Kickstarter: My Experience and Thoughts on a Failed Campaign

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Kickstarter: My Experience and Thoughts on a Failed Campaign

By: Keith Anthony Baird

Everyone starts off as a crowdfunding virgin. I had a vision for it, high hopes in fact, but also a very pragmatic approach (for me, that’s come with age).

I didn’t think for one minute it was going to shake the world but I did believe it had a chance of success. Boy, was I wrong!  To go into all the specifics in this short article would be difficult, so I’m going to narrow it down to a certain set of fundamentals I believe were at the heart of its failure.

Number one: In a nutshell – ME. I’ve amassed only a small following via social media. The reasons? I’m a solitary person. Kind of an essential ingredient to being an author. Also, another reason for that is my dislike of social media. That’s not to say it’s all bad. I have seen it bring out the best in people, like when my sister died this year and the outpouring of sympathy I received on Twitter/X from complete strangers was truly humbling (thousands in a mere twenty-four hours). But, in the main, most of what I see is people being destroyed for having different opinions. Hilarity at others’ misfortunes, and so on. Hence, I tend to avoid it mostly, generally only posting when I have an update re: my writing to put on there. So, the upshot of that is I got zero engagement. So therefore no potential backers.

Number two: Underestimating the amount of pre-campaign promotion needed. I thought a couple of weeks would be enough to generate interest and not, crucially, bombard people with continual updates and teasers. Wrong. Apparently, after speaking to someone well versed in campaign creation and promotion, five weeks is a more realistic window of time to start drumming up interest. Press releases. Email lists. Primetime social media bursts of info, and boots on the ground marketing efforts.

Number three: Tailoring the campaign and its reward tiers correctly. I didn’t. Certain aspects of the rewards I decided to offer to backers were a difficult reality. For instance, the chance to appear as an extra in the documentary was only really available to anyone living in the United Kingdom. I tried to compensate for that with a caveat, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to lure backers from other countries. Also, I incorporated book bundles from my publisher based in the USA that involved extra expense through international postage and America’s complex sales tax system.

Number four: I believed the efforts of those involved in the campaign with me would be of benefit in getting the word out about the project. They too, unfortunately, received little engagement. I misjudged that to my detriment. Their social profiles are bigger than mine and I assumed that in itself would help build interest. It’s been a learning curve for sure. Assuming anything in this type of endeavour is very dangerous and I paid the price for that.

Number five: Not arming myself with enough knowledge about crowdfunding in the first place. I didn’t speak to enough seasoned campaigners before setting up and launching my project. I’d thought about morning, noon, and night for about a month, and drafted it after I ‘thought’ I’d covered every angle. I hadn’t, and had I sought guidance there might well have been a very different outcome.

To sum up, unless you’re some kind of marketing guru don’t go solo. Get ALL the advice you can before you launch your crowdfunding project. By failing, I’ve actually learnt a lot, though I wouldn’t recommend that route! Don’t do what I did. Don’t think you can carry it all on your own. Use the wisdom of others to your benefit and hopefully you won’t end up like I did, with a failed campaign on your hands. Good luck!

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