162: Product Pre Launch Strategies For Crowdfunding Success

162: Product Pre-Launch Strategies For Crowdfunding Success

February 9, 2023

With Will Ford, President of LaunchBoom

Hosted by Kevin Mako, President of MAKO Design + Invent

162: Product Pre-Launch Strategies For Crowdfunding Success
162: Product Pre-Launch Strategies For Crowdfunding Success

During the upcoming Crowdfunded Summit, a virtual event focused on the world of crowdfunding, Will Ford, the Co-Founder of LaunchBoom, the world’s largest crowdfunding platform, will be the host. I am also honored to be a keynote speaker at this event, which is set to take place in May 2023. For a limited time, Will is generously offering free tickets to listeners of this podcast. During this session, Will is going to share valuable insights on how entrepreneurs, startups, and small-scale manufacturers can use small-scale marketing and sales strategies to assess the feasibility of a crowdfunding campaign. He will also offer his expertise on other helpful tips and tricks for a successful launch, as well as how crowdfunding has evolved over the years.

Today you will hear us talk about:

  • Secure funding for your crowdfunding project from day one by engaging with potential backers.
  • Develop a prototype and validate its potential by seeking feedback from real users. Use the funds raised through crowdfunding to manufacture the product.
  • Pre-launch planning is a critical step for any successful crowdfunding campaign.
  • Consider offering exclusive benefits to early supporters before launching on popular crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
  • Garner early support by encouraging people to make a deposit, even if it’s just one dollar. Statistically, those who make a deposit are 30 times more likely to become paying customers on the first day of your crowdfunding campaign.
  • Set a realistic and achievable campaign goal to reach your target quickly.
  • Crowdfunding can be a cost-effective alternative to hiring crowdfunding agencies.
  • Crowdfunding can serve as a starting point for entrepreneurs looking to expand their product business post-launch.
  • The popularity of crowdfunding continues to grow as a means of funding innovative projects.
  • Leverage the LaunchBoom community to gain valuable insights from your crowdfunding campaign.
  • Key factors to consider in planning a crowdfunding campaign include messaging, positioning, and pricing.
  • Use lead funnels and reservation funnels to attract potential backers and build interest in your product.
  • Optimize your advertising messaging and lead offers through A/B split testing.
  • Use data analysis to evaluate and improve your offer options throughout the campaign.
  • Analyze and track which offers to convert best in your crowdfunding campaign to inform future strategies.
  • Ensure that you offer a high-quality product, as consumers are well-informed and cannot be easily misled.
  • Consider offering a discounted price to your backers during the crowdfunding campaign compared to the retail price of your product.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

  • 1:55 – A crowdfunding campaign pre-launch community build
  • 2:15 – Get the LaunchBoom effect, having the entire campaign funded within the first day, and when that happens, you get top ranked on Kickstarter or Indiegogo
  • 2:45 – Funding on the first day is a big key to getting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of backers, or even millions of dollars of backing.
  • 2:55 – You can take a good prototype, pre-sell it, then use that money to figure out manufacturing and delivery.
  • 3:30 – Kickstarter and Indiegogo is the best way to validate new hardware product ideas much faster and with much less financial risk.
  • 4:00 – LaunchBoom was started in the early days of crowdfunding in order to support the hardware entrepreneur with launching successfully on crowdfunding platforms.
  • 5:00 – Pre-launch planning and execution is the most important success factor for achieving a big money crowdfunding campaign.
  • 6:30 – Originally, pre-launch was done through advertising to potential customers and getting them to sign up to an email list.
  • 7:05 – Better was to get people to actually put a small amount of money down for a reservation, even just a dollar.
  • 7:15 – The reservation should get an even better deal than when released on crowdfunding
  •  7:40 – People who pay a small amount in a deposit are 30 times more likely to place an order than those who just sign up for an email notification.
  • 8:00 – About 33% of those who place a dollar reservation will sign up, so you can actually predict how successful your launch day will be using crowdfunding data.
  • 8:20 – Even if you want to raise a million dollars on crowdfunding via Kickstarter or Indiegogo, you should still set a much lower campaign target so that you can hit it on the first day, and thus trigger the organic algorithms of those crowdfunding platforms to promote you.
  • 12:00 – The agency model worked well for many years, then LaunchBoom made a major pivot to being a consulting/coaching platform in order to reduce the cost for entrepreneurs to launch on crowdfunding platforms.
  • 14:55 – Crowdfunding is the tip of the iceberg to the success a hardware startup can have.  Leverage your crowdfunding campaign to then grow and scale your sales exponentially from there.
  • 15:00 – After a crowdfunding campaign launch, all hardware startups then get the desire to scale up from there.
  • 15:30 – Will had never made such a drastic pivot in his professional career, it was scary.
  • 15:58 – Crowdfunding is still stronger than ever.
  • 16:55 – One of the biggest bottlenecks for a hardware startup is getting to market, and crowdfunding the right way changes everything for them in helping more startups succeed as a business.
  • 17:40 – First and foremost, you need to design and make a great product.
  • 19:00 – Tools for lead funnel and reservation funnels
  • 20:35 – A/B Split testing for crowdfunding campaign ads.  Whatever works out the best in the pre-campaign is the offer you put forward for the Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign.
  • 22:40 – You can’t fool consumers these days, consumers are smart.
  • 22:50 – High price points on good products sometime even convert more customers.
  • 25:00 – Kevin Mako speaking at the 2023 Crowdfunded Summit and free tickets for listeners to the show, for a limited time.

EPISODE LINKS

Will Ford Links:
LinkedIn | Website | CrowdFunded Summit

The Product Startup Podcast Links:
https://www.ProductStartup.com/
Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | YouTube

PTC Links:
https://www.ptc.com/
OnShape | Creo

Mako Design Links:
https://www.makodesign.com/
YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

Kevin Mako Links:
Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Partner: PTC’s best-in-class software solutions Onshape: The only cloud-native product development platform that delivers full-featured computer-aided design (CAD), integrated product data management (PDM) and enterprise analytics in a single system, and Creo: 3D CAD solution that provides designers with the most innovative tools to build better products faster, such as generative design, additive manufacturing, real-time simulation, IIoT, and augmented reality.