In this episode, I do a crosscast with Richard Bliss from the Funding the Dream on Kickstarter Podcast. The episode will go out on both feeds and if you haven’t checked out his podcast, you really should.

We talk about what it takes to lose your Patreon followers, how to get them back and a whole lot more.

The post 028 Patreon vs Kickstarter (a Crosscast with Funding the Dream) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Announcement: The Creative Funding Show will be going on indefinite hiatus soon. If you have a question you want me to address in a wrap up Q&A episode feel free to leave it as a comment below.

In this episode, Jamie Jenson from the Creatives Making Money Podcast interviews me about crowdfunding. You can find her version of this episode here.

The post 027 Crowdfunding for Creatives with Jamie Jensen appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Tom Boruta (Baruta) is a Software Engineer who created Graphtreon because he wanted to follow the progress of Patreon creators.

Questions:

• For our listeners who did not listen to episode 4, what is Graphtreon?
• Why are analytics so important?
• What is new about the new system?

Links:

• Graphtreon

The post 026 How to Get Advanced Patreon Analytics with Graphtreon appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Michelle Kopper has helped thousands of creatives, small business owners and entrepreneurs embrace self-promotion and selling as serving. Michelle’s combines her journey overcoming crippling stage fright, with her performance background and her ability to intuit aligned marketing language to help clients share their transformational message with full confidence.

Questions:

• Why is fear such a challenge for so many creatives?
• Has fear kept you back as a creative?
• How did you overcome it?
• What advice do you have for creators when it comes to fear of criticism?
• Let’s talk about haters and trolls. What is a troll and how should creators handle them.

Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers.

About Michelle:

• Website: www.michellekopper.com

The post 025 Finding Your Courage and How to Handle Haters appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Stress and busy work are the biggest enemies of creative people. And today we have someone on the show to help solve that.

Kim Sutton is the host of the Positive Productivity podcast, runs a team of 10 people and has 5 kids. So you can say she knows a thing or two about productivity.

(Twitter handle, special requirements, etc.):

• https://twitter.com/thekimsutton?lang=en
• https://www.instagram.com/thekimsutton/?hl=en
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlyannesutton/
• https://www.facebook.com/kimberly.anne.buckley

Question:

• Let’s talk about Working with VA’s
  • What is a virtual assistant?
  • What are some tasks that VA’s can take off creator’s hands.
  • Where can creators find good VAs?
    • Upwork
    • Virtual Assistant Jobs on Facebook
  • Tips for working with a VA’s
  • Mistakes creators make when working VA’s.

Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers.

The post 024 How to Reduce Stress & Increase Creativity with Kim Sutton appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Your time, energy, and money are valuable, but many people struggle to assign a dollar amount to each. Creators running crowdfunding campaigns often need help deciding what to offer backers and how to price each reward level. 

Janene Liston helps her clients build value and know what and how to charge their customers confidently. She reminds her clients that having a profit mindset in their businesses makes them smart, not greedy.

Janene is a Certified Pricing Professional, experienced in value creation, and a European Public Speaking Champion. She believes each person possesses the wisdom they need to thrive in life, but sometimes they need help tapping into it. This belief led her to “pack up” her pricing experience to step out of the corporate world and into the entrepreneurial world.

When I interviewed Janene, I asked her about pricing crowdfunding campaigns. 

Why is pricing products and services so difficult?

Thomas Umstattd, Jr.: For many creatives, pricing their products and services is the hardest part of launching a Kickstarter campaign or Patreon page. Why is choosing a price so hard?

Janene Liston: First, it’s difficult because people fear rejection. For some reason, we attach that rejection to our personal value and worthiness, which brings up baggage from our growing up years. It can be very uncomfortable.

Second, most people simply don’t know how to choose a price. They believe there is a specific method to follow, but they don’t know what it is. If they do choose a price, they often feel uncertain about whether they’ve chosen correctly. 

Thomas: It’s particularly difficult for people who are offering a service. For example, a photographer who’s been taking photos for free will find it difficult to start charging. When they do set up a fee schedule, they often charge too little. 

It’s hard to know what your time is worth, especially for people who struggle with their self-worth. Choosing a price point is more psychologically challenging than choosing a logo or writing copy for the page. 

How do you know if you’ve priced yourself too low?

Thomas: Whether you’re running a business or creating art, people often price themselves too low when they’re starting out. What are some signals that you’re not charging enough?

Janene: It is a common problem, and there are several signs that you need to adjust.

Customers Tell You

If your customers tell you, “You should be charging more,” please heed their advice. Your customers know the value of what you’re offering. 

Thomas: Sometimes they’ll use different wording and say, “Wow. This is a great deal!” If people always talk about your product’s price as a “deal” or “steal,” you may be priced too low

Spinning Your Wheels

Janene: If you feel like you’re working hard but making little progress, you probably need to charge more. For example, if you have loads of customers but you’re having trouble meeting your financial goals or needs, you’ve probably priced yourself too low, particularly for service-based businesses.

For product-based businesses, if you’re delivering more value than your competitors but are still priced lower, you’re not operating with a healthy or profitable pricing strategy.

Thomas: You might think you could put your competitor out of business with that strategy, but you’re more likely to put yourself out of business because you run out of cash.

When I launched my first Patreon page, we had $2.00, $5.00, and $8.00 levels. The first 15 people to back the campaign chose the $8.00 level, which told us that we priced that level too low. It was supposed to be the luxury level that only a handful of people would want. It was a limited level, and it sold out. 

We ended up hiding that level on our page so that new backers couldn’t buy that level for that price. Then we copied the level and raised the price to $20.00. That way, the people who backed at $8.00 still got the benefits for that price, but new backers at that level would pay $20. 

It was a hard lesson learned, and we left a lot of money on the table by pricing it that low. We just didn’t value what we’d included in that $8.00 level. 

Price Point Positioning

Janene: How we position prices next to each other on a page says something. 

There was a famous example of a newspaper that started offering online publication. During that transition, the paper priced the print subscription at $80, the online-only version at $125, and the print and online versions combined at $125. Their pricing strategy was to push people to buy the combined subscription.

If they had priced the combined subscription higher than the online-only, people would have gravitated to the cheaper online-only version.

Thomas: One of the advantages of having multiple price points is that you create a market. You can influence which package people choose. 

Some people have a worldview that dictates they only always buy the cheapest option, while others only buy the most expensive. But most people are looking for the option that provides the biggest bang for their buck. 

Make your most profitable level the most attractive level. Patreon backers don’t support people just because they want the rewards. They back campaigns because they want to support creators. Some folks forego the rewards and simply donate to support the creator.

What is price anchoring?

Thomas: What is anchoring, and why is it important for pricing?

Janene: My perception of a price is influenced by many things. I might think about how much money I have in my wallet, but the value of the product or service is influenced by what’s around it. You can use price anchoring to steer your customers’ behavior, as did the newspaper I mentioned. 

You can also use anchoring to help lessen the blow of a higher-cost product or service. One way to anchor a price is to use the copy preceding the price tag to mention statistics that use bigger numbers than your price. For example, if you mention that products like yours typically cost thousands of dollars, your $250 product doesn’t seem so expensive. 

The benefits of anchoring generally happen at a subconscious level. Studies show that these fine-tuning tactics are effective. 

Thomas: Once you understand anchoring, you’ll see it everywhere. You’ve probably noticed that Amazon places the original price with a line through it right next to the sale price. Even Apple uses anchoring techniques. In Steve Jobs’s original iPhone presentation, he billed the iPhone as three devices in one: an iPod, a phone, and an internet communication device. Each device would cost $500. But instead of selling the iPhone for $1500, they priced it at $600.

If price anchoring works for a company as sophisticated as Apple, it can work for you.

It can sound cheesy if you don’t do it right. For example, if you ever hear yourself saying, “But wait! There’s more!” you’ve probably fallen into the trap of cheeseball land.

Janene: Anchoring can be used in a sleazy or eloquent way. Whatever you’re selling, you need to talk about it in a way that aligns with your values. 

What are some signals that your price is too high?

Thomas: How do you know if you’ve priced your products or services too high?

Janene: If what you’re delivering doesn’t bring the value you promised, you may be out-pricing yourself. Many people out-price themselves when they make a product that feels exciting to create rather than making what their customers want or need. 

Thomas: Value is subjective. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. 

The iPhone came out when I was in college. I couldn’t afford one, but I knew what they could do, and I knew the value. I knew people who had purchased an iPhone but were only using it as a phone and a camera. It was more valuable to me because I knew what the iPhone was capable of. The value to me was high, but as a college student, I couldn’t afford a $600 phone.

The higher your price, the more people you exclude. Sometimes exclusionary pricing is intentional. Consider a country club. People pay substantial club fees so they can exclude people who can’t afford it. People want to feel like they’re in the exclusive in-crowd, and pricing is one way to give that feeling. 

You can offer that exclusive feeling on your Patreon page by limiting your rewards or giving them only to your most passionate fans. Reward their passion rather than their money 

Janene: When you’re selling something, you often get requests for discounts. I teach people not to offer discounts but to offer bonuses instead. Instead of adjusting prices, you can include new and innovative rewards in your packages.

Thomas: On Patreon, changing the price point on your reward levels is hard, and it creates a lot of friction. People tend to cancel if they have to pay more than they used to. Kickstarter doesn’t allow you to change your price points. But on Patreon and Kickstarter, you can change what backers receive. 

On Kickstarter, you can offer stretch goals. For instance, you might say, “I need $10,000 to produce the album, but if we raise $15,000, I’ll add two new songs.”

That’s one way of enhancing the benefits of that reward level. The backers don’t pay more, but they may get two more songs. To help you meet your stretch goal, your backers will spread the word and tell their friends to hurry up and back your campaign so they can all get more music. 

Stretch goals are built into Patreon’s platform. They’re simply called “goals,” but once you get 1,000 backers or raise $1,000, a new benefit for everyone is unlocked. You have a lot of room to experiment with what you offer in your package.

Janene: Another strategy is to use a reverse auction. Instead of buyers outbidding each other to pay the highest price, sellers try to underbid each other, and buyers get the lowest price available. 

Thomas: It’s similar to a reverse coupon, which has worked well for selling our courses. You begin by offering your product at a low price and encouraging buyers to get it while the price is low because the price will increase in the future. 

We underpriced our first course by a long shot. Instead of raising the price randomly, we occasionally let people know that the price will increase in two months so they can purchase before then and get the best deal. It functions like a coupon in that it has urgency and anchoring, but we’re not actually lowering the price. Instead, we’re anchoring it to the future higher price.

It’s a good strategy for raising prices, and it prevents people from being disgruntled about the higher price. You give them plenty of notice about the price increase so that it’s not a shock. 

Pricing Strategies for Patreon and Kickstarter

Thomas: What tips do you have for someone setting prices for their rewards on a new Patreon page?

Steer Behavior with Price Points

Janene: Remember that you can steer people’s behavior by offering multiple price points. 

You don’t have to price your packages with equal dollar amounts between them. If you want to steer people toward your bottom levels, price the bottom and middle packages closer together and price the highest level farther away from those dollar amounts. 

Know Your Financial Goals

Do the math and determine how many backers you’ll need at each level to reach your financial goals. A simple spreadsheet can help you find those numbers. Maybe you need 20 backers at the $5.00 level and 50 at the $2.00 level. Use those numbers to guide you when you’re targeting people. 

Value Sells

Selling is still about value. People have to understand the value behind something before they will buy it. Patreon appeals to people from an altruistic perspective, and yet, there’s a value component where people get excited about what’s offered in the packages. However, as the seller, you must communicate that value. 

Thomas: In business school, we toured restaurants to learn about their fascinating business plans. At restaurants, each menu item has a different level of profitability based on the cost of its ingredients and the time it takes to prepare. While the steak is expensive, the restaurant may not profit much from it because the cost of the meat captures most of the value. 

Restaurants often display photos of their most profitable dishes on the menu to steer patrons toward those. Restaurant patrons are more likely to order the dish that’s pictured. For example, you’ll often see flashy pictures of entrees with potatoes and eggs, which are traditionally cheaper ingredients, because those dishes have a higher profit margin.

With Kickstarter, the two most popular price points, in general, are $25.00 and $40.00. You’ll get the bulk of your backers at those two levels. Make sure those levels are “flashy picture” type dishes, where your cost of materials and preparation is low and your profit margin is high.

If you’re an author, you may be tempted to offer backers a signed copy of your paper book at the $25.00 level. It might sound like a good value, but if 1,000 people back your campaign at that level, you’ll be stuck signing and shipping 1,000 books, which is expensive and time-consuming. If you’re offering signed copies of your books, price that reward at a profitable and doable price point. 

The key is to know what your audience finds valuable. Just because you think an audiobook is valuable doesn’t mean your audience will. 

I was at WordCamp, a WordPress user conference, where a WordPress developer presented all the new features they’d worked so hard on. He received polite applause with each feature he listed, but when he said they’d improved the copy-and-paste feature from Microsoft Word to WordPress, he received a standing ovation. He was dumbfounded because all the other features required teams of people to develop, but the copy-and-paste feature was the simple fix that the users were most excited about. 

When Apple revealed the new Dark Mode feature on iOS10, they received a similar response for a relatively simple change because people really valued it.

Janene: People often appreciate simple things more than big gestures. Keep that in mind as you decide what to offer people. 

Connect with Janene Liston at ThePricingLady.com.

Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to earn an extra $50 for your first 30 backers.

The post 023 Pricing with Janene Liston appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Why do people back crowdfunding campaigns and creators on sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Patreon? What makes them want to support creators they don’t know personally?

Two words: social triggers.

What is a social trigger?

In marketing psychology, a social trigger influences a person’s behavior by indirectly creating a need. For example, if you are compelled to run to the store before their sale ends, you have been influenced by the social trigger of urgency.

In this article, we’ll explore ways to use the social triggers of Urgency, Scarcity, and Popularity to influence people to support your crowdfunding campaign or your Patreon page.

Social Trigger Trifecta: Black Friday

When urgency, scarcity, and popularity work together, we get the Black Friday phenomenon. People stay up all night to be first in line. They elbow each other to grab a limited product, and the frenzied crowd rushing from the same item tells us the product is popular! Everyone wants one, or so it seems.

We may not like the fact that we are so easily influenced on a subconscious level, but we can’t change it. Humans respond to social triggers. The only people who don’t are hyper-rational sociopaths, and they are not in the majority. Marketers must learn to dance with people the way they are, not how we wish they were. 

To motivate people to back your campaign, you must understand what causes people to act and how you can use social triggers to propel them.

Urgency

Why is urgency important? 

Creating a sense of urgency in your campaign is more important than ever. The modern education system trains us to wait until the last minute to act. For example, most people cram for a test the night before rather than the week before. 

We are chronic procrastinators, and we don’t act without a deadline. That’s why Kickstarter and Indiegogo have built urgency into their platforms via the countdown clock. The countdown is a powerful motivator. Every second that ticks away brings users one moment closer to losing their opportunity to get rewards. 

As a creator, you can make a big deal about the deadline. Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing approach is better in this regard. On Kickstarter, if your campaign is not completely funded by the deadline, not one backer is charged, and you will not receive a dime. It creates a greater sense of urgency for you and your potential backers. 

For most people, there has to be “blood in the water.” Consumers must buy on Black Friday, or they’ll miss the sale. 

Urgency doesn’t have to mean a lower price. Apple uses urgency even though they don’t discount their products. Users who want to be the first to own the latest iPhone rush to be first in line on the day it releases. 

Strategies for Creating Urgency

Reverse Coupon

The reverse coupon offers a limited-time, low price that will increase at a certain point in the future. When I launched my course, The Five-Year Plan to Becoming a Bestselling Author, we priced it too low. We occasionally raise the price to remedy the problem, but we make a lot of noise about it before we do. We warn our subscribers, patrons, and listeners that the price will increase on a certain date. The only way to get it for a lower price is to buy it before the increase. The threat of missing out on the lower price provides urgency and causes people to purchase.

Limited-Time Bonuses

When Michael Hyatt launched his book Platform, he offered a bundle of related resources to everyone who bought the book within the first few weeks. His readers wanted to buy right away so they could get the extras he was offering. After the bonus buying window closed, readers could still purchase the book, but the bonuses were no longer available. 

Limited Quantities

People go crazy when they know only a certain number of products are available. Creators tend to want to offer unlimited quantities, so this method of creating urgency can be difficult, but it’s possible. 

Free for a Limited Time

You can offer your product or service for free for a limited time. Services like Kindle Unlimited allow authors to offer their ebooks for $0.00 for up to five days per year. The free offer increases your book’s visibility and drives other paying customers to your book even after the free promotion has ended.

On Patreon, creating urgency is difficult because there is no ticking countdown clock. However, it can still be done. You can offer a limited reward that patrons can receive by a certain deadline you create. For example, you could say, “Patrons who join this month will have their names mentioned in my next video.” Authors might consider saying, “Anyone who becomes a patron by a certain date will have their names listed in the acknowledgments of my book.” Musicians might offer the same perk on an album.

Our patrons get a discount whenever we offer a course at Novel Marketing. If you become a patron before you buy the course, you’ll get the discount.

Ye Ol’ Invisible Sniper Trick

Many of these techniques employ what I call Ye Ol’ Invisible Sniper Trick. The Invisible Sniper Trick came from old spy movies where the hero in control tells the criminal, “There’s a sniper behind that window with his gun trained on you. If you don’t comply, he’ll shoot.” The criminal can’t see the sniper, but the threat is enough to make the criminal comply.

For creators, the tactic is a bit less threatening but still effective. The creator asks their patrons, backers, or subscribers to present their receipts as proof of purchase in order to redeem the bonuses. When Michael Hyatt launched his book Platform, he asked readers to email him their receipts within the first two weeks, and he would automatically email the bonuses in return. Neither Michael nor his team checked the emails for receipts, but the fact that they could have kept people honest. 

Scarcity

Scarcity creates value, and value is determined by supply and demand. To create scarcity, you must control the supply. Scarcity is a challenge with in digital products because they are ubiquitous. YouTube videos may have millions of views, and free ebooks may have millions of downloads. It’s hard to manufacture scarcity, but with a little creativity, it can be done.

Limited Quantities

Author Brandon Sanderson creates a set number of his special collector’s edition leatherbound hardbacks, and he prices them high. His fans have paid hundreds of dollars for a single book because they know that if they don’t get one now, they never will. His superfans are willing to pay a high price because the copies are scarce.

If you sell merch, you can apply the same principle to your online store. You can print 1,000 shirts and let your followers know that when they’re gone, they’re gone.

Limited quantities only work well with physical products since there is no good way to limit digital products. 

Offer Signed Copies

Authors can create scarcity by offering signed copies. Your ebook may be ubiquitous, but your signed print copies can be scarce. By creating scarcity and ubiquity for the same book, you can take advantage of both social triggers at once. You can only sign so many books, so signed copies demand a premium. 

First 100 People 

Offer a variety of bonuses, extras, or bundles to the first 100 people to email you their receipts or the first 100 people who become patrons. This strategy uses scarcity in that the spots are limited to 100. Since it’s a race to get the bonuses before other people beat you to them, urgency is also at work. 

Limited Number of Tickets

Consider limiting the number of tickets to your live launch party. Musicians who give live performances typically prefer to keep their tickets scarce, and scarcity is one reason ticket scalping is such a big business. Even if scalpers buy up tickets to resell, the musician still benefits because scalpers help their shows sell out. 

Limit the Number of Backers for a Reward Level

When you limit your reward levels to a certain number of backers, the rewards of that level seem scarce. After the limited reward level is sold out, some aspect of it is no longer available. At Novel Marketing, our highest patronage level is limited. Each of those patrons is featured on our show on a rotating basis. We limit the level so that we’re not reading patron book blurbs for 20 minutes of each episode.

Limited Early Bird Levels

A limited early-bird level on Kickstarter and Indiegogo is both scarce and urgent. It’s a powerful technique because it combines two social triggers. However, early-bird levels can be a drag on your campaign later on. As people compare current prices to the early-bird price, the current price will feel expensive and may prevent people from supporting your campaign. 

Early-bird pricing can make sense if you’re uncertain your campaign will fund 100%. You can use an early-bird pricing level to quickly get your campaign 60% funded since most campaigns that reach 60% funding go on to be fully funded. 

On the other hand, if you already have a large audience and your campaign is likely to sell out quickly, offering an early-bird level can backfire. Backers get annoyed when the early-bird level sells out in 30 minutes. 

Limited Edition Book Cover

James L. Rubart offered a limited-edition book cover for his book. The book wasn’t scarce, but the collector’s edition cover was. 

Push for a Goal

Some authors create scarcity and urgency by offering a collective challenge, such as, “If everyone buys my book during the first week, we can hit the bestseller list!” YouTubers might challenge their viewers to view the newest video within the first hour after it goes live so they can hit a trending list.

Live Webinars with No Replay

Whenever I present to live audiences, I’m often asked for a copy of my slides or a recording of my presentation. I like to save certain information for my live presentations, so I don’t often offer recordings of my live presentations. However, have offered free live webinars with an option to purchase the replay. I think there’s something special about attending an event live. 

Amazon Selling Out

If Amazon sells out of your book, it certainly creates a sense of scarcity for book buyers. However, it’s not a great strategy. When people are ready to buy, they don’t want to wait. If they have to wait for Amazon to restock, they are far less likely to return to your Amazon page days later to try again. Selling out on Amazon is fun, but it’s a major inconvenience for your readers.

Popularity

People like to do what they see other people doing. They want social proof that they are making the best and most popular choice. 

Consider your own behavior. At an amusement park, do you want to ride the roller coaster with no line or the one packed with people? Do you want to vote for a third-party candidate who aligns with your values or the candidate with the best chance of winning? If one restaurant is packed and the one next door is like a ghost town, where are you more likely to eat?

Some people are more influenced by popularity than others, but everyone takes popularity into consideration when making decisions.

Popularity on Display

Crowdfunding Sites

Patreon, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo have popularity built into their platforms. Each one publicly displays the number of backers you have. While you can hide how much money you’re making on Patreon, you can’t hide how many backers you have. That’s by design. The more patrons you have, the more credibility you have, and credibility leads to more backers. To parody an oft-quoted saying by Jesus, “To him who has patrons, more patrons will be given. But to him who has no patrons, even the patrons he thinks he has…are really just his mom.”

Videos and Podcasts

YouTube displays each video’s popularity by showing how many times a video has been viewed. People prefer to watch videos with lots of views. Interestingly, podcast download counts are hidden. Only I know how popular the Novel Marketing podcast is. Podcast stats are not public nor transparent as they are on other platforms.

Books

Social proof is demonstrated in the author world when you see a “New York Times Bestselling Author” sticker on a book cover. People are more likely to buy a book with a bestseller sticker because the book is popular, and the sticker is social proof.

When I’m shopping for a book on Amazon, I care far more about the number of reviews it has than the number of stars it has. I’d rather buy a product with 100 four-star reviews than 11 five-star reviews. I want to know the product is popular with more than five people.

But you don’t need to be a New York Times bestselling author to leverage the social trigger of popularity. Here are some other ideas.

• Show off any category or genre bestseller statuses you’ve earned.
• Feature endorsements from popular, famous, or credible people.
• Mention other books you’ve sold.
• Show social proof on social media.
• Mention the number of books in print.
• Mention the number of languages/countries where the book has been sold.
• Talk about awards your books have won.

Final Thoughts

Back when people went crazy for Black Friday, the discounts were large and limited, creating a sense of urgency, scarcity, and a sense of popularity since everyone was doing it. Those were the days of people fighting and franticly scrambling to get into stores. 

Now that Black Friday has moved online, it’s not as scarce and urgent as it used to be. Amazon offers lightning deals for a couple of hours with only 500 units available, which is clever. Their big data tells them exactly how many units to offer so that the products sell out, but not so quickly that customers get angry. Amazon also goes out of its way to talk about how popular Black Friday is. The media often says, “This is the biggest Black Friday ever!” It’s a bit of a cheat. If inflation continues at 2% each year, every Black Friday will be the “biggest Black Friday ever” because the media never adjusts for inflation.

Still, the urgency, scarcity, and perceived popularity propagated by Amazon pull people away from brick-and-mortar stores. Moreover, retail stores offer less impressive deals than they used to. The TV advertised on Black Friday isn’t actually on sale. It’s a different and cheaper model with a lower list price. This practice undermines scarcity, urgency, and popularity, and the social triggers fall like dominos, one into the other. As a result, Black Friday isn’t nearly as popular as it used to be.

Now that you know more about the psychology of marketing, you can dance with how people are and not how you want them to be. That is the path to success.

Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers.

The post 022 Crowdfunding Psychology appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Creating a solid sales page is the key to success. In this episode, you will discover the necessary secrets for: storytelling and the value of vulnerability and for crafting a sales page that sells.

Introduction

• This is the meat and potatoes of your Kickstarter campaign.
• If you do your promotion right, people will spend hundreds of hours looking at this page.
• A good page not only convinces them to back the project, but also to invite their friends to back the project.

Storytelling and the Value of Vulnerability

• You’re not crowdfunding a product, but a story.
• Frame the value of your potential product by telling a compelling story about WHY you are creating what you are creating and WHY it will make the world better.
  • Make you laugh
  • Educate you
  • Entertain you… whatever.
• Be willing to be honest and vulnerable. You want your audience to RELATE to you.
• It’s ultimately NOT your story; it’s their story. Bring them into the story.

Crafting a Crowdfunding Sales Page that $ells

This is the heart of your campaign. The quality of your kickstarter page will be an amplifier on all your other  efforts.

Elements of a sales page:

Project Image

• The first thing people will see on Pinterest, Facebook & Google Plus
• Consider paying for a logo/cover before starting your Kickstarter campaign.
• 99 Designs or Fiverr is cash is tight.
• This will pay for itself.

Project Title

• This is the only thing people will see in a Tweet.
• Think about SEO
• Provide a Clear Benefit

Category

• Only get to pick one so pick a child category.  This should be pretty straight forward.
• If you are an author pick either fiction or nonfiction on Kickstarter
• Pick Writing on IndieGoGo

Short Blurb

• This is the larger font text right under the video shown within Kickstarter.
• 135 Characters on Kickstarter
• 160 Characters on Indiegogo

Funding Duration

• The benefit of short campaigns:
  • Intensity,
  • Faster money
  • Less of the sagging middle.
• The benefit of long campaigns:
  • More time to raise money.
  • Time to make adjustments and make up for mistakes.

Project Location

• Kickstarter will show people projects near them.
• If you don’t live in a big city select the nearest big city. Give the answer you would if you are in a conference in another state and someone asks where you are from.

Page Copy

• Headings Headings Headings
• Zoomable
• Tell your story in images.
• You can change (improve) this as you go.
• FAQ
• Testimonials from others (Video).
• Your credibility. (Mary showed her books.)
• Other places on the web where you’ve discussed your topic. (Trust symbols)
• A gracious, thankful tone.

Risks and Challenges:

• Spend some time thinking about this. Failing to plan is planning to fail.
• Common Risks & Challenges:
  • Launching on time
  • Going over budget

Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers.

The post 021 The Anatomy of a Successful Crowdfunding Page (Deep Dive) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Today we are going to talk about email.

But first, I would like to say we are not going to have an episode next week. I will be at the New Media Summit all week and won’t have a chance to record an episode.

Why Email is So Important for Creators

• Platform Independent, if YouTube or Facebook keeps you from contacting your subscribers you need a way to tell them you’ve moved to a new platform.
• While your fans may not see every Facebook post or YouTube notification they will get every email if you follow the advice I will give you in this episode.
• Email is often the primary driver of new Patrons and Backers. For my Kickstarter campaigns, it is not uncommon for 60-80% of the backers to come from email

Before we talk about email, let’s talk about how to have an excellent email newsletter, but first let’s talk a bit about respect.

Respect:

• Spam is in the eye of the beholder.
• Creepy / Charming (thin line in between)
• Permission

Tip 1 Give People A Good Reason to Subscribe

• The initial incentive you give someone to subscriber to your email list is called a “lead magnet.”
• If you are a band, give a free mp3 of one of your songs.
• If you are an artist, give a free wallpaper.
• If you are an author, give a free short story.
• If you are a guru, give a tip sheet or a resource guide.
• How to Create a Lead Magnet

Tip 2 Create an Onboarding Campaign

• The emails that automatically drip out to your subscribers is sometimes called a drip campaign.
• These emails are great for introducing new subscribers to you and your work.
• It allows you to focus on true fans in your periodic emails.  
• We having an example of this for authors at the Novel Marketing podcast.

Tip 3 Provide Consistent Value.

• Only send out emails that your fans want to read.
• New Book Announcements
• Concert in Your Area (MailChimp makes this easy)
• Fan Art for Your Book
• New Video on Youtube (if you don’t post often)

Tip 4 Use MailChimp at First

• It’s Free
• Everyone uses it so tutorials are easy to find
• Integrates with everything
• Has decent onboarding features
• I am an affiliate and have used MailChimp for over five years. If you want to support this show, use my affiliate link.
• Once you have over 10,000 subscribers, there may be reasons to move to something more powerful like Drip or Convert Kit.

Tip 5 Be Consistent

• Don’t Boost Your Frequency Without a Good Reason
• Don’t go dark for too long or you will hit spam traps.

Tip 6 Experiment

• Split Test Your Subjects
• Emotional Headline Analyzer

Tip 7 Measure Your Results

• Read your email campaign reports
• Poll Your Readers.
• Ask them what they want. www.SurveyMonkey.com.

Tip 8 Keep it Short and Simple.

• Beautiful emails are more likely to go to gmails “Promotions” tab
• Beautiful emails get fewer clicks
• Beautiful emails sell fewer products.
• Beautiful emails are more work to make.

Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers.

The post 020 What Creators Need to Know About Email Marketing (Deep Dive) appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

Do you ever feel like you Patreon has hit a plateau in terms of backing? Patreon CEO Jack Conte shared some research Patreon had conducted in a recent Hang Time. I was there and I have some highlights for you.

At the end of the episode, I have some exciting news, so stick around.

About The Research

They did data analysis on a bunch of Patreon campaigns that were at a plateau and then saw a big jump to see what they did.

How to Break Past the Patreon Patron Plateau

#1 Revamped tiers and benefits.

• They changed the benefits and tiers associated with their Patreon page.
• The system you have is perfectly designed to give you the results you are getting right now.
• Get rid benefits that don’t work.
• Add new benefits that do work.

#2 A large increase in the number of locked posts.

• Locked posts are highly motivating to potential patrons or patrons at lower tier levels.
• Take advantage of the teaser text that everyone can see. Let people know what they are missing out on.

#3 Limited Time Offer

• This creates a sense of urgency. Very powerful.
• Examples of what this could look like.
  • Get featured in my next album/video/book whatever if you become a Patron by the end of the month.
  • Limited Time Deal: Book Launch Blueprint Patrons Only Discount

#4 Patron Recognition

• Jack said, “If you use a person’s first name in a message to them, those patrons retain better.”
• One of the causes of a plateau is current patrons leaving at the same rate new patrons come on board.
• How do you retain your patrons longer? Say “thank you.”
• I think it is a great policy to message everyone a personal “thank you” after they become a patron. This can also trigger very fun and helpful conversations.
• People want to feel seen, noticed. A simple “I see you, I notice you” can make someone’s day. This stays with them and keeps them from wanting to drop out.  

#5 Look at what fast-growing creators do and then copy them.

• In other words, stay subscribed to this show.
• Let me know if there is a Patreon page you want me to do a deep dive on.

#6 Poll Your Fans. Get to know them and what they want.

• Don’t assume you know what your patrons want.
• When we polled our Novel Marketing listeners, we found out nearly all of them were planning to independently publish.
• Poll them about what annoys them. In the Novel Marketing drip sequence, one email is all about pet peeves. As people answer that email with their pet peeves, we get a better idea of what is bothering them. This helps us craft solutions for those very pain points.

#7 What they didn’t see.

• Do to the fact that the research looked only at the patreon pages themselves, there is one thing they didn’t see I want to add to the list.
• Big promotions!
• Changes to the rewards, limited time offers, and large increases in limited posts all correlate with a big promotion.  
• If you haven’t had a “pledge drive” in a while consider doing one to break the plateau.

News

Contact forms on CreativeFunding.show were not notifying me of new messages!

We have a YouTube Channel! Thanks to repurpose.io (affiliate link) for helping make the videos. 

If you want me to review your Patreon or Kickstarter live on the show, drop me a line.

Use Novel Marketing’s Patreon Affiliate Link to make an extra $50 for your first 30 backers.

The post 019 How to Break Past the Patreon Patron Plateau appeared first on Creative Funding Show.

In this episode, Ravi Jayagopal makes the case for why you should build your own membership site, rather than relying on a third-party service like Patreon.

The post 018 How to Host Your Own Membership Site on WordPress with Ravi Jayagopal appeared first on Creative Funding Show.