BackerClub Forums

What are some ways you all would suggest for growing the Club's membership? What is the best way to spread the word about BackerClub to those who are the most serious about Kickstarter? I'm sure you have a lot of great ideas that I'm not thinking of at the moment and I'd love to hear them!

Growing the membership will require traction from early-adopters who will be looking for reasons why they should be early-adopters. It is the same as a crowdfunding campaign that is suffering from lack of exposure.

For BackerClub to be sustainable it needs to benefit backers and project creators almost equally. There also needs to be revenue for the site to operate.

First, from the project creator perspective.

Pre-launch marketing and feedback is why I would want to come to BackerClub. A large enough and experienced enough community has to be assembled for project creators to benefit more than the price they paid to get on the site. If the benefit doesn't exceed the cost then the price would need to drop or the benefits improved.

People announce their Kickstarter campaigns in advance on places like Reddit. Project creators could be offered a coupon so they can join and post a preview link to their project for feedback. There needs to be success stories of projects that did better because of BackerClub. If those stories don't happen then it will become more difficult to market the site.

Getting linked to in project updates, like the Elegy for a Dead World example, may be one of the more effective ways to get members.

Second, from a backer perspective.

The lounge idea may work. With so few members the present chances of winning won't be as diluted as it might become in the future. It reminds me of KickAssist back in 2012 and BackerClub could fill the hole in the ecosystem that site left behind. Assisting small campaigns could generate goodwill and the person who's ticket won gets the reward tier.

Free add-ons for pledging to featured projects may work. I look at things mainly from the video games category perspective. These add-ons would likely be digital such a download of a song from a video game's soundtrack or code to a developer's previous game.

The real reason I see many would continue to visit such a community is to see other's opinions on projects and crowdfunding-related news. BackerClub is the first attempt I've seen of potentially aggregating a large variety of backer tastes. BackerClub would be for someone who wants to talk about both Film and Food projects without having to join seperate forums.

There needs to be people inside the walled garden telling their friends outside the walls that it is a cool place. Again, there needs to be the content here for that to work.

There is the big problem of a lack of notable projects right now. Kickstarter follows an annual cycle. It is expected the lack of noteworthy projects will continue to get worse through November and December until the platform starts to get busy again around two weeks into January 2015. Even now it was a struggle to find projects worth talking about yesterday.

There is a lasting image problem from the original launch. Asking for one's Kickstarter account login details spooked many Internet savy people away. One of the best PR tips I could give is to show that BackerClub is capable of improving itself based on feedback. There are tools that do require login information to fully function because they need access to numbers not available to the public. Patterning BackerClub's verification after those tools was a mistake because it doesn't need such access. It was good to see a response to feedback and that the system was changed to the current one. The subforums based on Kickstarter's main categories was a good step.

Reddit's community is about content sharing, right now BackerClub has hundreds of backers but a lack of discussion. I would prioritize getting discussions going on BackerClub before targetting Reddit again.

An invite system may allow backers to privately bring their friends onto the forum. The minimum number of projects backed is a way to try to promote quality of members, but quantity may be what BackerClub needs right now. You may also want to implement invites for members of the press once there is enough content to keep them interested.

In summary, it is the same as a Kickstarter campaign. There needs to be content first then exposure happens. There needs to be incentives for all parties to participate. Right now it seems like the focus should be on getting the forum to the stage where there are always discussions happening.

One of the best way to get new members is for current members to talk about how BackerClub is cool and useful. That will take some time.

I found BackerClub through several Kickstarter projects I funded - was surprised to see they weren't featured projects here. Definitely something I'd ask featured projects to include in one of their updates.

I agree with Lobster on Project stats - feedback & early funding/sharing by BackerClub members to show creators that involving us and giving us discounts or extra perks is worth the cost of involving us.

I'm not sure how important the lounge is after the first 3-6 months. For me the biggest part of being a member here is having input early and getting extra perks on projects. Not that I'm not spinning that wheel everyday mind you.

The second major draw for me is talking to others who back many projects. I've felt lonely out there as among my over 100 Kickstarter friends only one has backed ~50 projects - most others have backed under 5. I really look forward to talking to others about projects they are excited about, projects I'm excited about, how people choose which projects to back.

I like Lobster's idea of being able to invite friends - I'd add "who meet the minimum requirements". Do we believe if we bring people into BackerClub they'd become more active backers? If not, I'm not sure what we add by bringing in backers who haven't backed more than 50 projects.

I also think having a basic set of posts on how to use the forum interface for technically challenged people, like me, who are unable to do things like get the linking to work would be nice. I notice that one of the options is to attach a signature but I don't see where I create a signature.

The difficulty is how to get people talking both on the forum and off the forum. Possibly ask the people who started the club to start conversations in categories with favorite projects they are currently backing as well as introduce yourselves. In my experience once you get people talking forums generally pick up. Once I figure linking out I will discuss some of the projects I'm backing (37 active). Once people are having fun talking about projects on forums and see others backing projects they love they are likely to talk about how great BackerClub is on social media.

It might also be interesting to hear how you decided on the current projects. What criteria are you using? That could go in the appropriate Kickstarter category for each project or be a new topic of its own.

~Tasha

@Lobster: Thank you for your details analysis and suggestions. I think you are right on. Followup question since I hear you saying that the Forum is the most crucial piece here to getting momentum. What is your opinion about the forum as it stands now? I'd love your thoughts and suggestions on structure, features, all the way down to suggesting a new forum engine than phpBB if that would help.

Thanks Tasha. So far, I've been so busy try to run the site and the launch that I haven't had time to get very heavily involved in the forum conversations, but I will!

Yes, we are working on a system for inviting friends. In fact, we hope to make it a competition with a leaderboard which would be more fun.

I really appreciate your thoughtful response and suggestions.

Hi all, first post here. Let me share how I found my way to BackerClub, as this was a very effective way to get me to join, personally.

Voxel Quest's kickstarter is offering a pledge level for BackerClub members that acts as a discounted version of a higher tier. My first thought was, "there is such a thing as BackerClub?" I thought I was still a little bit under the 50 project minimum, but then realized I was up to 55, so... there you go. BC has gamified that number, turned it into something worth increasing beyond the reasons I would normally have for backing projects.

Oh I love that - its right there in the pledge list. I would be cool to see that with more of the projects promoted here as having to contact them each time to let them know we have pledged is time consuming & I'm sure the paperwork/tracking it on their side is a nightmare.

So the 2 ways we know have worked well so far:
1. Included in an update of projects
2. Included as a special perk on project itself

Likely to work well:
3. Invites/word-of-mouth as members see how valuable the club is and can tailor the wording

I wonder how well a combo of 1 & 2 would be - an update in a project about Backerclub that also mentions the special perk for that project? Could this be made a condition of acceptance? Say the perk is up from day 1 but 7 days into the campaign they do an update about Backerclub & highlight the perk?

Ambi Climate has 7 days to go
Star: Enhanced Fitness & Safety Tracker has 26
Cielo WiGle has 53 (they need to fix typos like "tonnes" on their project page)

You might want to consider removing the pay to promote or working with specific project creators you are interested in to have their projects on here until you actually grow a decent sized community. As a project creator, I wouldn't want to spend the funds it takes to create a project here without having an existing community and knoweldge that there is an actual benefit to putting a project up (especially at a fee).

I think if you can get more succesful projects in here then it would help draw more attention, especially if they help spread the word by promoting the site.

phpBB can be reskinned with styles. It is a functional popular forum engine so I don't see a need to transition to another one. Members currently do not have forum avatars. In the future a badge displaying their stars could be used or the ability to upload their own images unlocked. This is low priority. The Off Topic section is currently lacking a descriptive sentence.

When a new project is posted, the project creator could have the opportunity to post a thread about his or her campaign in one of the Kickstarter Discussion subforums. That thread could be pinned until the campaign ends to help its visibility. A button on the BackerClub page for a project could link to the forum thread. This may be more effective at getting people to comment then the current comment fields that are more limited in formatting. Previews of upcoming projects where members can give feedback was one of the attractions for joining BackerClub. Most of the time the projects have already launched when they are featured. I would really like to see more pre-launch campaigns where BackerClub members can give feedback. This feedback could be more than worth the price to a project creator.

The BackerClub project e-mails currently will show the project image, the clickable project title and a description for an individual project. It would be convenient if the perks for BackerClub members was included in the e-mails. I'm concerned about the projects being sent out one by one. For the scenario when BackerClub becomes more popular, this could result in too many e-mails per day being sent to a member's inbox and resulting in them unsubscribing. There are many potential solutions. First, the projects that launched could be aggregated into a single e-mail for the day or week or other interval. This may be the easiest to implement. Secondly, if still using individual e-mails per project it would be good to have tick boxes in one's account settings to select which project categories to receive e-mails for.

About the pages for projects on BackerClub. I feel the width of the main body for those pages should be limited to the same width that Kickstarter uses. Right now the paragraphs are wider than the images being posted by project creators which makes the formatting look a bit off. Using the same width means the project text can be displayed the same on both BackerClub and Kickstarter.

The rest of this post deals with issues I see from the perspective of someone who designs campaigns.

1. All BackerClub projects must offer early bird rewards at a discounted price. BackerClub projects should also offer some sort of free upgrade or add-on for BackerClub members who support their project (examples: a free t-shirt, additional colors, an upgraded version, free international shipping, etc..).

The wording could be modified to be less scary to project creators such as "All BackerClub projects must offer some sort of discount, a free upgrade to a better version or free add-on for BackerClub members who support their project. Examples are alternate t-shirt colors, alternate graphic designs, reduced international shipping rates or a special download intended for BackerClub members". The examples part of that paragraph may need more brainstorming of what kinds of perks to offer. The text could still get more feedback from others. Part of marketing strategy is don't scare away customers.

2. All BackerClub projects must display this image on the bottom of their main project image. This serves 2 purposes: 1) lets BackerClub members visiting the page know this is a BackerClub project so that they will visit the BackerClub site to see what perks they can get & 2) the Please Share arrows encourage greater social sharing by all your visitors. This is what it looks like on a project. Projects that also display a BackerClub Badge on their main project image will receive a discounted listing fee.

A BackerClub-related graphic being displayed on Kickstarter projects will likely be one of the most effective ways to market BackerClub. This must be handled very carefully. There is currently the footer image that featured projects must display. I strongly feel there should be much more variations available so project creators have more freedom for how to implement a BackerClub mention into their project thumbnails or project pages. Kicktraq has project creators embed a badge and I feel this should be enough for a minimal requirement. Project creators that go beyond that could receive discounts. A project thumbnail can not have a clickable hyperlink to BackerClub, but a badge can.

The price of $299 per submission was mentioned in an article. Some people may say that you should make subissions free until BackerClub has more momentum. That may work. I do think it needs to be less expensive, such as maybe $99 for now. What I think is a better idea is setup a way for projects to influence what they pay. There could be a partial refund if a creator's project fails. I'd suggest 50% or more, but the percentage is up to Mark to decide. This could reduce the hesitation to use BackerClub some people may have resulting in a larger quantity of projects. Full price would feature a project and no badge or link to BackerClub would be required. I feel that superstar class campaigns will be willing to pay more to keep their project page's cleaner. Embedding a badge on the project page would subtract an amount from the full price. Mentioning BackerClub in the project thumbnail would subtract an even larger amount from the full price. Mentioning what the perk for BackerClub members is in a project update or on the project page could be another subtraction. After the subtractions, the final price could be as low as $50. These subtractions would be BackerClub rewarding a project creator for helping to promote this site. As BackerClub gains momentum, the size of the subtractions are gradually reduced for following campaigns. Privately, Mark could approach really cool looking projects and offer to feature them for free. There could be a small chart to explain the subtractions.

Backer Club Notices Come Too Late

Twice now, I've received a notice from Backer Club about a new project I would be interested in backing IF an Early Bird slot were available. I joined BackerClub specifically for this reason, however, both times I looked at the projects in Kickstarter, all the Early Bird slots are gone. Not what I expected. So, what's the reason for joining BackerClub if you don't get timely "Project Starting" notification?