You come across a LOT of junk mail and bull-crap whenever you run a KickStarter campaign, whether it’s your first time or your tenth.
As it turns out, The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 1 is my tenth campaign on KickStarter. And, true to form, I’ve been getting messages from total strangers saying that they “can help boost this campaign to millions of people” and that they know “the best outlets to promote this KickStarter to” so I should “reply to this email ASAP to jump on this unique opportunity.”
But there was ONE email that I got recently that stood out to me… for all the wrong reasons.
First, this is not the first time this guy emailed me. He had sent a previous email starting with, “I get it. You’ve seen thousands of messages from people saying they can help your campaign” (which I have). But the difference was this NEW guy emailing me called himself “a guru in crowdfunding.”
Pro tip: never call yourself a guru of anything. You sound pretentious and it’s step number 1 of making sure I delete your email.
But shortly after that one, he sent me a NEW email.
Here, I’ll show you a screencap of this thing. Don’t worry, I’ll censor out the guy’s email, name, and face. Just pay attention to the email text:
In case you can’t see it, the email says, “we’ve chosen The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 1 as our weekly “what could this campaign be doing better?” round table discussion.”
Already off to a bad start. I know what I can do better. This is my TENTH campaign. And I already made the fixes before this dude sent me this message.
And he adds, “We choose one very lucky campaign and go through it top-to-bottom to see what you can do better.”
This is the most slimy sentence I’ve come across.
And I’m saying this as someone who’s sat through brutal art class critiques and read thousands of pages of copy other people have written to promote their work.
I’m saying this as someone who studied marketing and promotional materials during college AND after. That sentence is slimy.
Why is this sentence slimy? Because it is preying on the email recipient’s insecurity about their campaign.
Whether you’re running your first campaign or your hundredth, there will always be a bit of insecurity that you feel when you launch. Will this thumbnail stand out? Did I make enough rewards? Did I overprice one of these tiers? Etc.
That sentence in that email is designed to snag onto that insecurity and make the email recipient feel like they NEED help.
Trust me: you do not need help from a guy like this.
I’ve had better luck getting help from ComixLaunch, and I found that program to be very hit and miss for me. Again, I’ve run ten successful KickStarter campaigns, and The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Chapter 1 is looking to be my eleventh successful one.
Never trust a dude who would use sentences like that, no matter how professional or “well-meaning” the rest of the email sounds.
I hope this helps you if you’re looking to start crowdfunding – or even if it helps you spot similar emails in the future. I hope this blog post has helped you spot what kind of language to watch out for and what to avoid.
Best of luck to you, and thank you for reading.
You. Are. Awesome.
