Kickstarter to Make the Teaser First?

kjones

kjones

Greetings, All-

My partner and I want to raise funds to make a teaser, then use the completed teaser to hopefully attract funding and make the feature film (on kickstarter or indiegogo). It's a period piece, and our initial budget deems the feature too expensive for kickstarter and our own bank accounts. Backers would all get perks, etc. for their contribution to the teaser. High dollar backers would get something if the feature gets funded and made.

Do you think it has any chance of success as a kickstarter-type campaign? I don't mean in terms of the teaser quality, but regarding the actual fundraising for a marketing teaser. Kickstarter doesn't allow multi-level marketing, but we would still be completing a film project if funded (the teaser).

Hope this made sense, thanks for any thoughts or sharing your experience-
 
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kjones said:
Thanks for running those numbers. Wouldn't doubt you're right, but "1% of the people you reach" is a sobering statistic-- is that based on some stats somewhere or considered marketing "common knowledge?"

Good points, appreciate it.
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Think of a time you've made a really 'popular' status on Facebook. Something really awesome maybe a relationship change, maybe you won something. How many likes did it get? 30 might seem like a bit, but when you have 300+ friends that's not that high. On top of that, even less people will be willing to donate money. I've recently been part if a project where the producer thought it worth it to make an indiegogo. Despite 5 involved in the project posting on Facebook and twitter, we've raised less than $200, and I don't believe any of my friends have donated, really only friends of the producer because he messaged many of his friends or something....
 
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kjones said:
Thanks for running those numbers. Wouldn't doubt you're right, but "1% of the people you reach" is a sobering statistic-- is that based on some stats somewhere or considered marketing "common knowledge?"
Click to expand...

That comes primarily from the direct marketing (both email and traditional mail) and online advertising worlds where a 3% conversion rate is considered very good for an ad campaign. 1% is probably more typical on average. Now, that's not to say that you couldn't get a 10% conversion rate for a kickstarter campaign - but to do so is going to require that the people you are reaching out to have a pretty significant prior knowledge of you & your work, or some other kind of significant relationship or tie to you. That's why so many campaigns do end up being funded primarily by family & friends (real world, not just fb) - those are the people who have that kind of prior relationship to your work. It gets very hard, very fast to establish & maintain relationships like that with a large number of people, so the alternative is to grow a significantly larger base of weak relationships such that the 1% response is sufficient.

And personally, having been involved in a successful $23k kickstarter, I'd say 1% may be optimistic. We had about 350 donors, averaging ~ $65 each. But getting there was tough, even with three regionally popular comedians involved with a combined 20,000+ twitter & fb followers, who made appearances on several podcasts & radio shows, promoted it at their shows, and even got several nationally famous comedians to promote it with short videos & tweets. I wouldn't be surprised if we hit 100,000 people just to get to 350 donors - and that's with a well-established fan base. It's entirely possible that without that getting a 1% response rate might be totally unrealistic.
 
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ItDonnedOnMe said:
That comes primarily from the direct marketing (both email and traditional mail) and online advertising worlds where a 3% conversion rate is considered very good for an ad campaign. 1% is probably more typical on average. Now, that's not to say that you couldn't get a 10% conversion rate for a kickstarter campaign - but to do so is going to require that the people you are reaching out to have a pretty significant prior knowledge of you & your work, or some other kind of significant relationship or tie to you. That's why so many campaigns do end up being funded primarily by family & friends (real world, not just fb) - those are the people who have that kind of prior relationship to your work. It gets very hard, very fast to establish & maintain relationships like that with a large number of people, so the alternative is to grow a significantly larger base of weak relationships such that the 1% response is sufficient.

And personally, having been involved in a successful $23k kickstarter, I'd say 1% may be optimistic. We had about 350 donors, averaging ~ $65 each. But getting there was tough, even with three regionally popular comedians involved with a combined 20,000+ twitter & fb followers, who made appearances on several podcasts & radio shows, promoted it at their shows, and even got several nationally famous comedians to promote it with short videos & tweets. I wouldn't be surprised if we hit 100,000 people just to get to 350 donors - and that's with a well-established fan base. It's entirely possible that without that getting a 1% response rate might be totally unrealistic.
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Thanks a ton for your analysis and numbers. Between your and other IT member reasoning, my partner and I have a much, much better understanding of what entails a social media campaign on kickstarter or indiegogo-- certainly on our idea of funding this project.
 
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