How To Kickstarter Pt. 3

Content is key. Yes the video is important, and the prizes are too, but what you put on your Kickstarter in both the original page content and in your updates is potentially the most important. Not everyone is going to watch your video, but they might skim the page. Not everything you put on the page is going to be read but people might look over your project updates. The content you put up has to showcase your project and the reasons why other people should get excited and get on board!

With our Kickstarter we began with something catchy:

Whit Clayborne accidentally dates a soul eater and unwittingly falls for a vampire - and it's only his first week demon hunting...

This single sentence tells you about the project and hopefully draws you in with interest. Saying something like "I wrote a book and you might like it." won't get you very many backers. Think of something eye catching, something different, what makes your project unique and interesting? 

Since we are promoting a novel, we used our content to explore a couple of different things.

We discussed the book in a section called “book summary.” While we didn’t describe the book in its entirety, we did try to list things that would interest potential backers.

We also talked about “us” (my co-author and I) because people want to connect with the individuals who made the product. The video can be used to do this as well, but we explored our background and our interest a little further in the written content.

We discussed the prizes and shared some graphics related to this topic. 

We also shared our stretch goals (if you make more than your initial goal amount what else will you be doing with backer’s funds?) and I tried to make these related to what we are doing but also interesting so people would be excited about reaching them.

Lastly, I shared where people could keep in touch with us and our future projects. Your connection with potential backers doesn’t end with Kickstarter. Let people connect with you across the Web and maybe they’ll buy future books/CDs/artwork – whatever you’re working on.

My first update was a video, my second was a link to the first chapter of the book, and my third were the cute bitstip comics I shared in a previous post on here. These were all employed to hopefully get new people interested in the project and to keep backers interested in what’s to come. 

Don’t use updates to tell people what you had for breakfast. These shouldn’t be a nuisance and should only be used to thank backers and to get backers excited. By making updates open to the public you can potentially hook new people but if you have content you only want your backers to see then make sure the update is not public. 

Ultimately, keep your content appealing both with the text you use and the variety of media available to you to promote your project.

Want to see our content in action? Check out our Kickstarter at:
 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2121709675/the-beginning-of-whit-a-laugh-out-loud-urban-fanta