Jackson Ridl is an intern at Emerging Prairie, and successfully launched the Enchanted Highway Kickstarter campaign this summer. He is currently working on a project to create a Fargo flag. Here’s what he learned on how to kickstart your Kickstarter. Thanks for sharing your wisdom, Jackson!

This past month I worked on raising $15,000 on Kickstarter for the Enchanted Highway, North Dakota’s largest scrap metal sculpture instillation. We ended up raising $20,793, had 411 backers, were selected as a “Staff Pick” and “Project of the Day” and also featured on Kickstarter’s company blog. Throughout the process I learned a few things that I feel helped make the Kickstarter a success.

1. Use your network (and be annoying).

When I began the campaign, our first week goal was to make it to at least 25% of our total goal. To do this I started with everyone I knew who was familiar with the Enchanted Highway and with Gary’s story. The idea to have a Kickstarter for the Enchanted Highway was born from Misfit Con, so that is where I looked first. I posted into the Misfit Con Facebook group, sent them all an email and frankly became rather annoying with my constant updates about the Kickstarter.

I also asked my family and friends for help when I first started: my brothers, my mom, my aunts, basically anyone who I felt would help just because I knew them well. In five days we got to our goal of 25% of our total goal and most of the people that backed our project we knew personally. Most of these people went with our mid-level goals $40-$130.

 2. Get to 25% in the first week

Have you ever been to a coffee shop or bar and noticed that the tip jar almost always already has cash in it? Normally the cash comes from the bartender or barista to let others know to not be afraid of putting their own money in the jar. The same type of philosophy can be applied to Kickstarter; no one who is on the fence of donating will want to make the move unless they feel that your project will make it. We gave people looking at our project confidence by hitting that 25% goal early and let them know that other people thought our Kickstarter was a good idea.

3. Know your target audience

There is this theory in Kickstarters called the backer bulls-eye. Think about your project as a dart board: the people you want to target the most and more specific group come in the center, the second most targeted group comes just outside that, and your next most general group on the outer most layer.

For the Enchanted Highway, our backer bulls-eye went like this: attendees at Misfit Con, proud North Dakotans, and people who love art. We aimed at Misfit Con attendees first because they were the most recent people who were affected by Gary’s story when he spoke at their conference this year. The efforts for making the state beautiful through the artwork of the Enchanted Highway also appeals to proud North Dakotans, and we reached this group via local newspapers, our Facebook page, and word of mouth. Your last group should be broad and universal; we chose art enthusiasts because it’s a group that ties us to people all over the world.

These groups worked well for the Enchanted Highway. But say you are working trying to kickstart an iPhone accessory that makes the phone more productive — your backer bulls-eye may look like this: die hard Apple fan, people who own iPhones, and people who want to live more efficiently. Know your target audience, and you’ll be ready to go.

4. Tell a good story or have a killer product

The importance of telling a good story is the most important thing I learned from the project. Our story wasn’t just about making a new scrap metal sculpture. It was the story of a man who wanted to save his dying community through creating the world’s largest scrape metal sculptures without having any prior experience about welding or art.

You can tell your story most effectively  by getting your video to showcase your project well. By crafting our Kickstarter through this way it made it appealing to support our project because it wasn’t just to build a sculpture, it was to save a community, help fulfill a man’s dream, AND built a massive sculpture.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1477189188/the-enchanted-highway-the-worlds-largest-sculpture/description

On the other side of the spectrum is what your product actually is. The most successful Kickstarters blow past their original funding goal because they have something that people really want. One crowdfunding project that comes to my mind that I really loved was the MVMT Watch; a watch that is cheap, high quality, and minimalist. Their original funding goal was $15,000 but they ended up raising about $220,000 over 1,500% of their goal. They reached that level because their product was just so cool and more people wanted to have it for themselves even after they reached their project goal.

These two aspects are what Kickstarter looks for when they select their “Staff Picks.” We were fortunate enough to become a “Staff Pick” because I think we told a good story. Getting “Staff Pick” gets your product more visibility when people look under your project’s category. This allowed us to start tapping into the Kickstarter population of people who browse Kickstarter looking for cool products.

5. Make your project news

Local media has a vested interest in telling stories from around the community. That is why we turned our fundraising campaign into a local news story. We framed the story of Gary’s Enchanted Highway so that its importance reached the average citizen. Our new sculpture symbolized the connection between Eastern and Western North Dakota; this made the story appealing to newspapers across the entire state. We also retold Gary’s story of saving his town of Regent to give newspapers so that their readers had something they felt was emotionally appealing enough to prompt them to support.

We turned to our local papers because we felt that would hit the proud North Dakotan demographic best. If your product is a tech accessory, look for online publications that feature new and exciting technologies. If you are trying to publish a children’s book, try to get some press from some parenting blogs. Each Kickstarter will want to find where it will shine the brightest and use that place to attract people who would otherwise not see your project.

Use your network, get to 25% in the first week, know your target audience, make your project news and tell a good story. These are the components that helped us reach 138% of our goal.

Thanks for reading!