Dear people who kickstart,
Jul. 21st, 2015 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackDear people who start a kickstarter project, I am really not an expert at this, so if you have expert advice you probably know better than me already. But as someone who occasionally sees links to cool-looking kickstarters, I can tell you what seems good to me.
On the front page, try to have some sort of prominent summary, ideally two sentences, saying WHAT IT IS and WHY IT'S COOL. Um, maybe that's supposed to be obvious. But seriously, "We have an awesome webcomic, we made an rpg boardgame of it" or "we made an isometric computer game with detailed wizard duels" or "I wrote about about vampires living in london" or "here's a gadget that makes your bike sound like a horse", all of those make me think "oh, cool, can I see more". Even if I've never heard of it before. And many other pitches would make me think "good luck, but not for me".
But I seem to see so many kickstarters that say "here is a brand new BRANDNAME which is exciting and ADJECTIVE and lets you experience ADJECTIVE and ADVERBITY and here's a video for more information". That's fine. Unless you want me to give you money, in which case it has the disadvantage that all that coy non-information doesn't make me think "Yes, THIS random twitter link is the one I must track down the backstory for" it makes me think "why was I here again? *back* "
I'm assured, videos are great for persuading people. But I assume that only applies if people watch them?
To me, a video is saying "Dear technocrats, busy people, people with full-time jobs, people with children, people with smartphones, people under 25 with short attention spans, people with disabilities, methodical people and googlebot, get out of here, we don't want your money or your interest." Fine, you can sell to whoever you want to sell to, but that's excluding a LOT of desirable market shares...
On the front page, try to have some sort of prominent summary, ideally two sentences, saying WHAT IT IS and WHY IT'S COOL. Um, maybe that's supposed to be obvious. But seriously, "We have an awesome webcomic, we made an rpg boardgame of it" or "we made an isometric computer game with detailed wizard duels" or "I wrote about about vampires living in london" or "here's a gadget that makes your bike sound like a horse", all of those make me think "oh, cool, can I see more". Even if I've never heard of it before. And many other pitches would make me think "good luck, but not for me".
But I seem to see so many kickstarters that say "here is a brand new BRANDNAME which is exciting and ADJECTIVE and lets you experience ADJECTIVE and ADVERBITY and here's a video for more information". That's fine. Unless you want me to give you money, in which case it has the disadvantage that all that coy non-information doesn't make me think "Yes, THIS random twitter link is the one I must track down the backstory for" it makes me think "why was I here again? *back* "
I'm assured, videos are great for persuading people. But I assume that only applies if people watch them?
To me, a video is saying "Dear technocrats, busy people, people with full-time jobs, people with children, people with smartphones, people under 25 with short attention spans, people with disabilities, methodical people and googlebot, get out of here, we don't want your money or your interest." Fine, you can sell to whoever you want to sell to, but that's excluding a LOT of desirable market shares...
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Date: 2015-07-22 01:10 pm (UTC)Also, there are many times where I can read something but not easily listen to something without disruption (e.g. sitting with children, browsing in my lunchbreak at work, etc). It's not just the time to watch a video, but the time to find my headphones, put them on, faff with volume, etc etc.