December 15, 2011
Kickstarter My Heart
About a week ago I saw an update about Five Iron Frenzy hit my Facebook feed regarding their return to creating and performing music. What really struck me about this was not the notion that SKA could be seeing a revival… It was more like “holy crap, they’ve raised HOW MUCH MONEY?”
The news item linked to a Kickstarter page where they were raising funds to record and release a new album without the assistance of a record label. The band has set a goal of $30,000 and had already raised (at that time) over $130,000! For those of you that aren’t familiar with Kickstarter, here is the Cliff Notes version:
Kickstarter is a website that assists individuals in raising money for various projects (typically creative projects). Pages are created with information detailing all aspects of the project that is to be funded. The page creator can then offer incentives for giving at specific levels. Incentive
s can be limited to a set number of supporters or it can be left wide open! The project creator sets a funding goal and a time frame to meet the funding. Supporters can pledge money using debit / credit cards and in the event the project meets its goal in the allotted time, the cards are all charged and the money is funneled to the project creator. Projects can exceed their financial goals as well (which is the case with Five Iron Frenzy and several others).
It’s a great tool for raising money and there is nothing wrong with asking (in the case of musicians) your fans to support your efforts!
But make sure you incentivize.
The more the incentives you offer (and the better the incentives you offer) the better the results you will get. Five Iron did a fantastic job of offering incentives and adding incentives as goals were met. They not only met their goal but exceeded it in a matter of days.
I realize that Five Iron Frenzy is an established band with an established fan base and with the announcement of their return, it was much easier for them to raise funds that it would be for a brand new band just starting out. Kickstarter, however, is still a great way for young bands to allow their fans to invest in their careers early on.
Have you used Kickstarter? Post your experience in the comments!
I saw this, and must say I was absolutely dumbstruck by the amount of money they raised and the speed with which they raised it. I keep an eye on who is looking for money on kickstarter in my local scene, and I’ve seen some impressive numbers, but nothing like that.
What I want to know is this Mark – while there is no set formula, because everyone’s fan base is going to be different, and each project may be different, if you had to point to two or three incentive programs on kickstarter for *any* band to look at for solid ideas on what works, which projects would you recommend? I’ll personally never (probably) put a project on kickstarter, but I work with enough unsigned groups that I may very well find myself in a position to give advice, and like anyone put in that position, I want to be able to give good advice. Thanks for your thoughts.
One thing that i’ve noticed is that people love to be acknowledged. People love feeling exclusive, elite, set-apart, etc. so finding ways to accomplish that is going to be really effective. Mentions in a CD liner, a personal phone call or voice mail. Everything elseseems to fall much farther down on the list of effectiveness but next in line would be personalized / exclusive gear ie. signed limited edition ANYTHING.
I’m going to launch a kicstarter project soon…
Your statements there make a lot of sense, Mark.
Be sure to let us know when you start that project, I’ll be interested to see what you’re up to.