pledging, which is generally the case when raising money through reward-based crowdfunding. Crowdfunded money received as a gift is usually not considered taxable income. When you file your taxes, you should be reporting all of the income you made through your Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or Crowdfunding by BackerKit projects for the year. There are serious consequences, including fines and prosecution, for not reporting all business income or for incorrectly reporting income. We recommend that if you’re a crowdfunding creator who has raised funds through Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or Crowdfunding by BackerKit, you speak to a tax professional to ensure that you are meeting all of your tax obligations. 

How can crowdfunding creators determine how much money to report on tax returns?

The crowdfunding platform you use will send a 1099-K form to you if you raised more than $20,000 with more than 200 backers, and you have a US bank account. The form will detail the gross amount of revenue you earned from crowdfunding transactions, and assist you in reporting your income. 

However, the 1099-K form doesn’t tell the full story about how much money you, as the campaign organizer, need to report. Here are a couple of reasons why:

1. Even if you don’t meet the thresholds for receiving the form, you are still required to report your crowdfunding income. 
2. According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website, the form does not “include any adjustments for credits, cash equivalents, discount amounts, fees, refunded amounts or any other amounts.”
3. Project transactions that were generated outside of Kickstarter or Indiegogo won’t be reported on the 1099-K that you receive from them, but you’ll still have to pay taxes on those funds.
4. Some of the money included in the form may be tax-deductible. 

To see what your true taxable income is, it helps to get a breakdown of the money you made. If you were keeping very clear records throughout your campaign about how all of your funds were being allocated, you can use that as a guide. But if you haven’t done that, you don’t need to worry. With BackerKit Accounting Reports, you can see all of the money you raised through Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaigns as well as money raised through BackerKit. 

Download the Expected Revenue Report to get a detailed breakdown of where your revenue is coming from. Along with backer identification data, like email and location, this report shows you the pledge level cost, pledge level upgrades, add-on cost, shipping cost, tax cost and total cost for each backer. 

This report details the expected revenue for your backers in BackerKit, meaning this is what your project is expecting to collect based on the current backer data (regardless of survey completion) in BackerKit. The report will be more accurate after you’ve successfully charged your backers in BackerKit. 

This report can also be helpful throughout the year for bookkeeping purposes. For example, in some states, all shipping charges are considered taxable. In other states, shipping charges aren’t taxable. With the Expected Revenue Report, you can see which state money is coming from and how much of that money is allocated for shipping, so you can determine if funds are taxable.

Decide which accounting method you’re using

There are two accounting methods: accrual accounting and cash basis accounting. With the accrual method, you record revenue when you provide goods or services. If you’re using cash basis, however, you record revenue when you receive money, even if you haven’t delivered the goods or services yet. 

When you pay taxes, you’ll need to classify income based on the accounting method you’re using. If you’re using the cash method, and you collect money from your backers during the 2020 tax year, but won’t ship out rewards until later in 2021, you’ll have to report the money on your 2020 tax returns. If you’re using the accrual method, and you collect money during the 2020 tax year, but don’t ship until the 2021 tax year, you won’t have to report that income on your 2020 tax returns. Instead, you’ll report the income the following tax year.

Crowdfunding creators often use the accrual method. It allows you to offset some of the costs associated with shipping and manufacturing that might occur several months after you’ve finished your campaign. 

Regardless of the method that you’re using, you will want to know when transactions occurred. To do this in BackerKit, you can take a look at the Collected Revenue Report. This is an Accounting Report that shows you all of the transactions that happened in BackerKit. Also, toward the bottom of the report, Kickstarter or Indiegogo transactions will be listed in the section titled “platform_pledge.” The report displays the backer ID, backer email, backer state, backer country, transaction ID, transaction date, transaction amount, and transaction source.

Ensuring you have enough money to cover taxes

When it comes to paying taxes, no one wants to dip into funds that weren’t already earmarked for that purpose. As a creator, you may need that money to cover other aspects of your project, like manufacturing costs. You can make sure you have enough money on hand to cover your taxes by doing the following: 

1. Factor the taxes you’ll have to pay into your funding goal. You should consult with an accountant and look up the federal tax rates to get an idea of what you’ll owe. 
2. Take some time to research the benefits of the accrual method of accounting. As mentioned earlier, you may be able to write off expenses that occur after you’ve collected money from your backers. This could relieve some of your tax burden.
3. Collect additional taxes in BackerKit. Using the Tax Rules feature, you can charge an additional percentage based on the total cost of the backer’s pledge level plus the cost of any add-ons selected in BackerKit (minus shipping).

This feature lets you set a tax rate based on country and/or state. Doing this may increase the amount a backer will owe, which will give you additional funds when paying income tax. One added bonus: If you have backers in the EU, you can also add your VAT number and VAT address in the Tax Rules section. This information will show up on your pack list and backers’ confirmation screens and emails. 

What about sales tax?

Depending on where you’re located, you may need to pay sales tax. Typically, crowdfunding creators will only have to pay sales tax on transactions if they have a significant connection to the location of the backer. So if you live in California, you may have to pay sales tax on all of the transactions from backers in California. 

To figure out your sales tax obligation, you will need to identify where backers are located. 

Trying to manually divide backers up by location can be challenging — especially if you have a large number of US and international backers. One way to make this process easier is with BackerKit’s Segments tool. Segments allow you to zero in on specific backer data points.

Use the tool to split up your backers into smaller groups based on criteria such as location, the items they purchased, or pledge level. 

Tax season can be stressful. But when you’re prepared, you can face it with confidence. Contact our team to learn more about these BackerKit tax tools and other features that will help you stay organized and manage your crowdfunding campaigns. 

Disclaimer: BackerKit does not provide tax advice. The information presented here is for informational purposes only, and does not constitute tax, legal, or accounting advice. Consult a tax attorney, accounting adviser, or your local tax authority regarding crowdfunding tax implications and obligations that pertain to your project. 

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published in 2021. It has been updated for relevance and accuracy.

The post How Can Crowdfunding Creators Prepare for Tax Day? appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Crowdfunding is a journey that we probably all hope will be as simple as this:

Step 1: Have an excellent idea for a crowdfunding project. 

Step 2: Launch your project on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. 

Step 3: Get funded. 

Step 4: Send out rewards to backers.

While the steps listed above are all features of a successful campaign, there are obviously several other critical stages, challenges, and logistical issues that you’ll need to contend with to get you from “excellent idea” to “delivering rewards.” Think about it: You need backers. How are you going to get them? And what about fulfillment? Your project comes to life on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, but there are also tools and resources outside of those platforms that will help you tackle your campaign to-do list, simplify your overall crowdfunding experience, and raise more money. 

So what do you realistically have to do to get your project off the ground and funded?

Crowdfunding can be overwhelming. Connor Alexander, the creator of the tabletop RPG Coyote & Crow, was a prolific backer before launching his own project but was stunned by how complex crowdfunding was as a creator. 

“When you first get involved in crowdfunding, and you’re dealing with Kickstarter, there’s already this feeling of vertigo,” Alexander says. “It’s a bigger world than you’d realized.”

There’s a lot of pre-launch preparation you’ll have to do. Of course, you’ll have to develop your idea, turn it into a prototype (if you’re designing a physical product and not something like a theater experience), and then test that prototype and validate your idea. While you’re working on all that, you’ll simultaneously be devoting time to building a community of people who will be excited to back you when you launch. 

Once all of that foundational work is in motion, there are a whole new set of tasks you’ll have to complete to run a successful campaign. Your to-do list looks something like this:

It’s a lot to manage, but you don’t have to do it alone. 

What is BackerKit?

BackerKit is a software company that creates tools to help crowdfunding creators raise additional funds, reach new backers, and deliver the right rewards to the right places. Over the years, we’ve helped creators survey 15.5 million backers and raise $331 million. We’ve also worked with more than 10,000 crowdfunding projects, including Dispel Dice, OYO NOVA Gym, and Frosthaven. 

We take everything that we learn from working with the most successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo creators and incorporate those lessons into our core products: BackerKit Launch, BackerKit Marketing, and BackerKit Pledge Manager. Each of these three tools will help you make your way through your crowdfunding journey and manage many of the common challenges creators experience.

Challenge #1: Getting pledges in the critical first 48 hours of your campaign

Kickstarter and Indiegogo don’t instantaneously drive backers to your project once it’s live. You have to bring those initial backers to your campaign page. To get that first wave of support, you’ll need an email list of supporters who are not only prepared to pledge but who can make those pledges within the first 48 hours. If your campaign performs well early on, the crowdfunding platform’s algorithm will reward you with higher placement in search results.

“If you’re able to get in the top 20 campaigns [on Kickstarter], people naturally and organically are going to be finding your campaign. Not just on that top 20 trending [list], but you’re also going to be ranking highly in different categories,” says Chris Livingston, Gravel co-founder and five-time successful Kickstarter creator.

Leverage your existing audience and get early pledges with BackerKit Launch

BackerKit Launch helps you get those early pledges and activate your community. It’s an email marketing and analytics tool specifically designed for crowdfunding. Like a standard email marketing platform, you can collect email addresses (or import an existing email list) through Launch and communicate with your audience. But it also allows you to take a more data-driven approach to your launch, providing you with insights you can’t get from other email tools. Here’s how it works:

1. Build your email list

You can’t expect Kickstarter or Indiegogo to deliver backers to your campaign page organically. You have to bring those backers to the party. One way of doing this is by growing your community and building your email list. With Launch, you can create a landing page to collect email addresses and start doing that community-building work early on. It’s free to start using Launch landing pages. And once you’re ready to start sending out emails through Launch, you’ll have all of that data right there in one convenient place, so you’ll be primed to begin promoting your campaign.

2. Test the strength of your email list

Before your campaign is live, you can import your email list into Launch to test its strength. You’ll see who from that list has already backed crowdfunding projects and is, therefore, more likely to support your project. Armed with this data, you’ll know if you have to spend more time building or educating your community or if you’re on track to have a strong showing on day one.

Sign up to check out BackerKit Launch and test the strength of your email list for free!

3. Deliver the right message at the right time

Anyone can use Launch to mobilize supporters and create personalized email marketing messages. Launch connects directly to Kickstarter and Indiegogo, so you’ll get real-time pledge information once your project is live. This means you’ll be able to track conversion rates and see who from your email list has already contributed and who hasn’t. You can segment — or group — the people who haven’t pledged yet together and then tailor messages to that audience to encourage them to support you. This kind of personalization is the key to driving conversions.

4. Serial crowdfunders can eliminate launch day surprises

If you’re a creator who has run multiple successful Indiegogo or Kickstarter campaigns, you can import past projects into Launch and get insights into your previous backers’ pledge behavior. By looking at Launch data, like how much money repeat backers contributed to your other campaigns and when they pledged, you’ll be able to anticipate how those backers will convert during your upcoming campaign. 

Take what you’ve learned about your audience to create custom messages to drum up excitement and secure early pledge commitments. If you’ve consistently engaged this audience in the days leading up to your launch, there shouldn’t be any surprises when it comes to your day-one performance. 

ComixTribe publisher Tyler James has managed 16 successful Kickstarter projects. He tried Launch for his latest project, Counting, Colors & Cthulu, making use of the platform’s email templates and landing page feature to get backers to commit to backing on day one.

“What’s cool about this is that [Launch] actually creates an automatic pre-launch page that you can send backers to that let’s them click a button that says they’re in. Then it tracks how many backers from the audience that you sent it to actually click that button,” James says. “It’s great to get micro-conversions before you ever launch your Kickstarter project.”

In the first three days, Launch generated an 81x return on investment for James, and 205 of the 359 people who pre-committed to backing had already pledged. 

Getting started with BackerKit Launch

Who should use it? Anyone who is ready to start building their email list or who has an email list of fans. Launch is especially powerful for creators who’ve run successful campaigns.

When to use it: Before or after your project launches, up until it ends. 

When to sign up: As soon as you have an upcoming project and are ready to let your community know about what you’re working on. 

Challenge #2: Finding new backers

After you’ve had a strong launch, you’ll want to keep that momentum going, and bring in more backers. This means you’ll need to extend your reach beyond your own community and start connecting with a larger audience. But how do you build your audience? And with a long to-do list and budget concerns, how do you attract those new backers in the most cost and time-efficient manner possible?

Organic — or unpaid marketing — like social media and email promotion should be the foundation of your outreach strategy. You’ll maximize your budget if you first put the time into that grassroots relationship-building and promotion. Once you’ve had success with organic marketing, and you’re seeing conversions that you can track to your efforts, you can add some fuel to the fire and ensure your campaign reaches its full potential with paid marketing.

Drive pledges to your live campaign with advertising designed for crowdfunding using BackerKit Marketing

BackerKit Marketing is highly-targeted Facebook advertising designed for crowdfunding and run by a team of experts. With a database of more than 18 million backers, we help connect you with people who’ve supported projects like yours in the past and are more likely to pledge to your campaign. BackerKit covers the initial ad spend to maximize your funding potential, so you can scale without going over budget. Here’s what you can expect:

1. Connect with your target audience

It is possible to run Facebook Ads on your own. In fact, we encourage crowdfunding creators to run their own ad campaigns before reaching out to us to see what kind of return on ad spend (ROAS) they see. However, on your own you won’t be able to achieve the level of targeting you can with a service like BackerKit. 

“You make an educated guess that males ages 25–42 living in these six US cities and with an interest in tabletop games are going to be the people interested in your tabletop campaign. Your backers probably are a subset of that group,” says BackerKit Sales Operations Manager Robert Wickham. “But you’re also paying Facebook to show your campaign to people who aren’t interested, which drives up your costs without giving you the results you’re looking for.” 

GravGrip’s Kevin Thomas did well marketing on his own, but BackerKit’s targeting capabilities took his campaign to the next level. 

“I was already off to a good start at around $133K. I recall being funded using just a few Facebook Ads I set up and my pre-marketing email list. The second BackerKit ads went live, we saw insane ROAS! It was over 10x for a few days,” Thomas says. 

2. BackerKit Marketing won’t save a failing campaign

If your campaign is trending to fail, BackerKit Marketing isn’t going to turn that around. Our marketing services should only be used to amplify the promotion that you’ve already done. We want you to use your money wisely, so we have very specific qualifying criteria. Generally speaking, you’re most likely to be a good fit for BackerKit Marketing if:

• You know at least 500 people will show up to your page organically.
• Your margins are strong enough to support a commission on each sale and the cost of ads.
• Your category has broad appeal.

Apply for BackerKit Marketing to have your project reviewed by our team.

Getting started with BackerKit Marketing

Who should use it? It’s best for projects that would be on course to exceed funding goals. You must be a BackerKit Pledge Manager customer to use Marketing. 

When to use it: Once your project is live. 

When to sign up: The best time to reach out to our team is 1-3 months before launch. However, we can drive great returns mid-campaign, so you can still get in touch if you’ve already launched. 

Challenge #3: Staying organized post-campaign and keeping backers happy

Once your project is finally funded, you’ll have to send out surveys to collect backer data and ship out rewards. A project with a smaller number of backers may be able to handle this part of the process on their own, managing all the data through spreadsheets. However, as your project scales and your funding goal and backer count increase, things get more challenging. You could potentially have mountains of information to sort through once you head into the fulfillment phase.

Raise additional funds, reach new backers, and manage orders with BackerKit Pledge Manager

BackerKit Pledge Manager streamlines everything you’ll have to do after your campaign, helps you stay organized, and automates essential fulfillment tasks. You’ll use BackerKit to send out surveys to your backers. All of that information will be collected and visible in one convenient place. 

If you have a lot of variations of the items you’re offering backers post-campaign (such as T-shirts that come in a variety of colors and sizes), you’ll have the unique ability to set up stock keeping units or SKUs (a short, unique identifier assigned to each individual item you provide backers) in BackerKit. The Item Generator makes the ordering process easier for backers, generates accurate counts for manufacturing, and streamlines fulfillment.

With Pledge Manager, you’ll be able to find individual backers, deal with special requests, and segment your audience (in case there is a specific action that you only want to apply to a certain group of backers). 

After the GravGrip Kickstarter campaign ended, Thomas says that BackerKit boosted his efficiency. 

“I would say that BackerKit Pledge Manager saves me 2-4 hours a day. The [number] of questions that require looking up a user and exactly what they ordered came in by the hour. BackerKit makes this process extremely easy,” he says.

You’ll also be processing orders through the Pledge Manager. We directly integrate with 3PL (third-party logistics) providers like Shopify and Easyship, making it easy to export orders to your fulfillment partner. Here are a few more features that will help you have a strong finish to your campaign:

1. Earn more with add-ons and pre-orders

You can continue raising money after your campaign in BackerKit through add-ons and pre-orders (or late pledges). Add-ons are items that backers can purchase in addition to what they’re receiving through their pledge. A pre-order store allows you to offer people who missed the opportunity to pledge to your campaign another chance to join in on the fun. Both of these features allow you to have the biggest campaign possible.

2. Get support for you and your backers

As prepared as you may be, you can’t anticipate all of the challenges you’ll face during fulfillment. From answering backer questions to dealing with international payment processing, there will inevitably be issues that you may not have the expertise or time to manage promptly. As your partner, the BackerKit team is prepared to help. With Backer Support, backer emails go directly to our expert support team who will keep your inbox under control by resolving 90% of backer requests. If you’re struggling to set up add-ons or have fulfillment questions, our Success team is there to offer guidance.

Getting started with BackerKit Pledge Manager

Who should use it? Crowdfunding creators who have successfully funded. 

When to use it: After you’ve funded.

When to sign up: Before or after you’ve launched.

Are you ready to launch your crowdfunding project? Download our crowdfunding checklist to see if you’re on track.

Preparing for your campaign

When planning your campaign, think about everything you’ll need from start to finish. You don’t want to be so hyper-focused on the idea of reaching your funding goal that you neglect to take the fundamental steps that will help you raise the money you’re looking for. If you don’t know what you’ll need, ask other creators and check out resources like the BackerKit blog and the BackerKit Community Newsletter to get tips on the do’s and don’ts of crowdfunding. 

You’re going to have to develop a budget well before you actually launch your project. When you’re doing this, you’ll not only want to figure out the costs of things like manufacturing and the development of creative assets, but also the costs of the tools that will make your campaign more manageable.

Running a crowdfunding campaign can be overwhelming, whether you’re an experienced creator or you’re thinking about launching your first project. BackerKit Launch, BackerKit Marketing, and BackerKit Pledge Manager can add structure to your journey, help maximize every opportunity you have to raise funds, and make the whole process run smoothly. You’re a creator — you should be devoting your time to bringing your cool ideas into the world. BackerKit’s tools were designed to make it possible for you to focus on doing what you love. 

The post What is BackerKit? appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Tabletop gaming is more than just a hobby for Dispel Dice creator Karen Wang — it’s been an important emotional, social, and artistic outlet for her. When she started sharing photos on Twitter of the designer, handcrafted dice she’d created, people wanted to buy them. Wang felt that producing her dice on a larger scale would be a great way to contribute to a community that has meant so much to her. To do this, she turned to crowdfunding, launching her first Kickstarter campaign in 2019. 

The gorgeous, multicolored, sharp-edge dice were bound to attract a large audience. But Wang never thought the Dispel Dice Kickstarter campaign would be as successful as it was. She set a $20,000 funding goal. By the end of the campaign, she’d raised more than $2 million. Raising 100 times your original goal is impressive for any creator, but it’s especially remarkable for a first-timer. Although Dispel Dice’s performance was unexpected, Wang wisely set up the infrastructure to handle this type of success. She worked with friends, mentors, and BackerKit to get prepared.

Pre-launch considerations

Like many first-time creators, Wang was nervous going into her campaign.

“I was constantly thinking ‘What if no one buys my dice? What am I going to do?’ I’m using all of my money to get here. So it was very frightening,” she says. “When I think back to that time, I was basically a nervous wreck every day leading up to the campaign.”

However, Wang’s friends, several of whom were experienced crowdfunding creators, told her that she’d actually need to prepare for the project to do a lot better than she hoped it would. Obviously, they believed in her and her work, but Wang’s friends were also speaking to a larger crowdfunding truth. Pre-launch preparations should not only pave the way for you to hit your funding goal, but also make it possible for you to manage a campaign that exceeds your expectations. 

What would she do if she had thousands or tens of thousands of backers? How would she handle fulfillment? Would she have the bandwidth or expertise to manage all of that backer data? Despite her nerves, Wang was mulling over these types of questions as she developed her campaign plan. 

Anticipating fulfillment and shipping challenges

Even with guidance from experienced creators, Wang knew that there would be things that she’d only have insight into once she started her campaign.

“My background isn’t in operations or logistics or shipping or fulfillment, and so I really didn’t know what I was going to need,” she says. “And I didn’t know what some of the problems were going to be with Kickstarter’s software or organizing the backer information.”

Wang was also concerned about how she’d calculate shipping costs. She didn’t want to end up overcharging and also didn’t want to have to foot the bill because of a miscalculation. She wondered how she would calculate sales tax per state and which states she was going to need to pay sales tax in. She’d known people who had run businesses and faced these issues, and understood that these were areas where a lot of small companies stumble. 

Other experienced Kickstarter creators suggested that she use BackerKit to tackle these challenges.

“I had known someone who had run Kickstarters pretty much every year, multiple times. He recommended BackerKit, so that was what really got me looking at it,” she says. “Having met someone who tried fulfilling without BackerKit and then tried fulfilling with it was useful because they were able to describe the logistical nightmare that not using BackerKit would be.”

She decided that she would use BackerKit Pledge Manager to survey her backers after her campaign ended and manage fulfillment.

Kickstarter dice campaign raises $1 million in less than 24 hours

Take a look at the comments on the Dispel Dice Kickstarter page and you’ll read glowing praise like, “I’ve been waiting to throw money at your for months” and “these dice are gorgeous. Who wouldn’t want them?” People were excited about this campaign, even before it launched. At the time, designer DnD dice collections — particularly the high-quality, luxury dice that Wang was creating — were rare. This project stood out. 

On the first day of the campaign, Dispel Dice surpassed its funding goal, raising $1 million and unlocking all of its stretch goals. 

This level of success doesn’t just happen by chance. Before launching, Wang and the Dispel Dice team worked hard to bring attention to the project. 

“We sent out some sets to people to preview. We sent them out to influencers and friends as well. We had a small sample sale prior to the Kickstarter, so that people could at least see them and hold them,” Wang says.

They also worked with a few media outlets, including Polygon and Kotaku, to get coverage on the project. 

Their outreach efforts in combination with the quality of the dice were two major factors contributing to the project’s performance. By the end of the 32-day campaign, Wang and her team had raised $2,392,156 with the support of 20,135 backers.

Keeping 20K backers happy

Wang wanted to provide her backers with the best experience possible. They were all so excited about the project, and disappointing them by flubbing fulfillment would be unimaginable to her. That being said, 20,135 backers is an overwhelming amount of people to contend with. Post-campaign, BackerKit helped Wang keep all of her backer information sorted and prepared for fulfillment.

“To be able to have all of our order data where we can update it very easily in one place, search our backers, charge them for shipping and taxes all in one place, that was really important for us,” she says.

Her two big pre-campaign concerns — calculating shipping and taxes — could be handled with BackerKit. By setting up Tax Rules, creators can charge an additional percentage based on country or US state. And with the ability to charge for shipping after the Kickstarter campaign has ended, BackerKit helps creators avoid making costly miscalculations based on estimates made before they may know the total weight of each backer’s order or costs associated with add-ons. 

BackerKit Success team provides personalized fulfillment guidance for Dispel Dice

Aside from the common crowdfunding concerns that Wang anticipated, she also had a few project-specific issues that BackerKit simplified for her. There were a number of different item variations with the Dispel Dice Kickstarter campaign. To enable backers to choose the options they want while filling out their post-campaign survey, Wang would need to set up item stock keeping units, or SKUs in BackerKit for each variation. 

When you have a lot of items and options, you can end up with a lot of different SKUs. BackerKit Lead Customer Success Manager Antonio Rosales worked with Wang to keep the SKUs manageable and devise a solution that would work for her campaign’s unique needs.

“We actually had to create additional SKUs for each tier level because the dice sets cost a slightly different amount per tier level,” she says. “For example if you buy two sets it’s cheaper than if you buy one set, and as a result, that’s a completely different SKU. Having BackerKit be able to organize and set that all up for me was very helpful because I’d never done that before and I didn’t want to set up something like 800 SKUs.”

Wang found BackerKit’s platform to be intuitive and she appreciated the assistance that was offered when tackling these kinds of unexpected issues. 

Raising an additional $800K through BackerKit Pledge Manager

With BackerKit, creators have the opportunity to raise additional funds through add-ons — extra rewards that backers can purchase in addition to the items they receive for their pledge — and by creating a pre-order store — a site where people who may have missed the campaign can purchase items.

Wang implemented both, adding $875,052 through BackerKit after her campaign had ended.

Finding a dedicated crowdfunding partner

Though Wang initially only intended to use BackerKit to survey backers and manage fulfillment, the BackerKit team worked with her to develop other strategies to amplify the work that she’d done on her own. For example, Wang had put a lot of effort into building her community. By the time Dispel Dice launched, she had over 40,000 people on her email list. Having a strong email list is a fundamental part of crowdfunding. Mobilizing these supporters is the key to building a campaign’s momentum. Before the campaign ended, the BackerKit team suggested that Wang use BackerKit Launch for a final promotional push. 

BackerKit Launch is a crowdfunding email marketing platform that helps creators leverage their audiences to reach their funding goals. Because Launch directly integrates with Kickstarter and Indiegogo, creators are able to see in real-time who on their email list hasn’t yet pledged to their campaign. With that data, they can create targeted email marketing messages to encourage that segment of the list to pledge. 

The Dispel Dice team used Launch to let their community know how much time was left for them to pledge.

Of the $2,392,156 Dispel Dice raised, $51,128 can be attributed to Launch and the emails sent in the campaign’s final hours. 

Entering the homestretch

Wang and the Dispel Dice team are currently focused on fulfillment. Because of the scale of the project, there will be two different shipping waves — one in 2020 and one in 2021. BackerKit is making this process easier. 

“Being able to send out a lock down address form, so that we can say ‘don’t fiddle with this’ to a specific segment of our backers was incredibly helpful,” she says. “Because we have the 2020 and the 2021 waves, we didn’t want to ask people in the 2021 wave to lock down their addresses until we were ready to send out their orders.”

The success of the campaign has allowed Wang to start building out her team. And while fulfillment may be the top concern right now, she would love to create more in the tabletop space. 

“I think when I visited the BackerKit office, one thing that was really incredible was that I’m walking by all these products that were just an idea at some point and were brought to reality through the combination of work between a bunch of small businesses, creators, and the customers that were willing to take the risk and crowdfund it.”  

Are you a tabletop creator preparing for your upcoming launch day? RSVP for our webinar on crowdfunding your tabletop game to learn everything you need to know to set yourself up for success. And if you’d like to find out how BackerKit can help at each stage of your crowdfunding journey, please contact our team. 

The post How Dispel Dice Managed Their Crowdfunding Success appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

You’ve exceeded your funding goal, run a successful Kickstarter campaign, and have decided to set up a pre-order store or late-pledge page. Now what?

Pre-orders are an integral part of BackerKit’s offering to project creators, but as BackerKit Product Manager Dan Goldenberg notes, project creators “often forget to promote them” once their project is live in BackerKit. “It’s not as if once you build a pre-order store, people will just show up,” he says.

While some Kickstarter projects are able to harness their brand power to drive sales, most won’t have that luxury. Goldenberg says it only takes a little effort to reap large rewards. “We’ve found the people who perform the best in terms of pre-order sales really get a lot of people visiting it.”

The most effective methods included embedding BackerKit’s pre-order store widget on personal websites, running Facebook ad campaigns, and sending out targeted email campaigns.

Feeling overwhelmed? Here are simple steps you can take to make your pre-order store a success.

Before you launch your Kickstarter campaign, set up your pre-order store page

You’ll want your pre-order store to be ready right as you end your campaign so you can continue to collect the information of people who are interested in what you’re offering and connect with those “late backers.”

When you set up your pre-order store, make sure that all your items are clearly named and accompanied by high-quality images and accurate descriptions.

BackerKit’s image gallery lets you upload multiple images for each item, which lets you display an item from multiple angles or highlight all variations of an item to make it easier for backers to make their selections.

This helps to make your products as appealing as possible to backers.

Our help center has more information on how to set up pre-orders.

Pick your items

Ideally, your pre-order store should offer items that are enticing for both your earliest supporters as well as latecomers to your campaign.

Project creators can differentiate between Kickstarter pre-order backers and original backers by offering slightly different pricing for pre-order rewards, or shipping those pre-order rewards only after the original backer rewards have shipped.

This approach allows you to give your most fervent backers preferential treatment while keeping your project open to the crowdfunding community.

Kickstarter creators should customize their pre-order store to fit branding

Branding is a powerful promotional tool — it tells people who you are. To help tell your story, your BackerKit pre-order store can be personalized to accurately reflect your brand. Kickstarter creators can personalize a pre-order store by customizing the project title, logo, color scheme, and call-to-action buttons to their specifications.  

Include Kickstarter FAQs in your pre-order store

Shipping fees, products specifications, taxes, and other information included in your Kickstarter FAQ should be added to your pre-order store. This will save you from having to field these questions multiple times.

Link your pre-order store

Post the link on Kickstarter Spotlight, your website, social media, forum and communities you are on, and embed it on your home page. Share it often!

After you’ve launched

Gather email addresses

Kickstarter backers will often browse a pre-order store but may not make a purchase straight away. Sometimes, they might require more information about the product.

To solve this problem, we’ve introduced the ability for creators to collect email addresses from customers using our mailing list tool.

The mailing list feature has an opt-in form that allows project creators to collect email addresses from prospective customers.

Project creators can use their mailing list to highlight special offers. You could do this by splitting your list into two sets of people: folks who pledged, and folks who didn’t.

Send marketing emails

Stuck for ideas on how to write a great marketing email? It’s easy as ABC.

A. Send messages to your existing Kickstarter backers, telling them their friends can pre-order your product here. Make sure to include a link to your store

B. Send messages to people on your list who didn’t back your project. You can do this by using BackerKit’s coupon codes to offer an exclusive discount.

C. Promote any new accessories, options or colorways through an email campaign.

Make sure to highlight specific products that are available for sale and consider including a promotion, such as a limited-time discount, to increase the sense of urgency. You can do this through coupon codes, which we’ll talk about later.

If the email has a prominent call-to-action – a ‘ Buy Now’ button, for instance – it will ensure customers have an easy way to visit your store.

Once you’ve split your mailing list, it’s time to start crafting your message. To folks who pledged, be sure to thank them for pledging to your campaign, and tell them they can forward this email to a friend to give them a discount off your product. You should also include a quick reminder that they should not place a pre-order until they’ve received their post-campaign survey. Doing this prevents duplicate orders. 

To folks who didn’t pledge, we recommend writing a message that will spur them into taking action. Letting them know that this is the final chance to receive a discount on your product creates a sense of exclusivity and scarcity and increases the likelihood that they will convert into sales.

Use coupon codes

Coupon codes can be used to entice new customers with discounts, offload inventory, and reward repeat customers. They’re an easy, useful e-commerce tool.

For project creators, they can be a simple, effective way to compel backers to buy their products by giving them an attractive discount.

“We know that one of the big Kickstarter tropes is providing a discount off retail, and we want to keep that going forward,” Goldenberg says.

Coupon codes give project creators the ability to provide flat-price discounts off add-ons and pre-order items, and are easily tracked.

Project creators can create individual codes for different mediums: one for promotions on a podcast, and another for an email marketing campaign. (If you’d like to learn more, this explains how coupon codes work in more detail.)

Fun things you can do with coupon codes: celebrate survey day with a $5 discount off add-ons, run promotions for your pre-order store through email and other marketing channels, give repeat customers a special offer.

Continue to market your product

Marketing your product doesn’t end once your campaign does.

Is holiday season approaching? Consider offering customers a discount with BackerKit’s coupon codes, and make sure you email them to let them know. If you’re making an appearance at an event or conference, an email can help spread the word.

Notifying your customers of new product milestones or project updates is a great way to keep them engaged in your campaign.

Some of the most successful pre-order store campaigns on BackerKit include Formbox, which embedded BackerKit’s pre-order widget on its website and ran paid ads directing visitors to the site, helping it amass $192,256 in pre-order sales, and Friday the 13th, which made $1.37 million in pre-order sales on BackerKit – more money than it had made in its initial crowdfunding campaign.

The lesson? Marketing your pre-order store is an ongoing effort. The more you hustle, the more likely you are to reap big rewards. Even a little bit of promotion can go a long way in raising awareness of your pre-order offerings.

Many creators have enjoyed success running Facebook ad campaigns to increase the visibility of their pre-order store. Although if you choose this option, you must have a strong audience targeting to achieve a lower cost per acquisition, as well as higher click-through rates and conversion rates.

You can learn more about marketing strategies for Kickstarter campaign pre-order stores here. Creators planning to launch Kickstarter campaigns soon can reach out to us with any questions by clicking the link below.

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published in 2017. It has been updated for relevance and accuracy.

The post Kickstarter Pre-Order Store Success: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Managing a crowdfunding campaign may be time-intensive, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. To understand everything that goes into a Kickstarter campaign and keep yourself on track, here is a basic overview and checklist of steps you’ll need to take to set yourself up for a successful crowdfunding campaign.

Pre-Launch Kickstarter checklist

If you plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign either on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, the work you do before launch day will be a major factor in whether or not you hit your funding goal. This is why you should take your time during this stage. It may take 6 months to 1 year to get ready. It could take longer. Regardless, don’t cut corners, ask for help from experts or other crowdfunding creators if you’re confused, and do your research. 

There may be things that you don’t know that you don’t know, so carve out some time to just read about crowdfunding best practices or watch crowdfunding webinars while completing the following essential pre-launch steps. 

(It should be noted that some of the steps below will be happening concurrently and that you may have a reason to change the order based on your project’s needs. While the order is by no means set in stone, it is crucial that you complete these tasks before you launch.)

1. Create a separate Kickstarter checklist for personal goals and expectations

Down the line, you’ll need to set a funding goal. But well before you start crunching those numbers, you should be writing out your personal expectations for your campaign. If, for example, you were to break even by the end of your campaign, some people might not see that as a success. However, if you’re looking at your campaign in terms of growing a lifetime audience, the campaign could be extraordinarily successful in your eyes if you’ve built a large, engaged community by the end of it. 

So what is it that you want to accomplish? Aside from hitting your funding goal, how will you measure success? You may find it helpful to create a separate Kickstarter checklist for those personal campaign goals and expectations, and then check your progress as you go. 

2. Create your prototype

Start visualizing your product idea by designing a prototype. Your design will undoubtedly change as you get more feedback and start testing, but the earlier you begin that iteration process the sooner you can make those changes. You want to start validating your idea as soon as possible. With a prototype — even if it’s very rough and DIY — you’ll be able to see what’s possible and what’s still needed.

3. Identify your team members and team roles

Who will handle social media and marketing, create campaign assets, and write all of the copy on your campaign page? Will you be hiring a professional agency? Will you do it yourself?

While research shows that crowdfunding campaigns with teams raise over three times as much as solo creators, if the scope of your project is relatively small, you may be able to handle everything on your own or with a group of dedicated friends at your side. But, as your project scales, you’ll likely need a larger team of professionals and crowdfunding services to market and help manage your campaign. When selecting your team, consider partners who have worked with projects like yours, can share verifiable results from their past work, and who have different areas of expertise than your own. 

4. Develop and price your product

Figure out what it will take to bring your cool idea to life. Start by conducting market research, asking yourself questions like:

• Who is my target audience and what are they looking for?
• Are there similar products on the market? 
• Are there any projects on Kickstarter or Indiegogo that are similar to what I’m working on? What features do they have? Which features are they missing?
• What’s the typical price point for these products? 
• What were the funding goals for these projects and how much did they end up raising? 

The answers to these questions will help you figure out your unique selling proposition — or the thing that sets you apart from the competition — and give you some insight into what backers are willing to pledge.  

With this information in mind, you can begin developing a budget. Write out everything you’ll need — from prototypes, manufacturing, and production to packaging, shipping, and fulfillment. If you plan on using BackerKit Pledge Manager, you’ll also need to factor that into your budget. Then, estimate or get quotes on all costs associated with your project. Having these costs along with your market research data will enable you to calculate your funding goal so that it covers your expenses.

5. Build your community and email list

It’s important to recognize that the number of people you have on your email list will correspond to the number of backers and pledges you receive. Experts generally say that 5% of the people on a high-quality email list will become backers. If you end up having a $10,000 goal and an average pledge of $100, you’ll need 100 backers to get your project funded. With a 5% conversion rate, you’ll need 2000 people on your list. That number may seem daunting, but list-building is an ongoing process and you should give yourself enough time to grow the community you’ll need. 

Get started by creating a landing page where you can collect emails from prospects. You can build your page free using BackerKit Launch. Drive people to that landing page by networking at online or in-person conventions, engaging with Facebook groups and other online communities, connecting with influencers, hosting giveaways, and using lead ads. 

A random list of email addresses won’t help you much. It’s the quality of your list that’s important, and not the sheer number. Remember it’s 5% of people on a high-quality list that convert. You want to connect with people who are excited about what you’re creating and not just looking to get something free in a giveaway. 

Once you have your list, test its strength using BackerKit Launch. This tool lets you see how many people on your list have pledged to Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaigns in the past, and are more likely to pledge to your campaign.

6. Set up your campaign page

Your campaign page is your sales pitch to backers, so it needs to be compelling. To make sure you get it right, keep the following in mind:

• Your video should explain why you’re launching your project and the benefits it offers backers. Keep it as short and informative as possible (under the 2-minute mark tracks the best).
• Images should be high-quality and high-resolution. Using animated GIFs to show your product in action is a nice way to grab people’s attention. Focus on making sure your main image is eye-catching, as this is what most people will see. Limit text and make sure it looks good scaled-down, since many people will be viewing it on mobile devices. 
• Copy should be straightforward. Deliver key points quickly and simply. Don’t forget to have someone double-check everything for typos. 
• Reward tiers should cover a range of price points to encourage people from diverse financial backgrounds to contribute. Limit reward tiers to 3-5 pledge levels to avoid confusion. Remember, if you’re using BackerKit, you can create custom bundles with add-ons after the campaign, which can give you the freedom to make rewards simple, while also giving backers an opportunity to get additional items. 
• Showcase product preview videos and highlight any prototype reviews and testimonials from playtesters or product testers. 

You’ll have to get your project approved by the platform you’re using before you launch, so don’t forget to review your platform’s requirements and campaign page optimization tips. (Check out this Kickstarter guide and this Indiegogo guide to make sure you’re on the right track.) Also, keep in mind that this approval process can take at least 2-3 business days, so factor that into your crowdfunding timeline. 

7. Set up your Pre-Launch Page

After you get your final project page approved, you can create a Pre-Launch Page to promote your upcoming project on Kickstarter. Use the page to share information about your project and get people excited about the campaign. On Kickstarter, visitors to your page can choose to be notified once your project launches.  

According to BackerKit research, projects with a Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page are 4 times more likely to be funded. Because getting pledges early is important to maximizing the funding potential of a project, anything you can do to mobilize your community right when you launch is critical. 

8. Create a Kickstarter promo strategy and checklist

You’ll likely need a promotional checklist or task calendar within your larger Kickstarter checklist to ensure you stay on target. First on the list, decide which platforms and marketing channels you’ll use to promote your campaign. Social media, blogs that cover products that are similar to yours, your pre-launch page, and online communities that are relevant to your project are all great places to start. 

Figure out which promotional tools can help you stay organized and present yourself professionally. When it comes to social media, for example, you’ll likely be using Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for promotion. But you can also use Buffer to schedule posts and Canva to design creative assets, and Animoto to edit videos.  

Next, create your marketing timeline. Determine when you’ll start reaching out to people who can help promote your project (press, influencers, friends, etc.), what your social media posting schedule will be, and when you’ll send out your newsletter and marketing emails. If you aren’t sure when you should be sending emails, BackerKit Launch can help with templates that are designed to be sent at strategic points throughout your campaign. 

Within that strategy, build in time for analysis. You’ll need to see what your email list growth rate is and which channels are best at bringing in new email contacts. Take this information and use it to refine your promotional tactics. 

9. Reach out to your marketing partner

If you plan on using an ad or marketing agency to promote your campaign once it’s live, you’ll have the best results if you reach out to your partner a few weeks before you launch. BackerKit Marketing partnerships, for example, should begin at least two weeks before your campaign launches.

10. Get final feedback and make sure you’ve made it through your Kickstarter checklist

See what your professional partners, friends, playtesters, and other people in your community think about your project. Share your preview link with this trusted group, and find out if your story is coming through effectively, their thoughts on your campaign’s creative assets, and any other areas that could use improvement. 

During Kickstarter campaign checklist

If you completed all of the steps on your Kickstarter pre-launch checklist, you should have a strong launch. But don’t expect to coast, even if you do well on day one. Crowdfunding campaigns typically hit a plateau during the midpoint — this is even true with the most successful campaigns like Frosthaven, so it’ll be your job to keep up the energy and excitement. You should be spending this time engaging with your community and updating your backers on your progress.

1. Announce your launch

Let everyone know that your Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign is live. At first, you may want to do a soft launch to a select group of enthusiastic fans to get the momentum going. But after that, spread the word far and wide through social media, updates on a previous campaign’s project page, press releases, and your network of friends, family, and collaborators. Most importantly, make sure to send out an email to your community with the news and encourage them to pledge.

2. Make regular project updates and answer questions

Keeping the lines of communication open is a critical part of keeping backers engaged and happy throughout your campaign, so make sure to post consistent updates on your campaign page. Celebrate project milestones, share behind-the-scenes stories about your team or development process, or ask for feedback. If nothing else, you should let everyone know if there are any new changes, developments, or setbacks in your campaign. When backers ask questions, respond promptly. If you’re getting the same backer questions over and over, add those questions to the FAQ section of your campaign page.

3. Activate community members who haven’t pledged yet

Midway through your campaign, send out another email to your community members. Let them know how many days are left in your campaign and how important their support is to you. If you’ve introduced any stretch goals, make sure to promote them. 

With BackerKit Launch, you can see which people on your email list haven’t pledged yet. Using this information, you’ll be able to send messages directly to this segment of your audience. Doing this prevents you from over-messaging people on your email list who’ve already pledged and makes it possible to send a more customized reminder to the people who haven’t backed the campaign yet.

4. Track performance

Keep track of your campaign’s progress and traffic sources, using your creator dashboard and BackerTracker — a tool that shows how your project is trending and whether or not it’s on track to meet its goal. This data shows you which channels are most effective at driving people to your campaign page and which aren’t performing well. If you’re working with a marketing agency and using Facebook Ads, review those results as well to ensure you’re getting a return on ad spend (ROAS) that you’re happy with. Use this information to adjust and optimize your strategy.

5. Set up your pledge manager

Once you’ve launched your campaign, you can sign up for BackerKit Pledge Manager, which keeps backer data organized and automates many of the time-consuming tasks associated with fulfilling rewards. Because you only need to prepare for fulfillment if your campaign is successful, it’s best to wait until you’re funded — or you’re trending to fund according to BackerTracker — before setting up your pledge manager. Make sure to announce that you’ll be using BackerKit on your campaign page.

6. Continue your marketing and community engagement efforts

Push through that mid-campaign plateau and finish strong by continuing to market. Encourage your current backers to spread the word about your project. Consider running a cross-promotion with another creator where you both share information about each other’s projects on your campaign pages. Experiment with new messaging and promotional images. Share any exciting updates in your marketing materials. Remember that it’s normal for activity to slow down in the middle of your campaign. Use this opportunity to try out new methods of engaging your backers and prospects.

Post Kickstarter campaign checklist

You did it! You hit your funding goal. And while you should definitely celebrate, the work doesn’t stop here. You still have to ship out rewards and keep your backers happy through the entire fulfillment process. And don’t miss out on the opportunity to raise additional funds. Here’s everything you need to do to finish your campaign the right way.

1. Open a pre-order store

Once your campaign ends, you can keep the momentum going outside of Kickstarter or Indiegogo with pre-orders. This not only gives people a chance to purchase items they’ve missed out on, but also gives you an opportunity to raise more money. You can use BackerKit to create a pre-order store, which enables you to manage pre-order backers and campaign backers in the same place.

2. Send out surveys to collect backer information

Get your backers’ address and payment information by sending out your surveys 14 days after your campaign has ended (this is approximately the amount of time it takes for Kickstarter and Indiegogo to process payments). If you’re using BackerKit, backers will be able to see all of the items they’re receiving based on their pledge level, make item selections (size, color, etc.) if applicable, and purchase add-on items in their survey.

3. Stay in touch with your backers

Depending on the complexity of your project, the fulfillment process could take months or even years. It’s critical that you keep in touch with your backers during that time. You should be answering any questions they have and keeping them up to date on your production and delivery timeline. BackerKit customers have the option to turn on Backer Support. If you choose this option, all backer questions from your surveys will be directed to a dedicated support lead.

4. Process fulfillment and prepare your Kickstarter shipping checklist

There are several steps you’ll have to take to get ready for shipping, so again, it might help to create a separate checklist to make sure you finish everything. First, get ready for manufacturing by finalizing your item counts. Then, obtain shipping quotes from fulfillment houses. As your items are being manufactured, you can finalize orders in BackerKit, locking down backer addresses (that is, ensuring backers’ information is correct) in preparation for shipping. Because BackerKit has integrations with a number of fulfillment partners, including Amplifier and Shopify, you’ll be able to send that information directly to the fulfillment house.

5. You’ve made it through your Kickstarter checklist — it’s time to ship rewards

Production has wrapped up, and now it’s time to ship those rewards. Notify your backers, send out tracking numbers through BackerKit, and thank everyone who contributed to your campaign one last time for their support. 

Running a crowdfunding campaign isn’t easy. You will have to dedicate months — maybe even an entire year — to complete your journey. But if you have a crowdfunding campaign plan and checklist, you’ll make it through each stage more efficiently and with less stress. You also be ready to take what you’ve learned and run another campaign. 

Are you creating your pre-launch plan? Download our Kickstarter project checklist and worksheet to ensure you stay on target. 

The post Kickstarter Checklist: Create a Plan for Crowdfunding Success appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

OYO Fitness launched their first product, the DoubleFlex Black, on Kickstarter in 2017. While you’d probably expect a portable gym that incorporates technology used by NASA astronauts to do well on Kickstarter, the DoubleFlex Black was more successful than anyone could have anticipated. The project blew past its $30,000 funding goal, raising $659,175 with 4,206 backers. At the time, it was the second most-funded fitness product in Kickstarter history.

Three years later, OYO Fitness founder Paul Francis and his team were gearing up to launch their second product on Kickstarter — the OYO NOVA Gym. On the heels of their previous success, they approached their next campaign with confidence. But the big question was, how could they build on those past wins and have an even bigger campaign this time around? 

Second project internal goal: $1 million

Kickstarter was the natural choice for the OYO Fitness team. “It’s such a great platform to take a product and get it out in front of a community of early adopters to see how it resonates,” says OYO Fitness COO Graham Ripple. They used the platform for the OYO NOVA Gym campaign because they knew it could work for them. 

They set their funding goal at $30,000. This was the minimum amount they’d need to produce the product, and it was a number they felt they could hit, given their first campaign’s results. However, like many creators, they also had an informal, internal funding goal that they were shooting for — $1 million. 

Pre-launch considerations

Even before they launched, the OYO Fitness team benefited from having a strong community of supporters behind him. In fact, the OYO NOVA Gym was developed based on feedback from that fan base. But to hit that one-million-dollar goal, they were going to have to grow that already large audience. This can be a daunting task, even for the most successful Kickstarter creators and creators like OYO Fitness who know the ropes. 

And what if they managed to double or triple the number of backers they’d previously had? How would they deal with fulfillment on that scale in a timely manner? What kind of stress would it put on their team? To scale crowdfunding campaigns, you not only need to find ways to acquire more backers, but you also need to build the infrastructure or find support systems that will enable you to manage that success. 

Crowdfunding combo power

Preparing for that best-case scenario, in which they had tens of thousands of backers, meant reaching out to BackerKit. OYO Fitness had used the BackerKit Pledge Manager to streamline the fulfillment process during their first campaign in 2017. They were happy with the results and planned on using the Pledge Manager again for the new campaign. 

After speaking with BackerKit Account Executive Yung Choi, they learned about some of BackerKit’s new services. Because of their campaign goals, Choi believed that they’d be a good fit for BackerKit Marketing — a performance marketing service, designed explicitly for crowdfunding that drives prospective backers to a creator’s campaign page. 

The OYO Fitness team already had funds allocated to use on ads, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that BackerKit had an ad service in addition to the Pledge Manager. The creators behind the most successful Kickstarter projects of all time know that in order to scale, they need to develop a strategy and seek out partners that would help them increase their marketing efforts and optimize post-campaign fulfillment. They decided to use Pledge Manager and Ads to help achieve these two intertwined goals. 

Toning up OYO Fitness’ marketing: choosing an experienced ad agency

Facebook Ads are a paid marketing tool that can give your organic — or unpaid — marketing techniques, like email marketing, a boost. Running Facebook Ads during your crowdfunding campaign brings more exposure to your project and can ultimately drive more pledges. 

OYO Fitness used Facebook Ads during their first campaign. However, when trying this technique out at that time, they partnered up with an agency that didn’t have experience working with Kickstarter projects. “We didn’t get the return on ad spend that we wanted,” says Ripple. “The first three days of a campaign tend to bring the most support. And I think that we really missed out on that. We did not come out strong out of the gate, and I think that affected how much we raised.” 

It wasn’t until they started using a Kickstarter ad agency that things turned around for them. Finding a partner who understood crowdfunding was a major contributor to their first project’s success, and it was something they knew they would need to repeat during their second campaign.

Collaborating with multiple ad agencies

Targeting is a critical part of running a successful ad campaign. If you aren’t targeting the right audience with your ads, you’re essentially throwing away your money. This is why it’s so important to work with an agency that understands how to optimize campaigns for crowdfunding campaigns. BackerKit uses custom audiences to reach over a million crowdfunding enthusiasts. This ensures that a project gets in front of people who are most likely to convert and become backers.

The second piece to OYO Fitness’s paid marketing strategy was working with multiple ad partners. This is something that BackerKit encouraged. Backers convert in different ways. One agency may have a piece of the puzzle that another one doesn’t — they may have access to different audiences or have different marketing techniques. 

For this reason, it’s best to stick with agencies that understand the benefits of this type of collaboration. An agency that genuinely wants you to have the most successful Kickstarter campaign possible isn’t going to force you to sign any kind of exclusivity agreements. 

Achieving peak ad performance: $561K raised with BackerKit

The OYO Fitness team ended up working with four ad partners, including BackerKit. To keep all of these ad campaigns on track and ensure they were making the most of their marketing budget, Ripple, who was the primary strategist and project manager on OYO Fitness’s side, closely monitored return on ad spend (ROAS) for each of the ad partners. “This allowed me to allocate resources to them based on their performance,” he says. “We wanted to reward the partners that had found our target market.”  

A creator’s target ROAS is determined by dividing the average pledge value by the average cost per pledge. With an accurate ROAS target, creators make money while spending. So while Ripple was tracking ROAS to determine how to divvy up funds, BackerKit Creator Marketing Account Manager Chris Rojas was also monitoring performance, making sure that they were adjusting the daily budget and ads to hit those ROAS targets. 

“We had a weekly call with Chris. We were regularly having a dialogue about how the ads were performing,” Ripple says. “We would see if there were tweaks that could be made to either assets that we were giving him or the campaign page itself. It was a very collaborative process, and we felt very supported by the BackerKit team.”

Top-performing ad assets

In the end, this collaboration with BackerKit yielded $561,000 for the OYO NOVA Gym campaign. 

Reaching more than 500K backers

The OYO team needed to connect with as many qualified leads — that’s is, prospects that could become actual backers — as possible. This would primarily be achieved through ads and more grassroots marketing efforts — they were sure to get their fan base excited for the OYO NOVA Gym campaign before their launch date to set the momentum for their campaign. But as BackerKit users, they had one more marketing tool at their disposal: The BackerKit Newsletter, which reaches over 500,00 opted-in backers. 

The BackerKit newsletter is a real boon for budget-conscious creators because fees are based on results. To track performance in real-time, the OYO team could monitor an online dashboard. The newsletter gave their project more exposure — which is always a good thing — and brought them even closer to their funding goal. They raised over $28,000 through their newsletter feature. 

“The mix of the Newsletter and the Ads that BackerKit provides is such a potent combination,” Ripple says. 

The journey to $1 million

The OYO NOVA Gym campaign launched during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, the team was concerned about what effect that would have on their campaign and crowdfunding in general. But, as they saw the way the project was trending over the course of their fifty-one-day campaign, it was clear that this portable gym was particularly well suited for a time when people had to shelter in place and were working out from their homes.

Their marketing efforts allowed them to connect with thousands of people who needed a fitness product like the OYO NOVA Gym — both those who were likely to be interested in the product under any circumstances as well as this new audience of people who were dealing with the realities of quarantine. The project’s timing mixed with the preparation they’d done led to success far beyond what the team could have imagined. 

They surpassed their $30,000 goal on the first day of their campaign, raising over $175,000 from 1,200 backers. The OYO NOVA Gym was on its way to landing on the Kickstarter most-funded list. 

$4 million+ raised: Becoming the most successful fitness product on Kickstarter 

Like many of the other Kickstarter products that have raised the most money in their categories and campaigns that appear on the highest-funded crowdfunding projects list, the OYO NOVA Gym brought in a lot of early pledges. They hit their one-million-dollar internal goal in six days. But the team didn’t stop there. They made sure to keep the momentum going by utilizing stretch goals throughout the campaign, offering new color options for the OYO NOVA Gym and fitness accessories. By the time the campaign ended, they’d raised $4,411,495 and had 26,199 backers. They’d become the most successful fitness product in Kickstarter history.

“We expected to raise as much as we did in 2017, and were hoping to double it and raise past the one-million-dollar mark if we could. But we did not expect the level of support we received. It’s overwhelming and such a cool experience,” Ripple says. 

26K backers — now what?

The excitement of having just run one of the most successful Kickstarter projects hasn’t worn off. They had 26,199 backers — it’s a staggering number. And while OYO Fitness couldn’t be more pleased with their results, a larger backer count means order management flow during fulfillment can be cumbersome. Who wants to manually sort through spreadsheets with more than 26,000 backers’ information? From the get-go, the team knew they would need a survey and fulfillment solution that was more robust than what Kickstarter had to offer.

OYO Fitness is currently in the middle of the fulfillment process. The BackerKit Pledge Manager is making it possible for them to survey their backers to collect their information and then keep all of their backer data organized. They’re also charging for shipping in BackerKit, charging VAT for their EU backers, and raising additional funds through add-on sales.

“BackerKit is doing such a good job of helping a campaign get the exposure that it deserves and needs through Ads and the Newsletter,” Ripple says. “And then on the back end, they’re basically not only helping with fulfillment but also giving creators an opportunity for more sales, whether that’s using the pre-order store or using add-ons through the survey. It just makes so much sense to use BackerKit because of the holistic ecosystem that they’ve built.” 

When launching a crowdfunding project, it’s important to consider the entire road ahead. What can you do to set yourself up for success at each stage of your journey? Which tools or partners can help maximize your project’s potential along the way? Answering these questions becomes especially important when you’re launching a bigger project. With BackerKit’s help, OYO Fitness not only surpassed their funding goal but is also now able to manage the post-campaign logistics that come with being the most-funded fitness project on Kickstarter.

If you’d like to learn more about how BackerKit works with the most successful Kickstarter creators like OYO Fitness on Facebook Ads, check out our upcoming webinar, Performance Marketing Secrets of Million Dollar Kickstarter Projects.

Are you planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign soon, and want to get started with BackerKit Marketing? Click below to see if your project is a good fit for the service.

The post Launching the Most Successful Kickstarter Product in Fitness appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

After experiencing slowdowns during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the manufacturing industry is ramping back up. While factories are resuming production, you may still be wondering what you can do to shore up your manufacturing strategy. To learn how tabletop game creators can make this process run smoothly, we spoke to Kerry Rundle McIver, a Project Manager at Panda Game Manufacturing. Panda has produced thousands of tabletop games, including Root and Wingspan. They are an industry leader and understand the specific needs that crowdfunding creators have when manufacturing tabletop games. Here are a few of McIver’s top tips. 

1. Get a quote that can scale

Getting a price quote will be the first step you take to get your crowdfunding project ready for manufacturing. At this time, you will share all of the basic information about your project, including your planned Kickstarter campaign launch date and a description of your game. When you get your quote, you should have the majority of your game designed and know how many components it will have.

During the quoting phase, you will also be asked about the number of units you plan on producing. While you won’t have exact numbers before you launch your project, you should make sure to get a quote that scales. You should be able to tell your manufacturer the minimum number of units that you’ll require and get a quote for that, and also get another quote in case you need more units. It’s recommended to get one quote for your base version and another one with all of your stretch goals met. Once your crowdfunding campaign finishes and you know exactly what your manufacturing needs are, you can get an updated quote. 

2. Be aware of your crowdfunding deadlines and manufacturing timeline

Consumers typically don’t think about all of the steps it takes to bring a product to market. And as a Kickstarter or Indiegogo creator, you may be more focused on your funding goal than your manufacturing timeline. But when you’re manufacturing your game, there will be some iteration that needs to happen. There may also be some component testing that needs to happen. The amount of time this takes will vary from project to project. 

After you get your quote, you’ll move into the design verification phase where you’ll prepare your files for print. The majority of projects will have some element that needs to be fixed, so you can expect to have at least a little back and forth with your manufacturer as you get the design ready. This stage varies the most in terms of time because it’s dependent upon how quickly you can adjust and upload files. 

Next you’ll go through the pre-production phase where your manufacturer will make samples of non-printed components and send you a pre-production copy of your game. During this stage, you must make sure that everything is aligned correctly, that all materials and finishes are correct, and that all of the cards that are supposed to be there are there. After this, you’ll move into mass production, which can take anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks.   

If this is your first project, you won’t know exactly how long all of this will take. Afterall, you’re still learning how to work with your manufacturer, and they’re learning how to work with you. So when you’re telling your backers when production will be finished, make sure to build in buffer time. 

Your manufacturer will give you a timeline, but you should add a few extra months as a buffer. Remember, backers are never upset when the project is delivered early, but they’re almost always upset when the project is late. Be transparent about your timeline with your backers. Let them know how things are progressing. You may even be able to ask your manufacturer to take photos of your game in production, which you can share with your backers. Whether your project is on schedule or not, keeping in touch with backers as your crowdfunding project makes its way through manufacturing helps you build trust. 

3. Design your crowdfunding project with manufacturing costs in mind 

Being cost-conscious doesn’t mean that you can’t still create a great game. You just have to be creative and resourceful. To save money, think about ways to use components that have multiple functions, see about using your manufacturer’s existing component molds rather than creating custom ones, or consider using more budget-friendly materials. “If you have something where you need 150 wood pieces, that’s going to look really cool, but when you have 150 of anything, it can get a little expensive, and also heavy for shipping,” McIver says. In a case like this, you might consider using an alternative material, like punchboard game tokens instead of wood tokens.  

You might also consider using a smaller box. In the past, the conventional wisdom was that you want your game to have shelf presence, and to achieve that you need a larger box. But given the fact that now many people are staying indoors due to public health concerns, and so much retail is happening online, shelf presence doesn’t matter as much as it used to. A small box is less material for the box itself, which cuts down manufacturing costs. It will also weigh a little less, which will help you cut back on shipping costs. 

Let your project manager know what your budget is during the quoting process, so they can help you figure out the most affordable way to get everything you’re looking for. 

4. Communicate with your manufacturer 

Think of your manufacturer as a partner. They’re on your team and want you to be successful. You can help them and ultimately yourself by being very vocal about what you want and asking for suggestions. 

Make sure to alert your manufacturer to anything that you think would need a little extra attention. For example, you might have a plastic tray that you want packed in a specific way. Or maybe you have a hidden deck of cards that needs to be packaged in a way that prevents you from seeing the top card in the deck. The more information you’re able to give your manufacturer about exactly what you want, the better. 

Of course, if this is your first Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign, you might not know exactly what you want. This is when it’s especially important to communicate freely. If, for instance, you need some advice about game pieces or materials, you can always turn to your manufacturer. They’ve seen it all, and can give you tips and other insights to make sure your game meets your expectations. 

5. Think about stretch goals and fulfillment early

You should be thinking about fulfillment as you’re determining which manufacturer is the best fit for you. “A lot of times, I have clients who will ask for fulfillment recommendations of fulfillment partners while we’re doing the quoting process, that way they understand that leg of the process as early as possible,” McIver says. 

As you’re devising your fulfillment plan, you should consider the benefits of a pledge manager. BackerKit has integrations with a number of fulfillment partners, including Amplifier, Shopify, and Easyship. Not only will BackerKit Pledge Manager help you keep backer data organized after your campaign is funded, but it also automatically generates orders from backer survey responses. From there, you’ll be able to export the orders directly to your fulfillment partner.  

You’ll also want to think about your stretch goal rewards early. McIver says, “As we’re going through quoting, if you’ve got stretch goals in mind, ask us to quote those out for you too. Even if it’s stuff like upgrading card quality. Have us price that out for you early.” If you don’t end up reaching your stretch goal, you can include those items in your BackerKit pre-order store or use BackerKit’s add-on stretch goal feature to set an order goal for an add-on item and run a stretch goal campaign. 

Stretch goals add an extra layer of complexity to your project — you’ll have more rewards to create and ship. But if you already know how much everything is going to cost, you won’t have to scramble in the middle of your campaign, and can focus on community building and communicating with backers. 

6. Plan your shipping strategy 

Take some time to figure out how you’re going to get your game to your backers, customers, or retail outlets. Start by discussing your crowdfunding project with your manufacturing project managers early. They can give you shipping cost estimates for both ocean and air shipping. 

Another option is to charge for shipping after your campaign. This growing trend takes the guesswork out of determining your shipping cost because you’ll know how much the product weighs and won’t have to estimate. You can add shipping costs to your post-campaign survey in BackerKit. Using BackerKit’s Shipping Profiles, you can charge shipping based on the location of the backer and the total weight of the items they’ve ordered. 

Whichever strategy you choose, it’s important that you make the decision before you launch your campaign. You’ll also want to make sure that you’ve let backers know when they’ll be charged for shipping, so you can manage expectations. 

With a firm understanding of how to get your crowdfunding project through the manufacturing process, you can deliver an amazing final product and minimize delays. Get more insights and expert advice in our webinar, Crash Course in Game Manufacturing. If you’d like to learn more about fulfillment, and how BackerKit can help you deliver your game, reach out to our team. 

The post Crowdfunding Manufacturing: Get Your Tabletop Game Ready appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Whether you’re planning to launch a crowdfunding project or you’ve already hit your goal, it’s critical that you think about the tax implications of your campaign. While this would typically be the height of tax season, the IRS has extended the U.S. federal tax deadline from April 15 to July 15, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak (many state deadlines have been extended as well). Although there are technically a few more months before you have to buckle down and start preparing to file, it’s never too early to get started. Crowdfunding creators should keep these five factors in mind as they get their taxes ready. 

The difference between taxable income and gifts

When you receive money as a gift, it isn’t typically considered taxable income. When you receive money through a business transaction or sale, it is taxable income. Because of the supportive, often altruistic nature of crowdfunding, the distinction between a gift and taxable income may seem a little unclear. But the bottom line is that while donations on platforms like GoFundMe that are for life events like medical bills or education are generally considered gifts, if you’re running a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign, and your backers are receiving something of value in return for their pledge, the funds are going to be subject to taxes.

Form 1099-K

Form 1099-K is a summary of a crowdfunding creator’s sales transactions and is intended to help you report your taxes. It will be sent to campaign organizers with a U.S. bank account whose campaigns raised more than $20,000 and had more than 200 backers. You should receive the form by January 31st, if you received payments in the prior calendar year. Check with Kickstarter and Indiegogo to find out more about what you can expect from the form.

When filing your taxes, remember that you must report all of the income that you made from your campaign, which can include amounts shown on Form 1099-K, as well as any other money you received. It’s important to note that creators who don’t receive Form 1099-K and didn’t meet that $20,000 threshold will still have to pay taxes. 

After you survey your backers, you can download Accounting Reports from BackerKit that provide a detailed breakdown of the funds you raised during and after the campaign. This will be helpful as you determine how much income you generated from your project. 

Keep track of your expenses

Tracking expenses is a good practice to adopt when you begin any entrepreneurial endeavor — it keeps you on budget and will reveal any bad spending habits. But when you’re preparing for tax season, this information could potentially help you save money or protect you during an audit. As a crowdfunding creator, you may be able to deduct project-related expenses, such as tier-level gifts, from your taxes. If you have all of your receipts and invoices  — from launch to fulfillment — your accountant will be better able to determine which deductions you qualify for.

End of the year crowdfunding projects and taxes

Launching your project in December could impact your tax preparations. When determining the tax year, Kickstarter points out that Stripe, their payment processor, reports the income that you’ll find on Form 1099-K according to the project deadline date and not the payout date. The payout date is 14 days after the project deadline date. So if your project deadline date was in 2019 but your payout date was in 2020, the funds will apply to your 2019 returns. 

Another factor to consider when it comes to year-end projects is your ability to offset expenses that you won’t incur until the next year. If your income and expenses are in different years, you won’t be able to deduct expenses, which means you could end up having to pay more income tax and possibly have to dip into the funds you intended to use for your project. To safeguard against this, it’s always a good idea to create a funding goal that factors in taxes and the cost of your pledge manager. You may also end up offsetting some of your tax fees through pre-orders and add-ons.  

Ensuring crowdfunding creators are compliant when filing taxes

Tax laws can vary by location. For example, depending on where in the U.S. you live, the 1099-K eligibility threshold may be lower. New tax laws will also be introduced from year to year. The best way to make sure that you meet all of your state and federal tax obligations is to speak with a certified tax professional. Even if your project goal was relatively small and your taxes seem straightforward, working with a professional can give you peace of mind during a time that is notoriously hectic.  

No one wants to scramble at the last minute to file their taxes — it’s stressful and can lead to costly mistakes. If you aren’t prepared for tax season, now is the time to get started. 

If you’re planning your campaign, our webinar on pre-launch do’s and don’ts can help you get started. Has your project already been funded? Check out our webinar on post-campaign do’s and don’ts.

Disclaimer: BackerKit does not provide tax advice. The information presented here is for informational purposes only, and does not constitute tax, legal or accounting advice. Consult a tax attorney, accounting adviser, or your local tax authority regarding the obligations that pertain to your project. 

The post Crowdfunding and Taxes: What Creators Need to Know appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Most Kickstarter and Indiegogo creators charge for shipping before finishing a campaign. To follow this model, creators must estimate shipping costs, often without knowing how much the product will ultimately weigh. 

But what do you do if the actual shipping costs are higher than those initial calculations? What will backers think if you end up having to charge an additional shipping fee because your estimate was incorrect? 

It’s questions like these that are leading more and more creators to charge for shipping after their campaign is finished. 

The benefits of charging for shipping post-campaign

Setting shipping fees post-campaign makes it possible for you to charge based on the total weight of each backer’s order and account for costs associated with add-ons. Doing this saves you from having to foot shipping costs if a pre-campaign estimate is incorrect. What’s more, waiting until after the campaign is over gives you time to talk to third-party logistics providers (3PLs) and fulfillment companies to get real-world estimates. 

In addition to minimizing guesswork, adding shipping fees post-campaign can be easier on your wallet. Crowdfunding platforms often take 5% of shipping costs (plus another 3% for credit card processing fees) when those costs are set within the platform. But when you charge for shipping through another service after your campaign is finished, you may be able to avoid those fees.

Creating your shipping plan

Adding shipping fees after a crowdfunding campaign is easier than you might think. Here are the three things you should keep in mind as you prepare.

1. Collect your backer’s country information (and perhaps limit the number of countries you will accept)

Kickstarter allows you to set up shipping in a few ways, which you can review here. If you know you 100% won’t be shipping to Russia and Brazil, for example, you should exclude those countries upfront. Instead of selecting “No shipping involved” (which should only be used for digital-only pledge levels), you can select the countries you plan on shipping to and charge $0 on Kickstarter. Having this basic location information will help tremendously when it comes time to chat with fulfillment partners about what shipping will actually cost.

2. Let backers know when they’ll be charged

Manage your backers’ expectations by making it very clear that you plan on charging shipping after the campaign using a pledge manager. Failure to do so upfront could confuse or even anger backers, and weaken the relationship you’ve built with them. 

Keep backers happy and informed by including shipping details in your pledge level descriptions and the “shipping” section of your campaign. A good example of this is Feudum: Rudders and Ramparts, which includes this information on every pledge level.

Another excellent example is Migration: Mars, which has a detailed shipping section that includes shipping estimates for several different countries as well as shipping restrictions. The creators also include shipping information in their FAQ. 

3. Be transparent

It’s okay to offer shipping estimates and to include information on whether your campaign will be EU-friendly. Be as open and honest with your backers as possible. You don’t have to have everything set in stone, but communication is key.

Note: If you decide to charge backers for VAT/import taxes after your Kickstarter, but prior to shipping, you can charge them a percentage based tax in BackerKit. You should chat with your fulfillment partner to see if this makes sense for your shipping plan, as not all fulfillment services allow you to pre-pay VAT on behalf of your backers.

How to add shipping after your campaign

When the dust has settled, and you’ve had a chance to do some real research on shipping fees, you can add your shipping costs to your post-campaign survey via BackerKit. The easiest way to do this is to set up a whole-order weight-based shipping table, which will charge your backers based on location and the total weight of the items in their order. 

You can be as granular and detailed as you want, or you can keep things pretty simple. When your backers go through the survey, they’ll be charged the correct amount based on the “rules” that you’ve set up.

If this weight-based structure doesn’t work for you — fear not! You can still charge based on pledge levels and add-ons separately. We built BackerKit to accommodate a variety of shipping cost structures.

Get in touch with our team if you have any questions about charging shipping after your campaign has successfully funded.

The post Should You Charge for Shipping After Your Kickstarter Campaign? appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

BackerKit add-on items are extra rewards that backers can purchase via their survey in addition to the items they receive for their pledge. It’s a great way to generate extra revenue for your crowdfunding campaign. 

On average, creators raise an additional 22% of their initial pledge amount in BackerKit, and add-ons are a huge part of that. 

We did a deep-dive on the top 15 add-on performers of last quarter, and we want to share those insights with you! 

Some of these results were expected and can be reviewed in our previous Add-On best practices article here. In the last three months of 2019, 100% of the top selling add-on projects used add-on descriptions, 93% used professional-grade images, and 80% used our “Categories” feature to break out their add-ons into different groups. These numbers were congruent with our previous observations, but we also noticed a few new trending surprises. 

Creator’s Choice

80% of creators used our “Creator’s Choice” tag to call out their personal favorite items. These items performed better overall, generally outselling similarly priced add-ons without the tag. Our advice is to use them selectively, however, and only highlight those items you’re truly excited about. Authenticity is important!

Retail Prices

73% of the top performing add-on projects used special backer-only pricing. Your Kickstarter backers are your biggest fans, and if they know they’re getting an exclusive good deal in the BackerKit survey, creators have a better chance of converting sales.

Run a Special Promotion during your Kickstarter campaign

This was my personal favorite surprise while researching add-on all stars. Four out of five of the top add-on performers (who raised an additional 48-76% of their campaign total in BackerKit) ran add-on promotions during their campaigns. 

One particular example that stands out is Dwellings of Everdale who asked backers to solve a riddle in order to receive a coupon for a free $9.99 add-on in BackerKit. Here’s their description:Other promotions included a single free add-on for backers who backed at $X or more on Kickstarter, encouraging backers to over-pledge on Kickstarter to access limited add-on pricing, and including add-on specific stretch goals in the campaign. 

Post an update about your add-ons

73% of the projects we looked at posted an update on Kickstarter about their add-ons. It might sound obvious, but your backers are excited about the extra goodies that will be available post-campaign. A good time to do this is right before surveys go out, or right before you decide to lock down orders. 

Send a final lock down notice to your backers

BackerKit has a brand new feature where creators can send a “final notice” to their backers via BackerKit letting them know it’s their last chance to add add-ons or make any changes to their orders. Only 50% of our top-sellers used this feature, but it seems like the upside is worth the extra click! 

If you have any questions about add-on optimization, reach out to hello@backerkit.com. We’d love to point you in the right direction!

The post Best Practices: BackerKit Survey Add-on Items appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

The holiday season is fast approaching and those with a projected “holiday 2018” delivery date should be shipping as soon as possible. Crowdfunding rewards can make for fun and unique gifts, but failing to deliver on time can be doubly disappointing for gift-givers negatively effecting the conclusion of your campaign. Things will get busy during the holidays and delays tend to cascade. Best practice is to plan ahead and ship early.

On the flip side, delivering goods on time can go a long way with your backers helping boost your reputation, especially for those hoping to run another campaign in the future. It’s always a good idea to send regular updates to your backers about shipping timelines including any potential delays you may encounter. Your backers will appreciate your transparency as long as you’re clear about any delays. And check out these other useful tips for supporting your backers to keep them positively engaged.

Assuming you’re still planning on shipping before the end of the year, we’ve complied some helpful resources and tips to help guide you this holiday season. Firstly, be sure to bookmark these useful 2018 shipping timetables based on carrier:

USPS 2018 Holiday Newsroom
FedEx 2018 Holiday Shipping Services
UPS 2018 Year-End Holiday Schedule

BackerKit Postage: Ship to anywhere, right from home

Realistically, a large majority of projects don’t reach their initial shipping deadline. Our resident shipping expert Thomas Sleeth has a few tips you may want to consider during this potentially hectic time:

• Expect things will take longer than you hope. The holiday season puts strain on every part of shipping infrastructure – if things take a little longer at one stage, those delays can cascade and change when backers get rewards. Do everything possible to build in some buffer time in order to account for delays.
• Don’t over promise. It can be really easy to commit to splitting up orders or offer something special to an individual backer. While these can be nice, they will also drastically increase the amount of work/complexity involved in getting things shipped.
• Consider getting faster shipping. If you are down to the wire, the extra day or two can make the difference in getting things in on time. Be aware this will raise the costs of shipping significantly.
• Get backers something for the holidays. Even if things are late, consider making an image/card that people can print up and gift in time for Christmas,  Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, and other winter celebrations. This can help build anticipation and get people receiving the gift involved with the campaign’s progress!
• Don’t waste time packaging rewards. If you’re shipping things out from home, look into tools like BackerKit Postage that let you work with batches of orders at once. This will drastically reduce the amount of time and potential error that go into getting things shipped out.

Shipping your items early will make the entire crowdfunding experience much more enjoyable for you and your backers.

If you have a project that still needs fulfillment and/or shipping support, you can learn more about BackerKit Postage or contact our shipping department at shipping@backerkit.com. We’d be happy to help make this part of the process smoother creating a nice bookend to your campaign.

And check out these helpful links to make sure you’re ready for the holidays:

Six Tips from BackerKit’s Creator Success Team

Shipping with BackerKit: DIY with Scale

Six Things to Know About International Shipping

The post 2018 Holiday Shipping Tips, Deadlines, and Resources appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Visualizing the lifecycle of a crowdfunding campaign can prove difficult for first-time creators. This is particularly the case for the post-campaign phase, which encompasses the window between reaching your funding goal and the delivery of your rewards to backers.

If you’ve little experience at hand, it can be hard to set and manage expectations, especially with so many variables at play. That said, there are some general guidelines to make this process easier to define.

Determinants of your project timeline will be your ability to swiftly gather accurate item counts from your backers, the time it takes your manufacturer to produce all of your rewards, as well as the time it takes to package and ship your rewards to your backers.

As a general rule, it’s wise to allocate more time than you need. This means setting deadlines that incorporate a sizeable buffer against unexpected production delays, manufacturing mishaps, or unforeseen hitches in fulfilment.

In this post, we’ll delve into the post-campaign stages and what they might look like for your campaign.

Sending out Surveys

BackerKit recommends sending out surveys 14 days after your campaign has ended. On average, 70% to 75% of surveys in BackerKit are filled out within the first three to five days. But that’s no reason for complacency – your work’s not over yet.

Success manager Anna Walsemann says that higher completion rates are driven by creator communication.

“The more communicative the creators are – the more they post on their campaign page about their timeline and so on – the stronger the conversion is for surveys.”

Charging Cards

“Figuring out the timelines for delivering and asking people to fill out their surveys is important,” Weiser says. “You don’t want to ask people to fill out their surveys too early because people move, you send it to the wrong address.” Figuring out the right time can minimize chargebacks: this time around, Weiser only received two send-backs.

BackerKit’s Head of Support, Michael Kent, says that the timeline for charging cards and locking down can vary immensely. He’s seen project creators charge within a week of 80% survey completion; some project creators have even charged orders while surveys are progressively being completed. In more extreme cases, some have even charged a few times a day while surveys are being sent out.

Kent cautions against this last approach. “That’s not something we recommend, because once your lock and charge, the backer can’t change anything but their shipping address,” he says.

‘That complicates things as far as the support flow goes because once a backer is charged, they can’t make any changes without writing us an email. Making that change entails a refund in order to unlock the order and change it.”

The ‘happy path’, as far as backers are concerned, involves giving your supporters enough time and flexibility to update their orders. This means holding off and waiting to charge cards once you’re ready to fulfil your campaign rewards.

“Some creators need to charge cards immediately for pre-orders and add-ons in order to ramp up production,” he says. “Others with a more robust production plan will want to start manufacturing production for far more orders than they’ve received in crowdfunding. They can usually hold off and wait to charge cards closer to when they’re fulfilling items. He says this tends to result in a “happier backer flow”.

This option is a best practice recommendation, but Kent notes it requires creators to “have enough funds available to get to production and manufacturing for all of your original campaign rewards and add-ons, which can be difficult”.

Another source of support tickets occurs when creators charge cards. It’s inevitable, but not an insurmountable obstacle: Kent says queries can be kept at bay by keeping your backers informed of your project timeline. 

“You need to make it really unmistakably clear to your backers that you will be charging them on a specific date,” Kent says. “Sometimes, if a backer is blindsided by a charge, or if they assume that the money was taken during the survey, it could cause financial issues for them.”

“That’s never a position you want to put your supporters in, so definitely post an update or two updates leading up to your charge date to make it clear that they will be charged then.”

Locking Down

A project’s lockdown date will largely be determined by your fulfilment partner and whether your project relies on specific counts for manufacture.

For instance, if a project needs to ramp up production based on direct counts, Kent notes a lockdown date should be set relatively soon so that as many backers can fill out the survey as soon as possible, allowing counts to be calculated with the most accuracy.

On the other hand, if a project doesn’t depend on direct counts – these might include project creators who plan a pre-order store or Indiegogo InDemand campaign as well – the timeline differs. “If they’re expecting to have ongoing orders and manufacturing, they’ll probably just put in a huge order with their manufacturer, and therefore don’t need to worry about counts,” Kent says.

“In that situation, it’s best to set your lockdown date much later – you might not even lock orders until you are ready to ship. That’s a better flow for backers support-wise, because they’re able to make any changes they want, and that doesn’t matter to the creator because they’re overproducing everything in anticipation of more orders in the future.”

Handling Unforeseen Hurdles

Mark Weiser, creator of the PON push pin, said he endured delays in production that were unexpected.

“I encountered some issues after the Kickstarter campaign,” he says. “The company I was going to work with flaked on me, they weren’t able to do what they said they would, so I had to scramble. My project ended up being delayed by 6-8 months because of that, and I had to go overseas instead.” This meant that the timeline for delivering his campaign blew out significantly.

For his first campaign, Weiser noted that there was too much complexity in terms of the rewards offered to backers. But he learned from the experience the second time round, electing to radically simplify his campaign.

Generally speaking, when delays occur and are announced through project updates, creators can expect a spike in the volume of support tickets. When in doubt, transparency is the best policy – better to let backers know that a delay is forthcoming, rather than keep them in the dark.

Shipping

The scale and complexity of your project will determine the time it takes to ship your rewards to your backers.

“Usually, if you’re either working with a fulfilment center or by yourself, you’ll need to separate your backers into similar package groups and ship based on those groups of similar items,” Kent says. 

He notes that shipping times will also hinge on your project’s manufacturing timetable.

“A lot of the time, project creators want to ship immediately. The first items to come off the manufacturing line that pass quality assurance are often the first ones to start shipping. That might be a deciding factor in your packaging groups,” he says.

“That might create a snafu if you’ve got another item in the same order that is not manufactured yet.  Some project creators might choose partial fulfillment in this scenario; others might wait until everything has come off the line.”

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