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.”

The post From Surveyed to Shipped: The BackerKit Project Lifecycle appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

So you’ve sent out a BackerKit survey. Now what?

It’s a common misconception that all project creators need to do is wait until the responses roll in. While most backers will be eager to fill out their surveys, the reality is most project creators will have to deal with stragglers – those who have taken more time to respond to your reminders.

At the end of the day, you want as many backers to answer your surveys as possible.

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to place an order with your manufacturer without knowing exactly how many items you have to order.

Here’s a list of steps you can take to ensure your survey completion rate is as high as possible.

Spread the Word

On average, 70% to 75% of surveys in BackerKit are filled out within the first three to five days. That’s great. But what about the remainder?

Success manager Anna Walsemann says 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,” she says. “As long as backers know to expect a survey, they’ll usually keep an eye out in their email inboxes.”

If you know you’ll be using BackerKit to handle surveys, it’s important to signpost this as early as possible by announcing it as a project update.

Invite Swiftly and Update Often

It’s crucial to remind backers to expect a survey once your campaign has ended. BackerKit generally advises creators to wait 14 days before sending out surveys to allow Kickstarter or Indiegogo to finish processing payments and to give backers with errored pledges a chance to update their method of payment.

At the same time, be sure to monitor your campaign page as much as possible. Walsemann says it’s “very important to go to your KS page and use the comments section so you can answer any questions from backers”.

You should mention the survey every time you post an update – whether it’s on your crowdfunding platform, social media, or newsletter.

Here’s a great example of how to let your backers know you’re using BackerKit to handle surveys.

Let Backers Know about Lockdown

Everyone needs deadlines – especially backers! They help to motivate backers to complete their surveys in a timely fashion and fuel anticipation about receiving rewards.

Walsemann recommends notifying backers about your project timeline as soon as possible. Ideally, you should already have an idea of your lockdown date for surveys, when you’ll charge their cards, and when you intend to ship. While each project might handle the announcement slightly differently, communicating these dates in the first post-campaign update helps to set expectations.

“The sooner you let them know about that timeline, the better backers can prepare in case they’re planning to move in that timeframe, change their minds, or plan to add a second item for some of their friends,” Walsemann.

Automated Reminders

BackerKit sends out automated reminders to backers who haven’t completed their surveys, so you don’t have to spend time chasing up each one individually. These reminders are sent out on day one after your surveys have been sent, then days three, five, and seven, then once a week going forward for the first month. After that, a reminder will be sent once a month.

“It really helps because you don’t need to worry about sending reminders yourself,” Walsemann says. “The system does it for you.”

Reach Out Manually

There are all sorts of reasons why a backer might take their time to respond to a survey. Perhaps your attempts at communication have been buried by a mountain of unread messages, or perhaps the email has bounced and they haven’t even received the survey in the first place. Sometimes, the occasion might call for a little elbow grease.

“In BackerKit, you can export email addresses for a specific segment of backers – say, for those who haven’t answered,” Walsemann says. This lets you send a personalized message, which is less likely to be ignored than a form letter and can make quite a difference in nudging those stragglers over the line.

Looking for more resources and best practices? Head over to our BackerKit Guides Section. Want them delivered straight to your inbox once a week? Subscribe to our Community Newsletter!

The post How to Deal with Survey Stragglers appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Sending out surveys can be daunting, especially if your project has a large number of backers. Even the smallest of mistakes can generate confusion and spark a spike in the volume of support tickets for your project. This can be overwhelming for project creators, who may find themselves inundated with questions from anxious backers.

Staying calm is easier said than done, but if you’re using BackerKit, there’s no need to worry. Our friendly, knowledgeable support and success teams are here to help at every step of your post-campaign journey. Every project will have a dedicated success manager to guide you through project setup, resolve any issues, and our friendly, professional support team will be on hand to address queries from backers.

Our product team is always thinking of ways to aim to make the survey process easier and less stressful for creators, especially those with large numbers of backers. That’s why we’ve implemented an additional feature in our app that gives creators of large projects more peace of mind when sending out surveys.

This feature, known as the smoke test, is part of our hands-on approach that is designed to mitigate any pain points that may arise once your campaign ends.

The smoke test is designed to help us catch any errors or pain points in your survey before they are sent out to your backers in full. Projects with more than 500 backers will be required to run a smoke test before they send out surveys to all their backers.

The smoke test sends surveys to 5% of backers from each pledge level. Once the surveys are sent, our app collates data on the response rate, the proportion of support inquiries received, and the add-on purchase rate. We recommend waiting 24 hours to ensure the data collected is as accurate as possible.

BackerKit’s support and success teams use this information to determine if there are any problems with your project setup, and whether there are common queries that could easily be addressed on a creator’s project FAQ page. It’s our way of making sure creators send out their surveys confidently and accurately.

The post Sending Out Surveys Doesn’t Have to Be Scary appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

So you’ve completed your campaign! Now it’s time to collect your funds and start creating. In theory, this should be the easy part, but you can expect a small percentage of your backer pledges will fail to convert when it’s time to charge credit cards. Failed payments are a common occurrence in crowdfunding campaigns; it’s estimated that anywhere between 1% and 5% of campaign pledges are ‘errored’.

There are many reasons why payments fail, most of them innocuous. Credit cards can be declined by the issuing bank; sometimes backers may be unaware that they have been maxed out or reached their expiry date.

Failed payments do not affect your project’s funding goal. In other words, if that failure to collect puts your project percentage below 100%, it will still be counted as a ‘successful’ project, and you will still collect on the rest of your pledges.

Payments can also be blocked by Kickstarter’s and Indiegogo’s payments processor, Stripe. Stripe has an algorithm that blocks transactions it believes are fraudulent or high risk, but occasionally it blocks legitimate payments. If you’ve set up custom rules in Stripe, make sure to confirm that they don’t unintentionally exclude any of your backers from paying their pledges.

What Happens on Kickstarter and Indiegogo

When Kickstarter can’t retrieve a backer’s payment, the pledge is displayed in the project creator’s Backer Report with an ‘errored’ status. If a backer’s pledge is declined, Kickstarter will send them an email reminder every 48 hours, prompting them to rectify the issue. Backers with errored pledges have one week to update their cards. After a week has passed, Kickstarter will attempt to collect the pledge automatically for the last time before these backers are dropped from the campaign.

Indiegogo accepts payments made by credit card, Apple Pay and PayPal. It lists its restrictions on payment types on its website, which are generally tied to the country in which the campaign account is located. There are also restrictions on what currencies can be used to contribute to a campaign. At present, Indiegogo only accepts direct credit and debit transactions in US dollars, Canadian dollars, Euros, and the British pound. PayPal is only available to campaigns in Australia.

Indiegogo and Kickstarter use Stripe to process credit card payments. Bear in mind that restrictions on card types will depend on the country where the campaign account is located.

Recovering Failed Payments On Your Own

Project creators might choose to chase up failed payments themselves. Sending a personalized follow-up email to backers with errored pledges can help remind them to fix their payments, and may grab their attention more effectively than an automated email reminder.

Sometimes a backer will want to honor their pledge, but their payment method isn’t supported by the crowdfunding platform. In these instances, you might consider offering other avenues for payment. For example, if your crowdfunding platform only accepts credit card payments for pledge, you could offer backers with failed payments an opportunity to pay with PayPal, direct debit, or Venmo.

Chasing Up Payment in BackerKit

What about those backers who have missed out on Kickstarter’s one-week window? Here’s where BackerKit comes in handy: we give backers more time to update their payment information and get back into the campaign

BackerKit’s Success team recommends that project creators send out their surveys two weeks after their campaign has ended. Thomas Sleeth, BackerKit success representative, call this the ‘sweet spot’. “On Kickstarter, people will often have failed payments,” he says. “They’ll need to update their card, they might have a fraud warning, they might have changed banks.” It takes about two weeks for Kickstarter to collect funds and disburse them. That’s when you’ll know which backers have and haven’t paid.

Any backer who doesn’t upload payment within this timeframe is marked as ‘failed’ and their pledge is recorded at $0. BackerKit then sends these backers a survey, which gives them an opportunity to honor their pledge to your campaign. If you send the survey close to the campaign end date, the project will still be fresh in the backer’s mind and they will be more likely to rejoin, especially because BackerKit can keep the survey open for as long as the backer needs to get their payment squared away.

Looking for more resources and best practices? Head over to our BackerKit Guides Section. Want them delivered straight to your inbox once a week? Subscribe to our Community Newsletter!

The post Dealing with Failed Payments appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Fielding questions from backers can flummox first-time project creators and veterans alike. The bigger your crowdfunding campaign, the more likely you’ll be flooded with feedback and queries – positive and negative. Keeping a cool head can be easier said than done, especially when you’re juggling the demands of running and promoting a campaign.

Project creators should aim to respond to backer inquiries in a timely and polite fashion. Being empathetic to backers’ concerns is especially crucial: a little understanding can go a long way in placating your most fervent supporters.

If you’re feeling stuck, don’t worry! There are plenty of resources on BackerKit and elsewhere that can help.

Providing Support on Kickstarter

Gary Canino, community support specialist at Kickstarter, says that the nature of the crowdfunding life cycle can be confusing for first-time backers. “It’s not a store, it’s about bringing projects to life,” he says. “We often explain to people that they’re backing something that’s in progress, it’s being made.”

Tensions can be mitigated by managing backers’ expectations. Whether you’re posting updates while the campaign is live or heading into the fulfillment phase, it’s best to be clear with your backers.

Questions from backers about shipping can often be the most thorny, particularly if project creators run into production problems that result in significant delays.

Michael Kent, BackerKit’s Head of Support, says keeping backers in the loop is important, although an update often begets more queries. “One the one hand, you want to be as transparent as you can with your backers,” Kent says. “On the other hand, posting updates does seem to cause people to contact you, even if you’re just checking in.”

Striking a balance is key. “I personally like being transparent and posting project updates every month. That’s a pretty good rule of thumb,” Kent says. “Even if you don’t have much to say, letting backers know that you’re there and you’re working, it definitely puts their minds at ease.” Kickstarter’s Canino concurs. “Transparency is good, honesty is good,” he says. “Delays do happen – and that’s totally OK.”

There’s a tendency for project creators to shy away from updates when they run into trouble. “Lots of project creators, when they hit a hurdle or speed bump, realize that they’ve got a delay in front of them, there’s often apprehensive about sharing that with their backers right away, because they don’t want to rock the boat or get backers angry and writing in,” Michael says says. But the alternative – staying silent – will only result in more backer messages.

If creators find themselves in a pickle, Kickstarter’s Resources Compendium is a one-stop shop for campaign troubleshooting. It includes the Creator Handbook, which covers all aspects of the crowdfunding journey from pre-launch to the fulfillment phase; common FAQs about the Kickstarter platform; and Campus, a forum where project creators can ask fellow peers for advice on support best practices.

How to Minimize Backer Queries

Kent has worked on close to 1,000 projects. He says a number of recurring themes dominate the backer queries he handles.

“The number one question for backers is, ‘When is my reward shipping?’, Kent says. “That’s probably the case for crowdfunding campaigns all over the world.” To allay these concerns, Kent recommends keeping backers in the loop with regular project updates. “Every single project update should mention some projected shipping date of some kind,” he says.

He also recommends making an “incredibly conservative estimate” when it comes to shipping dates. “Get the estimate that you think you can do and double it, time-wise. No one will ever be upset if you ship your rewards to them early,” he says. This will prove helpful should you run into any unforeseen obstacles in the fulfillment phase.

Other common queries include requests to make changes to survey responses and product-specific questions about their rewards, including refund and return policies. Project creators can minimize many of these queries at the start of their crowdfunding campaign by clearly outlining the information on their project page.

Questions about return policies and refunds are extremely common. Kent suggests addressing these topics “at the start of the campaign”, and making sure that they are clearly articulated to backers.

“Refunds should be part of the FAQ of every single crowdfunding project across the board,” he says.

Handling Survey Questions

Backers might contact project creators with questions related to BackerKit. They might have difficulty navigating the site, or responding to a survey.  The most queries are about making changes to survey responses, updating mailing addresses,  questions about declined payments, and the occasional missing survey.  If you’ve enabled BackerKit support for your crowdfunding campaign, the BackerKit team handles all of these routine questions.

Sometimes, backers might not be aware that they can make changes to their survey on their own before responses have been locked down. Similarly, backers can update their addresses until the project creator marks the pledge as ready to ship.

If a project creator is handling support on their own, they can draw on the resources in BackerKit’s Help Center, which covers the most common queries, or direct backers to relevant articles.

How to Manage Feedback

“One of the most difficult things for project creators doing support is there are so many channels,” Michael says. “Between the emails that come through surveys, the messages that come through Kickstarter, Facebook, social media, there’s so many different places where you need to keep your backers updated.”

Streamlining communications can make a huge difference to a creator’s workload. “If project creators are using BackerKit, they can post a link in their updates, which is a contact form that has backers contact us directly,” he says. “That really takes a lot of work off their plate, because there’s a place where backers have a portal and contact form where they submit their request and it comes straight to us.”  Similarly, if project creators receive questions from backers on social media, they can respond with a link that lets backers contact BackerKit directly.

If project creators are managing their own support, Michael advises centralizing backer communications on the platform they prefer to be contacted on as much as possible. Doing so on the crowdfunding platform you’ve used for your campaign makes sense, as it’s the primary avenue where backers have placed their orders.

The post Supporting Your Backers: Tips for Creators appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

The Creator Success team walks project creators through the process of setting up their project in BackerKit and helps them get up to speed on the features they can use to make their lives easier.

“BackerKit Success is as hands-on or hands-off as you need us to be,” Success Manager Thomas Sleeth says. “If you have questions, we’re hands-on in getting those sorted out. If you don’t want to talk to us every day and feel confident using the tool, that’s also great. You can go through the setup review and you’re on your way.”

Today on the blog, Thomas shares some advice on how project creators can use BackerKit to automate order creation, keep on top of backer requests, manage and export large troves of data, raise additional revenue, and streamline the fulfillment process.

Use the Item Generator

Thomas says the simplest way to ensure a smooth manufacturing and fulfillment process is to use BackerKit’s item generator. It’s an incredibly powerful tool that is designed to make it easy to manage pledge rewards, calculate and track production counts, and create itemized orders that make fulfillment a breeze. “Using the Item Generator solves a lot of problems out of the gate. It makes pledge questions, add-ons, SKUs – it does everything.”

Sometimes project creators might have more unorthodox requests. For example, Sleeth is working with a project that makes customizable bike locks and wants to display its pre-order items to reflect that its components can be selected individually. In these circumstances, project creators might be tempted to tackle the task on their own, but Sleeth advises getting in touch with BackerKit’s success team instead. “Email us beforehand so we can help point you in the right direction,” he says.

Survey Best Practices

Ideal times for project creators to survey backers can vary depending on the nature of the project, but Thomas says “generally 14 days after the campaign ends is the sweet spot”. “On Kickstarter, people will often have failed payments,” he says. “They’ll need to update their card, they might have a fraud warning, they might have changed banks.” It takes about two weeks for Kickstarter to collect funds and disburse them. That’s when you’ll know which backers have and haven’t paid.

Sending out surveys close to the campaign end date is also great for selling add-ons because the campaign is still fresh in the backers’ minds. Selling extra units and accessories is tougher if you survey months later after the excitement has died down. Project creators can also send BackerKit surveys to backers with failed payments on Kickstarter, giving them more time to save money and rejoin the campaign.

Figuring out what time to send out surveys is essential. “We generally recommend sending surveys out earlier in the week to get better survey response rates and add-on sales in BackerKit,” Thomas says. If you send out a survey on 4pm on a Friday afternoon, it’s likely to get buried in backers’ inboxes.

When to Lock Down Surveys

Locking down surveys lets project creators finalize orders so they are ready for production. Once surveys are locked down, no changes can be made to item selections. Project creators are often keen to lock down surveys as soon as possible. Thomas suggests determining a date based around your project’s timetables for manufacturing and shipping.

“In an ideal world, I would suggest locking down and charging people a week or two before sending out rewards,” he says. There are exceptions to that rule: the nature of some projects means some project creators will require final counts for the manufacturing process and are more likely to lock down surveys earlier. The downside of locking down early is it gives backers “less ability to make changes on their own” which will increase backer support inquiries. Thomas says that projects with more flexibility in manufacturing should choose a later lockdown date and use BackerKit’s production counts, which update dynamically.

Dealing with Survey Stragglers

Most backers are eager to complete their surveys as soon as possible. BackerKit data shows approximately 80 per cent of backers respond to surveys within the first 72 hours. That said, there are always those backers who take months and months to respond. There are plenty of reasons for this, Thomas says. “There are all sorts of confusion points: people not checking their emails, people with full inboxes. Some backers may have used an old email address on Kickstarter.”

BackerKit sends backers automatic reminders to complete their surveys, which can help jog a backer’s memory about a pledge they made some time ago. Thomas says BackerKit keeps records of pledges made years ago, so when long-absent backers get in touch years after a campaign has ended, they can be given BackerKit store credit.

Thomas also recommends reminding backers about surveys through their crowdfunding platform updates or through social media. “Posting updates on Kickstarter or Indiegogo or social media is a great way to get in front of those folks.” Most projects get to a 97% response rate or higher by the time shipping starts.

Making the Most of BackerKIt

Thomas recommends project creators offer add-ons for campaign-related rewards. Often, he says, backers will want to “mix and match” items from pledge levels, but cannot do so on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. “Add-ons give backers the toolset to get that done,” he says, allowing them to purchase additional items from your campaign – and they give project creators an opportunity raise additional funds through BackerKit.

BackerKit also gives project creators the opportunity to make their pledges upgradable. “Backers can choose to switch from $30 level to the $70 level”, Thomas says, and they can do so on their own in the app. There’s no need for them to contact project creators for help.

Words of Advice

In Thomas’ experience, many project creators are fixated on calculating precise costs. On the one hand, this means they’re doing their research and trying to ensure they are well-prepared to cover the cost of fulfillment and shipping. On the other hand, this isn’t necessarily the best approach to take for a crowdfunding campaign if they treat those estimates as gospel. Costs almost always increase unexpectedly. “All of this stuff changes,” Thomas says. “There are a lot of unknowns and questions.”

Project creators need to be flexible with their cost structure to accommodate any unexpected changes. “Build in enough margin to ensure that when it is time to ship, you can ship things and not get too caught up in costs,” he says. “If shipping goes up, use that extra dollar to cover higher costs to other countries. View your campaign funds as more of a pool that allows your product to be constructed and delivered.”

The post Six Tips from BackerKit’s Creator Success Team appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Your campaign has been successfully funded, congratulations! Your backers, curious and excited as they are, are going to start asking you a lot of questions. Here at BackerKit, we recommend posting an update at least every two weeks, even if nothing has changed since the last post, and here is why!

Sometimes Everything Goes Wrong!

Posting an update when you are facing manufacturing errors or delays can be very hard, and possibly even embarrassing, but these are truly going to be your most important posts. It can be very tempting to not say anything, hide under the proverbial covers, and hope that the problem will resolve itself quickly, but going silent is going to cause you to lose a lot of trust with your backers. No one likes being kept in the dark. That’s when backers pull out the pitchforks and go hunting for the crowdfunding creator that took their money and stopped responding to messages.

Keeping backers updated, especially when the news isn’t good,  will help keep your community engaged and supportive. Explaining the issue and detailing your plans to resolve said issue, will make it much easier to handle support requests, comments on your campaign page, and social media mentions.

Most backers understand that things happen, there’s a lot of uncertainty in crowdfunding. As long as they know that you are working to get the rewards out, they will stay interested..

Sometimes Everything Goes Right!

What if your project is going as smoothly as possible, and you haven’t run into any problems whatsoever? First, that’s really awesome and amazing! Second, you should still post updates to keep backers engaged and show that you’re still working.  Consider sharing some behind-the-scenes information with your backers? This can come in the form of pictures of manufacturing, different colored dyes, or even snapshots of teammates coding frantically on their computers.

How to Write a Good Update

When updating your backers it is always better to post more often. No one is ever disappointed by having more information! Writing a good update is easier than you think, even if writing is not your forte. Try not to focus on making giant updates that cover everything. Break up your content into clear segments. An effective and informative update should include these basic points:

1. A Good Title
   Putting more detail into the title “Where we are with the shipping process” or “We are doing X” will help drive more backers to read the post as opposed to a generic title such as “Update 11”.
2. Show Progress
   Explaining where you are currently with the manufacturing or shipping process.
3. Explain Delays
   If there are delays, explain what happened and what you are doing to fix this.
4. Call to Action
   If there is a call to action, such as having surveys filled out before a lockdown date of 00/00, make sure you give backers notice!
5. Throw some pictures in there!
   Pictures of machines tinkering away, packages ready to be shipped out (make sure you blur/remove the addresses and names first!) or even just the items themselves.

What do Good Updates look like?

We highly recommend checking out the great, thorough updates posted by these projects:

• Mini Museum 2
  Mini Museum 2 went into detail about historical detail about specific components of the museum and how they were added to the product, which is a great way to add more interest to a production update!
• Rocketbook Wave
  Rocketbook Wave shipped months ahead of schedule, so they quickly informed backers to confirm their shipping address and be on the lookout for their books!
• CHIP
  CHIP is really great about keeping backers informed of where they are with the production and shipping process, as well as posts showing what CHIP is capable of creating.
• Xpand Lacing System
  The XPAND team kept their backers informed with frequent production updates and shipping information, as well as instructions on how to use the product so backers can use the laces as soon as they received them!

We also asked a few project creators why posting updates is a fundamental part of backer happiness!

“Backers of a project deserve to see as much as possible since the project wouldn’t exist without their support, so I approach each project update as an opportunity share my gratitude for their support and to extend the experience of the Mini Museum itself.”

-Hans Fex, Creator and Chief Curator of the Mini Museum

“There are two great reasons to make backer updates a priority, one is practical, the other ethical.  The practical reason is that your backers hold the key to word of mouth, and to your reputation.  The second reason is that you truly owe these people a debt of gratitude, and keeping them in the loop is the best way to pay them back.  Backers don’t want you to sacrifice the quality of the product for their updates… updates once a month at first, and then every two to three months is generally enough.  Sometimes we just get busy and forget and the fans always remind us.  Updates don’t need to be elaborate.  Mainly they want to know you’re still working hard and making progress, and share in the experience a bit.  Also when you post updates, share a bit of your excitement, and a little artwork, or music, or photos or whatever will entice them.  Anticipation is all part of the fun.  It’s often tough to pull your head out of deadlines and make the time for it, but it’s well worth it.”

-Greg Johnson, Creator of ToeJam and Earl

“Updates when things are going well gets your backers sharing and talking about your product. But updates when you hit bumps in the road are even more valuable. They make your early-adopter audience “part of the team” by bringing them behind the scenes view into the world of an entrepreneur.”

-Jake Epstein, Cofounder at Rocketbook

Still Need Convincing?

Kickstarter and Indiegogo know that posting frequent updates means happier backers and even an increase in funds, so get posting!

The post Why You Should Post Regular Updates and How to Write a Good One appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Studying the Best Sellers

We studied sales data from 1,568 projects with 15,525 different add-on items to determine the best practices creators should follow when setting up add-on items during the survey process.

We found 1,222 add-on items that had backer attach rates above 10%. Here are the insights that we learned from studying these best-selling items.

Images Are Essential

This discovery shouldn’t shock anyone, but images matter. 95.74% of the best-selling items had at least one image. Use high-quality images and BackerKit’s gallery feature to upload multiple images that showcase each item from all angles.

Beautiful images get backers excited, and detailed shots can help answer product questions and convince people to make a purchase.

Descriptions: Brief and Relevant Works

If the product image draws people in and gets them interested, the description closes the sale. 85.3% of best-selling add-ons had a text description. The median description length was 137 characters. That’s less than a Tweet.

Think about your target audience and write a description that will highlight features and benefits while also answering any questions that will help backers make an informed purchase decision.

Item Selection

Larger add-on menus generally result in more sales but the best thing you can do is make sure that you offer items that backers actually want to buy.

Based on the data, your best selling add-ons will be additional units of the main pledge item, variations of the main pledge item or the no-brainer accessories that pair well with the main pledge item.

You should already have these items offered as pledge rewards or stretch goals if you planned your campaign well.

We recommend offering all pledge reward and stretch goal items from the campaign as individual add-ons. Many backers use add-ons as an a la carte menu that lets them put together their own custom pledge reward bundle.

If you have inventory from previous campaigns or your back catalog, you can offer those items as add-ons too. Your fans will appreciate getting exclusive access to older items that might not be widely available anymore. We have several repeat project creators that have us import all past add-ons into surveys for their latest campaign.

If you have items with limited inventory, you can set limits on the total quantity available and per-backer purchase limits to help drive attention to those items and make sure that you don’t oversell.

Keep in mind that adding more items increases fulfillment complexity. If you’re using a third-party logistics provider, you might want to scale down on the number of items because you have to pay for picking costs and storage fees. At the very least, take into account the fulfillment costs when setting prices and shipping fees for add-on items.

Pricing: Customize By Pledge Level

If you give backers the option to purchase additional pledge reward items as add-ons, we advise pricing the add-on the same as the original campaign price. Some backers over-pledge with the intention of using the extra funding to pay for additional units.

If you had different pricing for the same item in different pledge levels, you can use BackerKit to offer that same pricing to backers in different pledge levels. For example if you have a $5 pledge level for a single pen and a $20 pledge level for five pens, you can use BackerKit to make sure that backers in the $5 pledge level can buy additional pens at $5 each, while backers in the $20 pledge level can buy additional pens at $4 each.

Shipping Fees: Offer Free Shipping

An astounding 96.7% of best selling add-ons offered free US domestic shipping. If you have add-ons with high profit margins, consider covering the costs for free shipping even if you have to pay for the increased package weight.

Also understand that you can charge less for shipping items as add-ons if you know that they’re going to be shipped with the backer’s existing pledge rewards.

Creators will often build the cost of the shipping into the item price to make it easier for backers to make the purchase decision. If you’re already paying to ship a 4-pound package, going up to 5-pounds will probably only increase your shipping cost by a couple of dollars.

If you do have to charge shipping, for heavier items or bulky items that have to be shipped separately for example, don’t let your worst-case scenario determine the shipping fee for everyone. Set shipping fees for the major countries to make sure that everyone gets charged a fair rate.

You can also set your US domestic shipping fees so that customers that are located closer to your shipment facilities subsidize customers that live further away so that it all balances out in the end. You can add in some margin to account for returned packages but you don’t have to price shipping as if every package is going to the opposite coast.

That said, make sure you have accurate shipping cost estimates when you set your shipping fees. Know your box sizes, shipping weights, and courier rates for everything. Build in some shipping fee margin to account for mistakes and unforeseen expenses. If you underprice on shipping, you’ll be responsible for the shortfall.

Use Categories and Show Popular Items First

If you have a large number of add-ons, create add-on categories to make it easier for backers to browse the add-ons menu.

Place your most popular items first or on the top row of items to maximize visibility. You can rearrange your add-ons by using the “sort add-ons” section at the top of your add-ons editing page. If you notice that an item is selling especially well, you can move the item higher on the page to make it more visible to backers that haven’t answered their surveys yet.

Don’t Waste the Opportunity

Your backers will only go through the survey once. This means that you should set up all of your add-ons prior to sending out your surveys. If backers answer their individual surveys before you have add-ons ready, you’ll miss out on offering add-ons to those backers.

Keep in mind that offering add-on items isn’t just about selling things as a store. It’s also about making it easier for backers to get what they want and support you in the process. If you show care in curating, presenting, and pricing your items, it will create a better experience for your backers.

Contact us if you want to know more about how you can use BackerKit to offer add-ons during the survey process or are interested in using BackerKit to organize your fulfillment process!

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

Handling Backers from InDemand

We’ve supported InDemand for Indiegogo campaigns since it first launched, but late last year we noticed that a few of our Kickstarter project creators started creating new campaigns on InDemand after the end of their Kickstarter campaign.

Choosing to launch the same campaign on a second platform sounds simple (same products, pledge levels, and marketing message, right?) but it actually doubles your complexity and the number of ways that you can fail because now you have backers coming in through a second channel and you need to develop an air-tight fulfillment process for those backers.

Working with Creators

A handful of our Kickstarter projects such as G-RO used InDemand over the past few months and we worked with them to configure BackerKit to allow them to survey and process reward fulfillment for backers from both platforms to make sure that they had fulfillment for their InDemand backers under control.

We’ve learned a lot from those implementations and made several improvements to our system. We are proud to announce that BackerKit can now support all projects, from Indiegogo and Kickstarter, that move to InDemand.

How It Works

Creators that have a Kickstarter project on BackerKit can set up a second BackerKit project for their InDemand campaign and then clone the data from the project setup for their Kickstarter campaign to have all item and SKU information match between projects. Setting the second campaign up as a separate project in BackerKit allows you to automatically add new backers after they pledge in InDemand.

We treat the second project as an extension of the first, so the creator isn’t charged for backers from the first campaign. We waive the setup fee and only charge for the new InDemand backers and add-on sales generated by those backers. This allows creators to collect survey responses from backers from both platforms and use BackerKit to manage all pledges for fulfillment.

Indiegogo campaigns already have InDemand support built into their BackerKit setup since all backers come from the same source.

We’re looking into streamlining the process even more in the future. If you have a Kickstarter project with a follow-on InDemand campaign or even a classic Indiegogo project with InDemand, please contact us to find out how we can help you manage fulfillment for both campaigns.

The post Managing InDemand Backers with BackerKit appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Using BackerKit without a Campaign

BackerKit had a fantastic 2015 by all measures. We helped 711 projects create surveys and manage pledges for 1,258,564 backers. In 2014, we had 451 projects with 757,635 backers. We wanted to close the year and celebrate the coming new year by sending a thank-you gift to all of our customers.

We worked with Emilio Santoyo, our good friend and fantastic designer, to create a special t-shirt featuring our fearless BackerKat starting on a new crowdfunding fulfillment adventure.

One problem with giving out t-shirts is that we needed to ask nearly a thousand project creators for their shipping address and t-shirt size. Fortunately, we have access to certain resources and possess a very particular set of skills that allowed us to collect gift preferences and shipping address information very easily.

We created a “Happy 2016 from BackerKit” project in BackerKit and imported all of our creators as backers using our backer import tool. We wanted to give creators the option to receive a t-shirt or to decline it and have us make a charitable donation instead since not everyone needs yet another awesome t-shirt.

We did this by giving each survey $5.00 in complimentary credit and then offering the t-shirt bundle and charitable donations as optional add-ons priced at $5.00 each.

We picked Watsi and the Red Cross as our two charities. Watsi crowdfunds life-changing medical treatments for patients in need all around the world. We added the Red Cross to give creators an instantly recognizable charity option, but we also wanted to introduce people to Watsi.

We’re big fans of the work Watsi is doing and wanted to highlight their efforts.

One unexpected side effect of structuring the donations as add-ons is that a good number of creators used their complimentary credit and then added on more donations as add-ons, so they ended up giving more on their own.

We used BackerKit again when it came time to ship everything out. We created item SKUs for each item which allowed our software to aggregate information from all of the survey responses and organize it into structured data for fulfillment.

We used BackerKit Postage to purchase postage and print out shipping labels and then we held a small packing party at the office to get everything packaged.

Using BackerKit to handle the survey and fulfillment process was a great exercise for the team and gave us insights into how we could use our software outside of the crowdfunding space.

If you have a problem that you think you can solve using our software, please contact us to see if we can create a solution for you. Our main focus is on crowdfunding fulfillment but we’re always interested in exploring new applications for our software!

The post Alternative Uses for BackerKit appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Keep Your Project On Schedule

Campaign management services can be divided into two categories: “front-end” services that backers interact with such as the backer survey and the “back-end” tools that the creators use to manage backer data and the overall fulfillment process.

After the project campaign ends, backers have a limited view of what actually goes on during the fulfillment process. They’ll read a few project updates, answer surveys, and then packages magically appear on doorsteps a few weeks (or months) later.

Backers never see what goes on behind the scenes unless the creator shares stories about the fulfillment process through project updates. You can be all sunshine and rainbows in your backer communications up front while your fulfillment operation in the back is actually a hodgepodge of spreadsheets and broken dreams.

Here at BackerKit we want to make sure that all of our creators know exactly what to do to keep their projects on schedule and have the means to do so. That’s why we built an entire suite of back-end tools to help creators manage backers and get them to shipped status.

Backer Dashboard

The Backer Dashboard gives you an overview of where all your backers are in the entire process.

We accomplish this by using backer status levels such as “Survey Not Answered” or “Ready to Ship.” You’ll be able to see the progress of all of your backers and have the ability to drill down at each status level to see available actions and information on what needs to be done to move each backer group forward to the next status level.

For example, if you view all backers that haven’t answered their surveys yet, you will have the option to send survey reminders to the entire group. For backers that have answered surveys, you can lock down their responses to freeze item counts for manufacturing, charge credit cards to collect payment for add-ons and upgrades, and finalize shipping addresses to mark backers as “Ready to Ship.” You can perform all of these actions on entire status groups to save time.

Once backers are ready to ship, you can use our export tools to pass the data to your shipping fulfillment partner or print out the packing slips if you’re doing the shipping yourself. You can even use BackerKit to purchase USPS postage and batch print shipping labels. You can batch upload tracking numbers with a CSV file or import them directly from your fulfillment partner and we’ll send out shipment notifications automatically.

Backer Profile

Every project has a profile page for each backer where you can view and edit the backer’s order information and perform actions to move the backer up or down a status level. For example, if a backer is in “Locked Down” status, you can move them forward by finalizing the shipping address or move them back a step by unlocking the order.

Over two million backers have gone through our system and we’ve seen every kind of support request imaginable. We’ve built everything you need to provide excellent customer service for your backers.

Project administrators can edit personal information such as the backer’s name, shipping address, and email address. Admins can also edit the order contents, pledge levels, add-on items, and add complimentary credit or refund orders made in BackerKit. You can save notes on each backer account and view backer changelog histories to get up to speed on each backer quickly.

Backer Search

Creators can use the backer search function to find backers easily. It sounds like a simple feature but project creators didn’t have the ability to search through their backer list when Kickstarter originally launched.

Backer search is the very first feature we built for BackerKit and we’ve continued that strategy of filling in the post-campaign fulfillment service gaps ever since we published that first tool. BackerKit has grown to the point where it really has become the missing back-end for your crowdfunding campaign.

Contact us if you’re worried about the fulfillment process, or sign up now if you’re ready to take control of your project!

The post The Back-End for Your Campaign appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.

Sending surveys is easy. The hard part is collecting information, getting backers to respond, making sure that everything is accurate, organizing it into useful formats, and keeping it all up to date.

Surveying is like jumping out of a plane: “It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing.”

Here are some considerations to keep in mind when deciding on your backer survey strategy.

Is Collecting Information Easy?

Kickstarter creators can use Google Forms or the Kickstarter survey to gather backer information. Indiegogo project creators are in a tougher position because the Kickstarter survey isn’t an option for them. It’s either cobble together a free solution or work with a company like BackerKit. As we mentioned earlier, sending out surveys is easy. Collecting the data is where it starts to get difficult.

The main drawback with free surveys is that responses aren’t malleable after they’re submitted. If backers want to change answers, you’ll need to record each change separately and merge it with their original responses on your own. You also don’t have an easy way to recover if your survey has a mistake. You’ll need to fix the error, cajole backers into answering another survey and then deal with the headache of combining two sets of responses. This means that you’ll be buried in spreadsheets.

With BackerKit, each backer gets their own individual survey and we store every single response. If you make a mistake on your survey, you can correct it mid-flight and backers will be able to return to their surveys to update their answers. Your data will update automatically.

How Do I track Survey Responses?

All of the services can send an email to each backer but this doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get a response from each backer. If you use a free survey tool you’ll need to maintain a spreadsheet to keep track of who has responded and who hasn’t so you’ll know which backers you need to track down. You can imagine how tedious this chore becomes once you have several hundred, nevermind, several thousand backers.

Backers will also do things like submit multiple form responses “just to be safe” or as an attempt to update their previous responses. Guess who gets to dive back into the spreadsheet each time a backer submits a response? The Kickstarter survey is better because only backers can submit a single response and it’s limited to backers only. It’s a little harder to keep a public survey secure, so you might have to weed out bad responses if you’re using a free form.

For the free forms, you’ll also need to ask backers to provide identifying information like email addresses just so you can match them up with your backer list. You can’t count on backers to enter in the same email address as their Kickstarter or Indiegogo address, so you’ll have to sleuth around and compare names and pledge reward answers to figure out who they are on your backer list.

BackerKit provides a backer management system that lets you track the status of every backer. You can see how backers are moving through the system from your dashboard and you can drill down by backer status to see all backers within each level, if you want to see all of the backers who haven’t answered surveys for example.

We also provide tools like auto-reminders to send out follow-up emails to backers to get them to answer their surveys and shipping address validation to make sure that packages reach the correct destination.

How Can I Organize the Data?

The whole purpose behind surveying backers is to figure out how many items you need to manufacture and to assemble order shipment information for each backer.

If you use free tools, such as Google Forms or the Kickstarter Backer Report, you could export survey responses as a CSV spreadsheet. But you’ll likely need to parse the responses to clean the spreadsheet data and tally the final item counts for your manufacturing orders. Then you’ll need to spend time copying and pasting the data to get each backer order suitable for shipping fulfillment.

BackerKit provides filtering and data export tools that will let you format your data in multiple ways to meet just about any need. You will have all of your data in one place and you’ll be able to shape it and export it with a few clicks.

How Do I Keep Information Up-to-Date?

Backers change addresses, they change their minds about reward selections, they want to update their payment information, and they’ll all contact you when they want to make those changes.

You’ll need to track backer updates after survey responses have been submitted. Keep those spreadsheets ready and budget time each day to handle those upkeep chores. As you get closer to manufacturing and shipping, you may need to update item counts and verify shipping addresses for individual backer orders too.

With BackerKit, Backers are able to edit answers any time before you lock down surveys. They’ll be able to perform those tasks on their own, saving you time. You can also attach items to each answer to make item counts instantaneous in BackerKit. If a backer changes a reward selection, your item counts will automatically change along with it.

Choose Your Landing

Simple surveys and spreadsheets have their place. You’ll reach the limits of what one person can handle with a free survey tool and spreadsheets at around 200 backers. Once you pass that point you either have to throw more labor at the problem or go with a campaign fulfillment software solution like BackerKit.

Check out our Survey features to find out more about our surveys and try out a demo.

The post Re-thinking Survey Tools appeared first on Crowdfunding Blog & Resources | BackerKit.