I’m going to get into the weeds in this one, y’all. Kickstarter has given us some new information on our campaigns about “project followers” and if they ultimately decide to back a project or not. I’ve seen a LOT of people pointing to these newly available statistics and drawing sweeping conclusions from them. I think some of those conclusions are likely fair to make, but it’s important to note that the data is incomplete, so you may not need to throw your entire crowdfunding playbook out the window.
Before I dive in, allow me a moment to sell you some sweet, sweet comics.
For reasons that will become clear in the data deep dive below, this worries me! If you’re planning to back and just haven’t gotten around to it, we’ve only got a little over a week left and I’d sure like to go into the final push with a few more backers already on board. CHECK OUT THE CAMPAIGN HERE.
If you were a backer for issue 4, know that those books arrive at my place in the next 2-3 days, and I’ll start shipping them this week. If you’re going to buy issue 5 as well, send me a note and I’ll hold onto your issue 4 package and add your order from issue 5. Trying to save you a few bucks wherever I can!
Kickstarter always showed us how many total followers there were, and how many converted. I was told by more experienced creators that hitting north of 30% overall was pretty good. These new stats, available on your Dashboard (even on much older campaigns), may render that wisdom obsolete.
What Kickstarter has done is to separate your project followers into two groups. The first is “Pre-Launch Followers” who clicked “follow” before you launched your campaign, and “Post-Launch Followers” who visited your campaign, chose not to pledge in the moment, but asked to be reminded by Kickstarter before the campaign ends. The data also tells you how many of each type eventually pledged, and breaks down the percentages.
So which group is more likely to pledge?
Here is a snapshot from the current campaign, Scott Snyder Presents: The CloakRoom #5:
It appears that the answer, by a HUGE margin, is that pre-launch followers are more likely to pledge. But this is far from the whole picture… These stats represent about half of the total backer count so far. We have 120 as I write this. This means that almost 60 people showed up on the campaign page and pledged to support it WITHOUT clicking to “follow” the campaign.
Here’s a snapshot of the numbers from Issue 2 of the CloakRoom, which wrapped up this time last year. It had 198 total backers:
We launched this campaign with almost 25% more followers already on board. You can see a similar, though much narrower, gap. Also 120 people showed up and pledged without following.
Here are two more for good measure. This one is for Billy The Kit #6 with 204 total backers, and with a much smaller disparity between pre and post launch follower support rate:
And here’s for my own project, Cicada Samurai #0 which ended with 192 total backers, 121 of whom never followed the project:
You’re tempted to say “OK so the lesson is get a many pre-launch followers as possible before you launch.” I’m not sure it’s that simple though. So before you start spending money running costly ads on Reddit, Facebook, or Shitter (formerly X), let me ask you - who are your pre-launch followers?
I’m guessing that you, like me, set up your pre-launch pages and then send out a blast to people on your Substack or other email list. I bet you hit up previous backers, write updates on previous campaign pages, send messages through BackerKit and/or Kickstarter to anyone who has supported you in the past, and you ask them to follow the pre-launch page. In other words, these are your already-engaged fans/audience.
And who are your post-launch followers? Some are probably stragglers from your pre-launch efforts, but many find your campaign through Kickstarter’s own algorithms, or they clicked an ad you ran somewhere, or they found you through another creator’s newsletter recommendation. In other words, these are your less engaged people.
So… is the lesson here that we need to pump up our pre-launch numbers as much as possible? Or that we need to keep engaging with our core fans and supporters and keep them engaged?
I think it’s two fold…
I think we need to make something someone wants to buy when they see it first and foremost. Again - MOST of the backers from all of the above campaigns NEVER HIT FOLLOW and are not counted in those numbers. They saw what I was selling, and they bought in.
Your past backers and supporters are important for future success in crowdfunding. Make something they can sink their fan teeth into, and they’ll come back.
I do think it’s important to have a good number of followers before you hit launch. I still think that a good launch is one of the most important elements to a successful campaign. Hitting your funding goal shows potential backers that there’s something here that is popular with others and maybe they should try it out.
Take new information in and digest it. Pivot when you need to, but don’t throw out your successful past strategies because your existing fanbase has been rebranded as “pre-launch followers.”
What do you think? Am I nuts?
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