This month I’m exploring all things crowdfunding. How do you validate and fine-tune your project? What’s the best way to go big with a Kickstarter campaign, not only to earn income, but for exposure as well? What mistakes do failed campaign…
John Lee Dumas. You’ve probably heard the name since he has one of the most popular business podcasts in the world, Entrepreneurs on Fire. But did you know he has also led the sixth most funded publishing campaign and the second most funded journal on Kickstarter ever with his launch of The Freedom Journal? Amazing.
Because of the Kickstarter success John Lee Dumas has had, I knew that one day I’d ask him for advice on how he did all of that. Well, that day has come, and I’m excited to have John (and Kate too!) share their knowledge publicly here in a guest post on SPI to help me and anyone else thinking about going down the crowdfunding route with their new product idea. Take it away, John!
In January 2015, I had an idea.
But, as you know, entrepreneurs have a lot of ideas. This idea, however, was different. I knew this idea was different because my audience, Fire Nation, told me so. Fire Nation played a very critical role in the success of my idea, as you will see throughout this guide.
At the time I’m writing this, it’s been eighteen months since I launched my idea on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform for a vast range of projects. My Kickstarter campaign ran for thirty-three days, and since the launch I’ve made over $1 million in revenue.
What was my idea?
To create a hardcover journal called The Freedom Journal: Accomplish Your #1 Goal in 100 Days.
Typically people launch on Kickstarter for two reasons:
I already had both of these things: an audience and the funds to create The Freedom Journal on my own. But I knew there had to be more behind why one would choose to launch on Kickstarter.
After some research, I decided to launch on Kickstarter for the following reasons:
Trust
People trust the Kickstarter platform, and I know that, like Amazon, if backers are unhappy with their decision, they have a simple way to request and receive refunds directly through Kickstarter.
“Backers” are the individuals who support a project on Kickstarter.
Exposure
I knew Kickstarter’s reach would go way beyond what I could muster on my own.
Crowd-driven marketing
There are A LOT of people who would probably never find me or The Freedom Journal on their own. With the help of those who discovered The Freedom Journal on the Kickstarter platform, the campaign had a great opportunity to receive a lot of word-of-mouth marketing.
An event-like aspect
I wanted this launch to be BIG.
Pledge levels and special rewards
Instead of re-creating the wheel with an entire product suite, I would be able to offer multiple things in one place.
Community
It wouldn’t just be me on this journey alone. Kickstarter provided a platform where I could create community around The Freedom Journal.
Here are a few stats that back up my research:
Fun Fact: I have accounted for .0023 percent of the total dollars pledged to Kickstarter projects. 
Of all of these numbers, the one that really got me is the Repeat backers statistic: well over four million people revisit Kickstarter and pledge to multiple campaigns.
That’s a lot of people coming back to Kickstarter to search for campaigns. Turns out I was right about there being more behind why one would choose to launch on Kickstarter.
Each of the reasons why I chose to launch on Kickstarter contributed to $453k in revenue in thirty-three days and The Freedom Journal becoming the sixth most funded publishing campaign of all time.
Throughout this post I’m going to share the step-by-step approach my team and I followed to launch The Freedom Journal on Kickstarter. That way, if you’re thinking about doing your own launch, you’ll know exactly what to do. You can think of this like your own guide to launching on Kickstarter!
But before we dive in, I want to be sure to make one thing crystal clear: launching on Kickstarter is no small feat. It takes time, planning, patience, and a lot of work. The great news is that it’s totally worth it!
As is true with any big project, breaking down the steps you need to take in order to accomplish your goal is important.
Let’s think of you launching on Kickstarter as your big project and end goal, and from there break it down into four phases:
Here’s what should happen in each of these phases:
Every project—no matter how big or small—starts with an idea.
While this phase may seem like a minor one, it’s actually the most important: this is the foundation of your entire project and requires special attention. Get this phase wrong, and it’s going to be very difficult—and nearly impossible—to make your launch successful.
Successfully completing the Idea Phase includes the following steps:
Let’s do a deep dive into each of these steps.
If you’re interested in learning more about launching on Kickstarter, chances are you already have an idea in mind. Whatever your idea may be, an important piece of the puzzle is making sure it’s something you’re passionate about.
As I mentioned earlier, launching on Kickstarter takes time, planning, patience, and a lot of work. So if you’re going to put a ton of work into launching your idea on Kickstarter, you want to make sure it’s not something you’re going to lose interest in six months or a year from now.
Granted, the way I approached my Kickstarter launch was a bit different from most. I essentially “did it backwards.”
But to give you an idea of the timeline, it took me about one year from the moment I had my idea to create The Freedom Journal to actually launching it on Kickstarter.
I’m going to be touching on each of these milestones in this guide, but here’s a sneak peek at my timeline:
Note: I used this image of my timeline on my actual Kickstarter page to help tell the story of The Freedom Journal and how it came to be. We’ll be getting into everything that’s required to create an engaging Kickstarter page later.
Your timeline will likely vary depending on how you’re approaching your launch on Kickstarter. For example, maybe you’re going at it in more of a traditional sense, meaning you aren’t going to actually create your concept until your campaign is done and it’s a success.
If that’s the case, I would still plan on your pre-launch period taking anywhere from three to four months.
There are A LOT of moving pieces! Once you’ve decided what it is you want to create, it’s time to dig in and confirm you’re on the right track.
Whether it’s with your family, friends, an online community, or members of a networking group, talking about your idea will help with a few things:
I strongly believe there is power in putting your idea out into the world. It not only makes the idea real, but it cements accountability. Once others know about your idea, they’ll continue to ask about it, which can serve as important accountability for you along the way. When you know others will be asking you about your idea, you’re more likely to continue making progress.
Talking to others about your idea will also help you solicit feedback. Naturally, when you share an idea with people, they want to give you “their take.” Some of the feedback may not amount to much, but keep your ears open for recurring themes and any confusion that might come up over and over again.
The questions you receive from those who you’re sharing your idea with can result in clarity, which means you’ll be able to talk more clearly about your idea, your mission, and your end goal. But don’t just take the feedback you receive at face value. Actually use the feedback you receive to become more curious about your idea and how it fits into the marketplace or industry you’re in.
Some questions to ask yourself:
Putting your idea out into the world is your stake in the ground. You’re making it real, you’re gaining valuable feedback, and you’re researching what else is out there. A combination of these things will result in a crystal clear understanding of your goal.
As a direct result of putting my idea out into the world, I not only accomplished everything above, but I also connected with three key team members who I couldn’t have launched on Kickstarter without—all just from talking about my idea.
But we’ll dive deeper into the Hiring Phase in just a minute.
It’s incredibly difficult to start taking steps toward accomplishing your goal if you’re not crystal clear on what that goal is.
You have your idea, and you’ve shared it with others, gathered feedback, and done some research. Now it’s time to write it out on paper.
Given everything you’ve learned about your idea and what it is you want to create, what is your S.M.A.R.T. goal that will help you make it happen?
Take fifteen to twenty minutes to actually write out your S.M.A.R.T. goal. Having this in place will serve you over and over again on your journey to launching on Kickstarter.
You have your idea, you’ve gathered feedback and done your research, and you’ve formulated your S.M.A.R.T. goal. Now it’s time to get proof of concept.
In most cases, getting proof of concept means you’re sharing an idea and then asking your audience to pay you money for it. The saying, “people speak with their wallets” is SO TRUE.
However, depending on how you’re approaching your launch on Kickstarter, your strategy for getting proof of concept might vary. For me, getting proof of concept came in the form of an interest list.
Remember in the very beginning of this post when I said that Fire Nation played a very critical role in the success of my idea? Well, I say that because Fire Nation actually gave me my idea.
Let me explain.
I launched my podcast Entrepreneurs On Fire in September 2012. Since that day I’ve continued to provide my audience with free, valuable, and consistent content (to the tune of over 1,700 episodes published to date!).
As a result, I’ve grown an incredibly loyal audience, Fire Nation, who turns to me to ask questions, share their struggles, and celebrate their wins.
After about two years of intent listening, it hit me: one of the most commonly asked questions I get from Fire Nation is:
“What’s the one thing that sets the successful entrepreneurs who you interview apart from everyone else?”
My answer:
Their ability to set and accomplish goals.
Because I had heard this same question thousands of times, I knew the answer was incredibly valuable to my audience. Otherwise, that same question wouldn’t have come up over and over again.
That was my first proof of concept: my audience needed help when it came to setting and accomplishing goals. But I knew this first piece in and of itself wasn’t enough for me to go and invest thousands of dollars in such a huge project.
And so I set up a landing page where I shared my idea for The Freedom Journal with Fire Nation, and I asked them on that page to sign up for an interest list if they wanted to learn more. Nearly 10,000 individuals entered their email address, giving me a rather LARGE proof of concept— enough to call it ready to move forward.
That’s when I set my S.M.A.R.T. goal to launch The Freedom Journal on Kickstarter in January 2016 and to have 10,000 copies printed and ready to ship.
Sound like a familiar “idea validation” process?
That’s because it works, and countless successful entrepreneurs will back me up on this—Pat Flynn included.
But as Zig Ziglar says, “A goal properly set is halfway reached.”
Next up comes The Brainstorming & Planning Phase.
Whew! We know this is a lot of info to take in, and we’re just getting started! If you’re enjoying the content and interested in joining our free course on How to Launch on Kickstarter, be sure to grab your spot here.
The Brainstorming & Planning Phase is where you’ll start to put the many moving pieces and steps you need to take together. As you create your plan, you’ll also be setting critical due dates to help you reach your goal.
The brainstorming part of this phase is pretty simple. Well, simple, but not easy. Here’s how it goes:
Take out of a piece of paper, and just start writing. Write out every step you know you need to take (or think you need to take) in order to accomplish your goal.
This not only involves brainstorming on your own, but also researching and reaching out to others who you know have already been where you want to go.
Here’s an example of my initial brainstorming, starting with the steps I knew I needed to take, and then also accounting for any research I’d need to do:
Sometimes all the steps you need to take to successfully finish a project or reach your goal won’t be completely clear, or even obvious. And sometimes you might think you have all the steps down, but then extra ones start popping up here and there—things you simply didn’t think about.
That’s okay!
The most important part of the brainstorming process is that you’re gaining as much knowledge and insight about the steps you need to take as possible. This will prevent you from being massively surprised along the way.
Now that you have at least some of your steps and ideas out on paper, continue on with your research and ask questions to those who have already been where you want to go.
Once complete, it’s time to start creating your project plan.
Your project plan is at the core of everything. It will include individual deliverables, dependencies, and deadlines that will ultimately help you reach your goal on time.
This is also an important time to really dig into what your budget will be for your project.
Starting with all the knowledge and insights gained during your brainstorming process, begin to lay it all out. That might mean writing it out on paper, documenting it in an Excel or Google spreadsheet, or inputting it in your favorite project management software (I love Asana for this).
The goal is to get everything in one place, in a logical order, with due dates attached. Again, it’s okay if you don’t know ALL of the steps right now. In order to get started, you just have to know the first step.
Another critical part of the Brainstorming & Planning Phase is figuring out what type of help you’ll need along the way. Now that you have your plan laid out, you might see there are a lot of steps you’re not really sure how to execute.
Whether it’s that you’ve never done them before, it’s not in your “wheelhouse” to do them, or you simply don’t want to do them, there will be a number of things you’ll need to delegate. Now is the time to identify those things, because as you start to execute your plan, you’ll be moving quickly into The Hiring Phase.
The Hiring Phase is where you get to step into your project manager role and start delegating! Perhaps you have someone else who is managing this project for you, and if so, they should pay close attention to this phase.
It is here that you (or your project manager) will be responsible for:
Also, keep in mind there will likely be new steps that come up along the way, ones you didn’t anticipate or know about before.
Therefore, hiring your team may not be a single event, so be prepared to be fluid and quick on your feet if a new team member is necessary. Otherwise, your project could be delayed.
This is an EXCITING phase, because once you hire your team, it’s full speed ahead!
My Hiring Phase ended up being very linear, and I was incredibly lucky to come in contact with the BEST of the best.
But it wasn’t easy. The Freedom Journal project started out strong with the help of my partner Kate, who took on the project manager role. Once I had Kate on board to help me oversee all the moving pieces, it was time to take the first step toward creation.
This is about the time we were introduced to Sutton Long, who took all my messy notes and sketches and put The Freedom Journal together for us. This introduction came as a result of me reaching out to those I knew in the industry who had recently published a book. Who better to ask about this step of the process than someone who had just been through it?
So while talking with my good friend Jonathan Fields one day, I simply made the ask:
“Who helped you format and put everything together?”
As Sutton was putting The Freedom Journal together, we quickly realized that illustrations and an actual book cover would be necessary. This is where our designer, Brandy Shea, who we have on retainer here at Entrepreneurs On Fire, came into the picture.
Note: if you do end up hiring externally for the design aspects of your project, be sure you’re explaining in detail exactly what it is you’re looking for.
If you find it difficult to describe, or you’re not really sure what you’re looking for, do some research. Find other examples and styles of products, pages, and layouts that you like, and share those with your designer.
Luckily, Brandy is very familiar with our brand.
Even still, Kate didn’t hold anything back when it came to explaining what we were looking for—in detail:
Once we had the design aspects of the project underway, Sutton started sending us final revisions of The Freedom Journal. It was at that point Whitney Henry, our editor, came into the picture.
What originally started out as a step we were going to manage in-house turned out to be a massive—and integral—piece to delegate. After all, we were printing 10,000 copies of The Freedom Journal, making a single mistake equal to 10,000 mistakes.
Here’s a look at just four of the pages that came back from Whitney with edits, (and The Freedom Journal is nearly 300 pages long!):
Luckily, we didn’t take the risk of editing in-house!
Now we had the journal put together, illustrated, and edited, it was time to find someone who could help us print it! Turns out I had recently interviewed Richie Norton on Entrepreneurs On Fire, who does product creation through his business Prouduct.
You can also check out Richie’s interview right here on Smart Passive Income.
As a result of our post-interview chat, Richie ended up being the guy behind the actual creation of the Journal—figuratively and literally:
As the creation fell into place, we turned our attention to finding team members who could help us market and launch it.
Tom Morkes, who helped us put together our entire outreach plan (a massive part of our marketing strategy), reached out to me after hearing me talk about The Freedom Journal on Entrepreneurs On Fire. With his expertise and background in helping others launch best-selling books, I was sold.
And Brandon T. Adams—our crowdfunding expert—was someone I found during my brainstorming. He proved priceless to the success of our launch given his knowledge and expertise with crowdfunding platforms.
But what if I don’t have the means to hire a team?
I’m glad you asked, because when you’re first getting started you don’t always have extra funds lying around. In this case, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and do the work!
If there’s a step in your plan you’re not sure how to execute on, there are a couple of options:
Turn to your community for help
While you may not have experience doing everything required to meet your launch goal, chances are others in your community do.
Jump into the Facebook Groups you’re a part of, or reach out to those who you’ve built relationships with in your industry or niche, and simply ask for help.
Something as simple as:
“Hey! I’m looking to publish a book. Do you happen to have any resources you can share on how I might manage the editing process?”
If you’ve been good about building your community and always providing value, you’ll have no trouble finding people who are willing to help—even if that means your friend reaching out to another friend for help.
Be resourceful
One of the greatest strengths you can have as an entrepreneur is being resourceful. Leverage the incredible access you have to the internet to do some research! Chances are there are articles or YouTube videos that can help you along the way with the steps you’re not too sure how to accomplish.
And if you get stuck—like there’s just no getting around a certain roadblock—find a way to go over it instead.
Some other things to consider if you’re managing your launch on Kickstarter solo: productivity, discipline, and FOCUS!
Yes, it is going to be a lot of work for one person to manage; and yes, it is possible.
How? By mastering productivity.
Once you have your plan and your team (even if that’s just yourself) in place, the only step left is to move into The Marketing & Launch Phase.
Let’s do this!
The marketing strategies you choose and how you approach your launch will vary depending on what your current foundation (if any) looks like.
For example, if you don’t have an audience, reaching out to them wouldn’t be an option. Likewise, if you don’t have a big budget, advertising might not be a main focus for you.
During The Marketing & Launch Phase it’s important to follow these steps:
There are going to be a lot of moving pieces and important deadlines to hit during this phase, but there’s no time to panic. Keep your project plan close (and your project manager even closer).
Before I dive into some of the key marketing strategies used throughout The Freedom Journal campaign, let’s talk about how to setup your Kickstarter page.
As is the case with everything you create in your business, including your business itself, you have to be able to clearly talk about and present what it is you have to offer, who it’s for, and why they should care. This is critical to the success of your Kickstarter campaign, and it all happens on your Kickstarter page.
So, how do you do it?
“The best way to engage an audience and get them attracted to a Kickstarter campaign is by telling a great story through the video and the campaign page.”
This advice came straight from our crowdfunding expert Brandon.
Let’s break it down.
You know you need a great video, a great design and layout, and a great story to engage your visitor and make them want to learn more. But, of course, it’s not just as simple as slapping a few images together and talking on the mic about why you’re on Kickstarter in the first place.
Here’s the scoop.
Telling a great story includes giving your audience an opportunity to identify with you, in addition to sharing a compelling reason why they should care. What can your idea do for them?
For me, that started with sharing the power of setting and accomplishing goals.
First, I hired a video guy, Caleb Wojcik, to create the video. Knowing how important this aspect of the Kickstarter page would be, I didn’t want to take any chances.
Caleb helped me storyboard the flow of the video, which quickly became our guide for the overall story we were going to share on The Freedom Journal Kickstarter page.
Once we had a storyboard to follow, it was time to press record. In the video I not only explained what The Freedom Journal is, I also shared where I was personally before and after setting and accomplishing one big goal.
I then made a promise to anyone who chose to back The Freedom Journal: The Freedom Journal won’t let you fail in setting and accomplishing your #1 goal.
Check out our Kickstarter video and notice how I give you an opportunity to identify with me as an individual, in addition to sharing a compelling reason why you should care (i.e., what The Freedom Journal can do for you).
You can also check out this behind-the-scenes video from Caleb where he talks about the process of creating the video for The Freedom Journal campaign.
So we had our video, which is incredibly powerful, but to take it a step further—so viewers weren’t just hearing the story from me—we also reached out to other industry experts and successful entrepreneurs and got their take. We asked them how setting and accomplishing goals has impacted their life and where they are today.
Each of the images below was clickable and led to a video of these individuals sharing their journey as it relates to goal-setting.
With the help of things like this image and the videos that accompanied it, every section of The Freedom Journal Kickstarter page shared another part of the story.
Remember to keep this in mind: once you have your story and your video, it’s time to implement layout and design of your Kickstarter page in a way that helps you continue to visually communicate that story.
First tip when it comes to the overall layout and design: make it easy for visitors to consume.
Second tip: maximize the space available.
When I say make it easy for visitors to consume, I mean, instead of having long, chunky paragraphs and excessive and busy graphics—both of which will contribute to confusion, overwhelm, and a quick exit for your visitor—make the flow simple. This includes easy navigation down the page, which can be accomplished with a variety of content like:
In terms of maximizing your available space, you can play around with different layouts and collages that help you tell more of your story in less space.
For example, instead of using one large image to show your visitor what it is you’re creating, use multiple smaller images to help communicate what actually owning your product “looks like.”
Here, instead of just putting a single image of The Freedom Journal on the page, we’ve communicated a whole lifestyle that the visitor is now associating with owning the Journal.
And finally, a quick time-saving tip for your layout and design: mock up your design beforehand in a program like Photoshop so you can make tweaks and changes outside of the Kickstarter platform.
Once you’re happy with the overall layout and look, then you can format it in Kickstarter. This will make the implementation of your Kickstarter page design a lot easier—and quicker.
Now that you have your Kickstarter video and page created, you might be thinking:
Will I get featured by Kickstarter?
Of course the hope is YES! But you have to be realistic. There are thousands of campaigns launching on Kickstarter at all hours of the day, seven days a week. The chances of being featured are quite slim, and unfortunately there isn’t a guide on “how to get featured” (although there are certain things people suspect can help).
Case in point: we had a crowdfunding expert on our team and followed every step he recommended. Our trajectory and the consistency of our campaign was very good. Plus, we hit our funding goal of $25k in less than three hours.
But even with the success of The Freedom Journal campaign, we were never featured by Kickstarter.
Interestingly enough, one year later we launched another journal on Kickstarter called The Mastery Journal: Master Productivity, Discipline and Focus in 100 Days.
We were not only featured by Kickstarter and listed under “popular campaigns,” but we were also marked as a “Project We Love” for almost the entirety of our campaign.
Same exact process, different results.
Now that you have a beautifully crafted and engaging Kickstarter page with all the main elements, let’s talk about the strategies you can use to get people there!
Here are some of the key marketing strategies I put in place leading up to and during The Freedom Journal launch:
At the time, I had interviewed nearly 1,200 successful entrepreneurs, many of whom I went on to build great relationships with as a result of having them on my podcast.
My big ask to them?
“Will you share The Freedom Journal with your audience?”
My ask was of course a lot more detailed than this, but I essentially described what I was creating, gave them a “sneak peak” at the final product, and let them know how I felt this could benefit their audience.
To give you an idea of how seriously I took this ask, here are the stats on the emails sent, starting in early December 2015, and going all the way through February 2016:
This involved everything we were doing with our own content here at Entrepreneurs On Fire and included thirty-three days of Freedom Journal-focused interviews, blog posts, and emails.
That meant for every day The Freedom Journal campaign was live, Kate and I were producing multiple pieces of content directly related to The Freedom Journal and setting and accomplishing goals so we could lead people to the Kickstarter campaign.
The interest campaign that helped me gain proof of concept proved to be an incredibly valuable asset during this phase, as it gave me a direct connection to those who had raised their hand and let me know they were interested. I wanted to make sure those who had expressed early interest were on this journey with me in real time—not just on the outside looking in.
In order to accomplish this, I sent out live updates around key milestones throughout our project and shared a ton of behind-the-scenes content around how the team was making it all happen.
“From success to significance” is a saying I’m very passionate about, and The Freedom Journal launch was a perfect time to put it into practice.
Pencils of Promise (PoP) is an organization that helps build schools in developing countries, and I decided to partner with PoP in a special way. For every funding goal hit during our Kickstarter campaign, I personally donated $25k to PoP, which is the cost to build a school.
This partnership allowed backers to not only feel great about giving themselves the gift of The Freedom Journal, but also about helping give the gift of education to those less fortunate.
Throughout the Kickstarter campaign I knew I wanted to run ads on social media in addition to our regular promotional efforts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
I chose Facebook as my main paid advertising channel because I felt that would give the highest return on investment (ROI).
Here’s a look at the numbers:
I ran Facebook ads every day The Freedom Journal campaign was live on Kickstarter.
The total ad spend was $3,036, and the conversions from those ads resulted in over $17,000 for the campaign! That’s a 490 percent ROI!
Here are my top two performing Facebook ad images from the campaign:
The marketing strategy my team put together and executed resulted in a huge push. Remember, the more places you can be found—especially during your launch—the better.
To give you an idea of the reach of our marketing efforts, here’s what was created and published leading up to and during launch:
All of this content being sent out, shared, and consumed over those thirty-three days kept us top of mind and visible in A LOT of different places.
Now that you have your marketing plan together, it’s time to focus on making your launch day an EVENT.
For us, that meant hosting an in-person launch party in San Diego, where we invited friends, family members, and followers to join us in celebrating the launch of The Freedom Journal.
The launch party not only generated added excitement around The Freedom Journal going live, it also gave us the opportunity to connect with some of our biggest fans and share the physical Journal with them.
John Lee Dumas/Kate Erickson launch their Freedom Journal in San Diego, CA at Co-mmunity Shared Workspace. Photo credit: Paul Gero.
This was a huge benefit for those who attended because they were the first to receive a physical copy of The Freedom Journal if they pledged at a certain level. This “open pledge” strategy at the launch party resulted in dozens of additional pledges, along with multiple up-pledges.
But that’s not all.
Once you make sure your launch day is an event, you then have to be prepared to keep your momentum going strong throughout your campaign. Otherwise, it could fizzle out fast.
Successfully keeping your momentum going is not easy; it will require a lot of creativity and time. But I can assure you (and I speak from personal experience) that much of the overall success of The Freedom Journal had to do with my dedication to Kickstarter communications and pushes throughout.
One strategy I used to keep the momentum going strong during The Freedom Journal campaign: The “Up Pledge” strategy. The “Up Pledge” strategy is just what it sounds like: I leveraged the access Kickstarter gave me to those who had already pledged to the campaign and gave them incentives if they upped their pledge.
For example, I might email every backer who already pledged at the one or two-pack level and tell them if they up their pledge within the next twenty-four hours to a four-pack, then I would send them a fifth copy of The Freedom Journal, for free, on the same day.
This strategy as a whole resulted in over 413 backers upping their pledges!
Another strategy I used throughout the campaign was introducing new pledge levels based on brainstorming sessions with my team and the feedback I was receiving from visitors (what people were emailing and asking me for that wasn’t already available).
I introduced a total of four new pledge levels during the campaign, and these four levels ended up bringing in an additional $33,000 in pledges.
Sometimes small tweaks can make a big difference!
Anyone who is familiar with Kickstarter will tell you that the very beginning of a campaign and the very end of a campaign are the most important parts. This is where you either have added excitement or added urgency for people to take action.
So, as your campaign is coming to an end, think about ways you can leverage that urgency to get an even wider reach and more eyes on your campaign. For us, that was celebrating the final three hours of The Freedom Journal campaign with a worldwide audience on live stream.
The simplest way to do this would be starting a Facebook Live, and inviting people to join you so they can ask questions and chat about what has happened during the course of the campaign.
Congratulations!
You’ve not only made it to the end of this guide, but you’ve also just learned exactly what it takes to go from idea to launch on Kickstarter.
Take a few minutes to visualize yourself at the end of your Kickstarter campaign, just having poured your blood, sweat and tears into an incredible project that now has a worldwide reach.
Doesn’t it feel amazing?
Hopefully you’re now onto the fulfillment stage, which is when you’ll figure out how to get your product created, perfected, and shipped to your backers!
Your journey has only just begun, and I can assure you it’s not only going to be an exciting one, it’ll also change your life. Launching The Freedom Journal on Kickstarter definitely changed my life, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
But not just because of its success:
It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made because it has created the exact ripple effect I visualized when I was just starting my project. Since launch, countless individuals have reached out to me and shared that they found me and The Freedom Journal through Kickstarter.
They took a leap of faith. Even though they didn’t know who I was, they chose to back the campaign.
Now, they’ve gone on to accomplish their #1 goal in 100 days.
Our Freedom and Mastery Journal Facebook group has nearly 9,000 individuals who are sharing their journey with one another every single day.
Elizabeth Granados is one of them, and she reached out to me to tell me her story:
Minutes away from folding up shop and giving up on her entrepreneurial dreams, Elizabeth jumped on Kickstarter to research some successful projects to see if her idea might make it.
During her research, she came across The Freedom Journal. Skeptical and apprehensive, she clicked the pledge button. A month later, The Freedom Journal arrived on Elizabeth’s doorstep, and over the next 100 days she used her Freedom Journal to set and accomplish her #1 goal of launching her own Kickstarter campaign.
The result?
Elizabeth’s campaign for Little Nomad was funded in just three days.
You can check out Elizabeth’s full story here, or listen to her tell it herself on the Entrepreneurs On Fire podcast.
Our launch of The Freedom Journal on Kickstarter went far beyond what I ever could have imagined, and that’s the beauty of it. You can either spend a lot of time wondering what might happen if you actually launch your idea, or you can follow the proven steps I’ve shared here and just LAUNCH IT!
I decided to believe in my idea and trust the process, and because I just launched it, I’ve now had the amazing opportunity to impact tens of thousands of people worldwide.
Ready to set and accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days? Check out The Freedom Journal today and use promo code “PAT” for a special SPI discount.
This week we’re continuing crowdfunding month with an incredible story about two women, an iPhone, and a vision. Though they had so little, they set out on their Kickstarter journey with their goal set about as high as it could go: To create the …
As someone who’s been in online business for almost a decade now, I’m grateful to have met and built friendships with many amazing people, such as Amanda Bond and Greg Hickman, who’ve been successfully selling products online for years. I’ve learned so much from these people over the years, and have been truly inspired by all of them.
I’ve poured all of that learning and inspiration into my recent online course launches: Smart From Scratch and Power-Up Podcasting. I’m so thankful for that.
As I continue to learn more (there’s always more to learn!) about selling and promoting products online, there’s one question that I keep asking myself (and, as I’ve realized, I’m not alone in this). That question is:
Open cart or closed cart?
When it comes to the promotion of your product, is it better to leave the cart open all the time and work on an automated long-term promotion sequence? Or should you pack the promotion and campaign into a shorter time period and have a closed cart during specific times of year?
Which is better? That’s what we’re going to tackle in this post today.
When you keep the cart open, you can continually promote your product with the goal of getting more people to buy it. That makes sense in a lot of ways. If people want your product, why would you want to close the cart and deny them the opportunity? The truth is that you don’t, of course.
Another positive reason for keeping your cart open is the generous timeframe you have to focus on building funnels and sequences that can help promote your product as soon as people enter your email list. After those funnels and sequences are constructed, you can really hone in on marketing and getting people to jump excitedly into that sales funnel.
With an open cart, you can also keep tweaking the sequence over time, like a scientist testing a hypothesis again and again. By doing that, you’ll collect a lot of valuable data, which will allow you to more fully understand what works and what doesn’t.
You’re also going to decipher the times of year that are best to promote and sell your product. Summertime between June and August may work well, and perhaps it’s slower during the winter months. These are details that will inform your strategy going forward.
You will also begin to learn how outside marketing channels might affect your sales. With an open cart, you have all the time to figure out what external factors can do to your selling and promotion efforts. And with time comes data, and with data comes opportunities for making tweaks.
Once you really nail down those sequences after tweaking and testing based on the data you’ve collected, you’re going to have a much more successful go at converting the people who enter your funnel into customers.
With that said, I have to mention two recent guest posts on the Smart Passive Income blog that do an amazing job of explaining sales funnels and how you can use sales funnels to fuel your business:
Special thanks again to Greg and Amanda for your knowledge and insight!
Like with anything, there’s also a downside to having an open cart. One disadvantage is that you limit the opportunity to include scarcity into your marketing efforts. Scarcity instills the “fear of missing out” (FOMO) into your audience. This is done in a few different ways–either by giving your audience a specific timeframe to purchase your product, or emphasizing that there is a limited amount of whatever you are selling. The FOMO increases the number of people who will take action, especially those who are on the fence. When your cart is open all time, you don’t have that sense of urgency. We will discuss more about how to create scarcity when we talk about the advantages of having a closed cart in the section below.
Another downside of having an open cart is that there’s a possibility that you may, if you don’t carefully construct your sequences and your funnels, overwhelm your subscribers. If your subscribers feel like you’re always promoting, it’s easy for them to take it for granted. and they won’t really ever take action. If you always have the opportunity to buy something, there’s always going to be time to make excuses to not buy.
You also risk coming off as overly aggressive in your promotion. Nobody wants that, especially if they don’t necessarily need what you’re offering at the moment, which is all the more reason why it’s important to know exactly what’s going on with your email list.
With an open cart, with everything automated and hands-off, there’s also a chance that you’ll forget about your cart altogether. You won’t forget about sales, obviously, but there’s definitely a chance you will, once things are automated and set in motion, become a little complacent about improving the workflow or fine-tuning the sales funnel. Things may be working, to an extent, but think of how much better they could work if you took the time to analyze the process you’ve set up, in addition to having some automation.
The approach that I’ve used, and I think successfully, is the closed cart. And by that I mean there’s a specific timeframe in which the cart is open and closed. Part of the time, the cart is open. Part of the time (most of the time), the cart is closed. And in both time periods, you’re strategic about the timeline, the process, and whole funnel.
The pros in going with a limited open cart and then a deadline closed cart are that you can, as I mentioned earlier, inject a feeling of scarcity. So there is a time limit in a closed cart, and that has the potential of inspiring a rush of people to buy before they’ll no longer have access. Let me give you an example:
Here’s how it went during my recent Smart From Scratch launch.
The cart was only open for a specific period of time, and my audience knew when it was going to close. But, even with that knowledge, a whopping 44 percent of total sales came in on that last day because of the sense of scarcity I injected into an email:
Here’s a screenshot of the gross sales from the launch. As you can see, on that last day, Friday, a big spike in sales.
Note: As you can also see, there were some sales on Saturday, after the cart close date, but those were individuals who were having technical difficulties prior to the closing, and we wanted to make sure we didn’t punish them for something that was out of their control.
It’s also important to honor the deadlines you create. It just adds more clarity to the process, for your audience and for business.
In addition to creating scarcity and FOMO, with a closed cart setup you are more able to make an event out of it, because it’s not something that happens all the time. You can pour your energy into it, build momentum, promote it across multiple platforms and touchpoints before the cart closes. A closed cart also empowers you to be more persistent and regular with email communication and promotion to your audience. Since you have an end date, people will know that your promotion and emailing has an end date too.
One aspect of the closed cart approach I really love is it allows you to work closely with your students, or new members, or new customers after the launch period (i.e., open cart) is closed. You can keep your focus on the students (if you’re selling an online course) or your customers. You can be there for them, making sure that they are having a great experience, that the course or product is living up to their expectations. And, if you get feedback from your customers that it’s not doing what it needs to be doing, you have the time to make sure that things improve without actually worrying about the marketing side at the same time.
Before I go any further, I just wanted to clarify here that I’m leaning heavily on selling and promoting an online course, specifically. That’s what I’ve had the most experience with so far (with a physical product experiment happening now!), so that’s what I’ll be talking about for the most part.
To be more accurate about what I’ve done for previous product launches, I’ve really used an open-closed cart launch. Because, at times it’s open, at times it’s closed—and everything in between is thoroughly planned and managed.
So that’s the challenge of an open-closed cart launch like that. It’s exhausting. It takes a ton of energy and time from myself and the team. It’s an “all hands on deck” approach to creating, promoting, selling, and managing your product funnel for the long-term.
Another facet of the open-closed cart approach is that it demands more hands-on attention. While the cart is closed, especially as it pertains to an online course where you have students (and more so if you have office hours, which I do for my courses), you spend a lot of time in customer service mode—giving everyone an opportunity to ask questions, whether it’s through live chat or on social media or through email.
The quicker you can get to the questions from your audience, the more likely it is they will follow through on purchasing your product because they’re going to know a person (you and/or your team) is actually there on the other end paying attention to them.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by an open-closed cart launch, there is a middle ground. It’s a way to produce what feels like an open-closed situation, just with a little added boost of automation from a tool called Deadline Funnel, which helps to add scarcity even in an evergreen sales funnel.
David Siteman Garland, of the Create Awesome Online Courses Cheat Sheet, originally recommended Deadline Funnel to me. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link.] He was a guest on Smart Passive Income Podcast Session 136.
Deadline Funnel allows you to, as people come into your sequence or email list, create time-based promotions. So, after someone comes into your sequence or email list, Deadline Funnel creates scarcity by giving them only a specific amount of time to take action before that opportunity disappears. So it’s an automated form of scarcity.
And that’s your open-closed cart variant. Again, you can try that out with Deadline Funnel.
You may be thinking perhaps, “why would you close a digital product when it could be open all the time?” Let me reiterate why I recommend, based on my experience, going with an open-closed cart approach.
I know some people who have started with open-closed cart approach, and then have converted their courses to more of an evergreen kind of launch. That’s definitely something that I’m willing to experiment with as well.
Now it’s your turn.
I know there are a lot of you in the SPI audience who know even better than I do what works and what doesn’t when it comes to open and closed carts. So, I want to give you the opportunity to share those experiences!
In the comments below, tell us: What has worked for you? What hasn’t? Share your advice. I really want this to be a collaborative, ongoing discussion. One of the greatest joys about the Smart Passive Income audience is that it’s a learning environment. It’s a place to learn, for me and for you! That aspect of the community is so important to me.
That’s what SPI is all about. Learning from each other. Learning from our experiences. Learning on our paths toward bigger and brighter things.
Welcome to my July 2017 Monthly Income Report. Thanks for checking it out!
Each month, I write a detailed report about my online businesses, including what I’ve been up to, the lessons I’ve learned, and, of course, the money I’ve earned online. I…
Great news, SPI family: Amy Porterfield has returned to the podcast for yet another insightful, actionable episode I know you’re going to love. Today, she’s covering everything an online business owner needs to know about list building, …
This was my first year experiencing what it was like to create and sell online courses. With one public course launched (Smart From Scratch) launched earlier in the year, and another one that just launched last month (Power-Up Podcasting), I’m already experiencing the benefits I always heard other course creators talk about:
Increased income, yes. But, more importantly, increased amounts of success stories.
Truly, there’s no better way to package up information you have to solve a problem, and provide a win for your customer while also getting paid at the same time.
As an advisor now to Teachable, the online platform I use to host and sell my online courses, I knew there were tons of other course creators out there—many more and different experiences than my own—who could offer tips to those who are just starting out. [Full Disclosure: I’m a compensated advisor and an affiliate for Teachable.]
So here they are, 31 course creators from various niches with their #1 tip for creating and selling online courses:
1. Do not prepare an online course for selling. Create an online course for what you love to do and then sell it. You will earn a lot if you tell a topic that you love to do.
– Resit, Master of Project Academy
2. Stop worrying all the time about how you will sell your course and start worrying about how you will create such a good course that will provoke a real change in your students’ lives. Then, I promise you the money will come. Great content means good reviews, and good reviews mean more money.
– David Perálvarez, Club SiliCODE Valley
3. Build content that people can’t find anywhere else in the world for the same price or at the same level of quality. If you do both at the same time, sales will roll in like crazy.
– Dakota Wixom, QuantCourse
4. Stop making excuses as to why you aren’t qualified to teach, set a deadline, and commit to that deadline. Do not let yourself get distracted by trying to make everything perfect. It will never be perfect. Strive for professionalism, but don’t derail yourself in the chase of perfection. You can’t fix what you don’t launch. So launch it, learn, tweak, and repeat.
More advice from Sarah on her experience getting started: I lurked around the SPI and Teachable communities for 14 months. I listened to all the course-related podcasts Pat did. And I got stuck in a cycle of trying to gather all this intelligence. I wish I had stopped going into “research” mode and just committed that time to DOING IT. Finally, in January I committed to launching my course by the first week of March. I did it, and got 52 students. I was actually literally sitting in the audience at a conference Pat was speaking at and I was getting student after student and refreshing my app to see how much money had come in!
It was an amazing feeling and I only wish I had done it SOONER :).
– Sarah, User Research Mastery
5. For a fast and profitable launch, plan a launch on Instagram. We flipped $2k in ad spend into $60k worth of sales on our Teachable course. Micro-influencers are the way to go!
– Julie Cabezas, Social Brand School
6. Each one of us has a secret passion. Maybe you know more about Star Trek than anyone on this (or any) planet. Maybe you can recite the relative strengths and weaknesses of every car on the market. Maybe you have all your grandmother’s recipes for your family’s special foods. You think you’re the only one who cares about these things. You are not. Use your secret passion as material for an online course and people will respond. Because people respond to passion.
– Eric Goldman, Profit Leader Academy
7. Test your idea first. Don’t waste any time creating a course unless you have a solid list ready to buy it. Start small with blog posts and expand as the traffic steadily increases. Launch your course when your audience starts asking for it.
– Sarah Crosley, The Creative Boss: Create the Ultimate Opt-In Offer
8. Don’t wait . . . set a date and get out there and pre-sell (better yet, create your webinar date to launch your yet-to-be-created course). Nothing will light a fire fast enough knowing that you have to get it done.
– Susie Parker, Family Success Academy: Baby Naps Made Easy
9. Don’t try to be perfect.
– Cassie Zeider, Mommy & Me Wellness & Nutrition
10. No course is ever perfect when it launches. If you try to make your course perfect before you launch, you will NEVER launch. It’s okay to start with an initial version of your course that you improve on after receiving feedback from your students.
SPI is the primary reason I was able to launch my course. Without the SPI podcast, I would likely still be tweaking my course trying to get it to be perfect before I launched. Regardless of whether I’m chosen or not to be featured, I just want to say thanks for all the GREAT content your team gives away as it helped me tremendously.
– Daniel Milner, Make TV Easy
11. The number one thing people need to know is to sell something that people actually need. And then know a thing or two about marketing to sell it. Love Pat Flynn. Love Teachable. Love helpful people and making a living doing it!
– Jen Kamel, VBACfacts Academy: The Truth About VBAC™ for Professionals
12. Teach MORE THAN your competitors for FREE. Selling is nothing but teaching genuinely. If you just teach without holding anything back, genuinely, and help people, everything becomes very easy. Why I am saying this? Because it’s not something I had planned before my course launch. It’s something I realised last month. My “Aha!” moment. After looking at last 4 months’ stats.
I did $20,000 in sales in the last 4 months without running a single Facebook ad or any kind of promotion. I have just 11 videos on my YouTube channel. But those 11 videos teach more than other paid courses. Somehow people are finding those videos, getting amazing value, and subscribing to my paid course.
– Mubaid Syed, T-Shirt Profit Academy
13. Roadmap actual deliverables and stick to a schedule that’s conducive to producing the outcomes you need to meet your plan. Too many entrepreneurs spend three years “making” a course, and not a single buyer will ever be exposed or even hear about it!
Our current course is doing well over $25k/month in recurring and we’re moving all of the outside stuff into Teachable as we speak!
– Scot Smith, Automated Inbound: Rainmaker University
14. Plan out your marketing and promotion strategy even before you build your course.
– Amir West, Online Entrepreneur Life: Amazon Phenomenon
15. Business success is not dependent on the size of your email list, nor what you’re passionate about. A large unresponsive list is a massive cost centre and your passions don’t mean a thing if people don’t want to pay for it.
Find a deep unmet need or hidden desire waiting to be addressed. Address that in your course, and then make THAT your passion. If you can do that, even a small list can be very responsive and profitable; and you’ll have a thriving business. You guys are doing such a stellar job towards making it possible for solopreneurs to be successful. Just a BIG thank you!
– Vikram Anand, Get Ahead Fast™
16. It’s all about creating a detailed, powerful outline. Armed with that, you’ll know how much of your course you can give away for free to attract the right audience, which parts of your course to promote or add to your blog/podcast, and how to build a sales page that highlights what you’ll share with people.
– Regina Anaejionu, Business School for Humans: Monetize and Market Your Mind
17. Whatever topic you have in mind right now, make it 5 times smaller. The biggest mistake is to think you have to cover everything in one step.
– Kerstin, Fluent Language School
18. Stop reading about it. Taking action is the best teacher! For years I have been studying marketing strategies, read articles, listened to podcasts (SPI rocks!). The more I studied, the more overwhelmed I became. I finally stopped worrying about it, moved my business to Teachable and simply took action. My business income quintupled (literally!) after doing those things. This is after 10 years of struggling with the business. Pat and Teachable, thank you!
– David Wallimann, Guitar Playback
19. Start right now even if you don’t have everything figured out. If you believe in yourself and the online course you want to create to help others, you’ll find your way to get there no matter what.
– Arantxa Mateo, 32 Mondays: What to Eat to Lose Weight
20. Just do it! Perfection kills progress. Like Pat, I live in San Diego. I’m a huge fan of the show. I literally shot my class in my living room. I duct-taped together my first sales funnel and I was trying and failing at Facebook ads on Black Friday (my launch day, which now I hear is the WORST day to launch anything, LOL). Now a few short months later it has made about $50,000 and enrollment has been closed much of that time. Testing deadline funnel now. Yes I will be adding more courses ASAP!
P.S. Did I mention I love Pat’s podcast, Smart Passive Income? It is likely one of the stories on there that got me to try a course. My first business is ecommerce.
– Gina Downey, Academy for Dance
21. VALIDATE, then create. Before pouring time and money into an online course, make sure that people will buy it by actually ASKING people to buy it! You may be able to get 100 people to sign up to be beta testers for your course, but if no one is willing to pay you for the course, then it’s not worth creating.
When I created my first online course, I sent a few people in my audience a personalized email where I gave them a description of what the course was and what it would include. If they were interested, I asked them if they wanted to pre-purchase the course at a special rate (yes, before it was built!). I made $8,000 off of the pre-sale, which validated that people wanted my course. I spent the next few months creating the course, and launched to my list of only 2,000 at the time. My first launch did $41k in sales. Validate the idea, then create the product.
– Abbey Ashley, The Virtual Savvy: VA Bootcamp
22. The number one tip I would give to course creators is start building your list immediately. Always be growing your audience and remember to nurture it as you grow. If you have a great audience who wants to hear what you have to say, you will be successful in your online course creation and sales!
– Fleur Ottaway, Venture Digital: Get Results from Your Facebook Ads
23. Jump and then figure out how to open the parachute. I started my course live before I had all the content developed. Each week I had 15 people who were showing up to my office to learn, so I needed to make sure it was ready for them. Eight weeks later my course was developed, recorded, and uploaded to Teachable. Over $70k in 6 months later and I’m happy I didn’t wait until it was “ready.”
I teach mindfulness from the Christian perspective as it differs from the Buddhist perspective (in a respectful way).
– Gregory Bottaro, Catholic Psych Academy: Take Control of Your Life Today
24. Don’t pressure yourself to create one module or even one PDF of the course BEFORE you’ve pre-launched and pre-sold the idea. That pressure can be a major mental block, and you’ll never take action to get it out of your brain and into Teachable (#speakingfromexperience).
So instead, craft your pre-sales campaign, do that, and then once the dollars are in and there’s PROOF that your people are willing to put their money into your idea . . . then your mental blocks will magically turn into action.
– Elise Darma, InstaGrowth Boss
25. Overcome any hesitations, any procrastination, any fear but writing a list about how fabulous you are, how helpful your course will be, what benefits you’ll be bringing to their lives. Jump up and down, get super excited, and GO! You’re now in the right buzzing mindset and vibrational vantage point to pour the right energy into your work. YOU’RE GOING TO NAIL IT!
– Heather, The Brain Trainer
26. Differentiate yourself and your course. Don’t be one of a thousand teaching HTML, or healthy lifestyles. Find something that makes you different. Find a way to be different. It’s the only way you can stand out and build a real business. If you’re the same as everyone else, no one has a reason to enroll in YOUR course. Differentiate yourself and make that differentiator your competitive advantage.
– Mark Lassoff, LearnToProgram: Become a Professional Developer
27. Start. Like, now. No, really. Like, do it. You’ll never learn or have success with course building if you never get started! Love the blog! Thanks for all you do
– Sarah, The Writing Room: Living an Inspired Life
28. Grab that camera (or phone as I did) and start recording. It will not be the best course, for sure. The market will decide if it’s good or not.
– Frici, Digital Lifestyle: Online T-Shirt Business in 3 Easy Steps – The Crash Course
29. Find one person and walk them through your exact process of the course you’re considering creating. Each step of the way becomes your working outline for the course and helps identify any steps you might overlook. As an added bonus, this person becomes your true raving fan and an amazing testimonial. Teachable rocks!
– Jeff Rose, The Online Advisor Growth Formula
30. Engage with your audience. Focus on helping people, money will follow.
– Sam (Sanjay) J, TIBCO Learning
31. Sell as you create! By sharing what you are working on, your fans feel like they are part of the process and they will be rooting for your success. Plus they will be thinking about getting the class when it comes out. I think it is enticing to know about a product that you can’t have yet and by the time it comes out they have convinced themselves that they need it and they jump at the chance to buy. Offering a special price for early buyers also removes a consideration and makes the purchase a no-brainier. Just make sure you deliver the good so they will come back for the next class
My first class literally launched 5 days ago and I already have 246 sales. I am not sure if that is awesome by other’s standards but I am beyond thrilled! I have created class content as a guest instructor for other companies like Craftsy, Lifebook (Willowing.org), and Wanderlust (Everything Art) to learn the ropes but there is nothing as satisfying as creating your own course from soup to nuts on your own platform. I just wanted to make sure you knew I am a newbie at creating courses on Teachable, so if you want that perspective, call me!
– Lindsay Weirich, Essential Tools and Techniques for Watercolor Painting
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this post! If you’re thinking of starting an online course of your own, now’s definitely the time. It can be a massive game-changer in your business income generation, but more importantly, it’s the ultimate way to serve those who are looking to you for advice.
For an online course platform that works and is easy to setup, check out Teachable!
[Full Disclosure: I’m a compensated advisor and an affiliate for Teachable.]
Today’s episode is a special one. You’ll get to hear a coaching call with entrepreneur Amy Torres, who’s been creating courses, blogging, coaching, and writing books for years. Her latest course is about to launch, and she’s go…
What’s the number one goal of content marketing? Besides the obvious answer of generating leads and making conversions, it’s maximizing engagement. Content marketing thrives on engagement! You want your audience to take an active interest in your content and interact with your brand. This typically comes in the form of likes, shares, comments, etc. ButContinue reading 
Today’s episode stars not one guest, but three! Joining me are Dr. Shannon Irvine, Rob Stuart, and Dr. Barbara Cohen—all students from the beta version of my latest course, Power-Up Podcasting. All three have had incredible experiences along th…
I used to hate selling. It made me feel slimy. Despite earning a living for years through online business, I never felt comfortable delivering a sales pitch. That’s all changed, and I’ve invited the brilliant Chalene Johnson here today to e…
Welcome to my June 2017 Monthly Income Report!
I’ve got a great one for you this month, as it includes earnings from my recent Smart From Scratch online course launch. But, as always, let me first share what these income reports are all about, for th…
Although podcasts have been around for over a decade, now is the best time to start one if you haven’t already.
Podcast hosts are standing out from the crowd in their niche. Brands are getting more reach and building bigger, tighter audiences. Coaches are getting more clients, and new entrepreneurs are using podcasts to launch their new businesses, or power-up their existing one.
As with any content platform, when it starts to go mainstream, a lot of people rush into it and fail to have the proper expectations and strategies to make that time worthwhile. Podcasting is an incredibly powerful medium, and these top 10 tips for brand new podcasters come from my own experience hosting several of my own shows, and helping thousands of others create their own.
In December 2008 when SPI was only three months old, I published a blog post announcing my new, upcoming podcast. I even published my first audio file online, just to test my new microphone equipment.
Here is that audio file below. It’s . . . well . . . not my best work:
So that was December 2008. My first episode didn’t come out until July . . .
. . . of 2010.
Yes, that’s a year and a half later. I waited that long because, more than anything, I was scared. I was scared of recording my voice and putting it out there in the world for everyone to judge. I was scared about what people thought about my show, or me as a person, because unlike a written blog post, a recorded audio file (even though you can edit), is a lot harder to “hide behind.”
Eventually, I got over the fear, and thanks to the encouragement of dozens of other supporters, I published the first episode of The Smart Passive Income Podcast in July 2010.
Looking back, I truly wish I had started earlier.
One thing in particular I feared was how people would respond to the sound of my voice. I didn’t like the sound, and I would always cringe when listening to my own recordings.
I still do.
Honestly, I don’t think anyone likes the sound of their own voice.
The truth is, the sound of your voice doesn’t matter. It’s the information and inspiration you share with that voice that matters. So, if you have an accent that you think is “too thick” or a voice that’s high and piercing, it doesn’t matter. You should be podcasting anyway.
And even if people didn’t like your voice for whatever reason, those aren’t the people you’re meant to serve anyway.
The most important tool a podcaster has, besides their voice, is the microphone that captures that voice.
A lot of beginners think they need a setup that costs over $1,000 to get started, which includes not only the microphone, but also the mixer, decompressor, and other metal boxes that have a ton of dials and switches that really just makes things more confusing. Perhaps that was the case back in the day when professional broadcasters were the ones starting podcasts, but nowadays, with the progression in microphone technology over the years, all you need is a quality microphone that plugs into your USB.
Professional audio engineers may cringe to hear that, but let me tell you something about pro audiophiles: they hear everything. They are so talented and involved in what they do, they can notice the difference between two microphones just like a car enthusiast could name a car just by hearing the engine.
Us regular-eared people can still hear the difference between bad audio quality and good audio quality, but with the mics available to us today, most of us can’t tell the difference between an $80 microphone and a $350 microphone.
I paid over $700 in equipment I never used when I started, which is why I was happy to find this bad boy: the Audio-Technica ATR-2100. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link.]
I love my ATR-2100!
I remember when I found out about it too. Big thanks to Father Roderick who mentioned it on Facebook over seven years ago.
This will run you about $70 on Amazon, and it plugs directly into your computer’s USB port. This, and recording software like GarageBand or Audacity, and you’re good to go. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link.]
You may want to upgrade later on when you start to generate an income and make a business out of your podcast, but you may find that even then, you won’t need to upgrade.
For the first few years of the life of my podcast, I had the same thought every Wednesday morning after hitting publish on that week’s podcast episode:
“Woohoo! [Small celebratory dance.] Okay, now, let’s figure out what next week’s episode is going to be about . . . UGH.”
In the beginning, those thoughts about next week’s episode came rather quickly. But over time, the minutes spent thinking about what to do next turned into hours, which turned into days until eventually I began to miss publication dates for my show.
If you allow yourself to “wonder what’s next,” you can be sure that eventually you’ll wonder what happened to your show. Taking time upfront to plan your content calendar will save you so much stress and anxiety when it comes to the production of your show.
Please, no matter where you’re at in your podcasting journey, plan ahead. At the beginning of each quarter, my team and I get together and brainstorm blog post and podcast episode topics for the next quarter. Yes, things change sometimes, but it’s so nice to have an idea of what’s coming next.
If you’ll be inviting guests on your show, it’ll make it easier to schedule. If one of those episodes requires some research, you’ll actually have time to do it. And if you’re planning a launch of a product or some special event, you can plan around that as well and have your podcast episodes support your business better.
For the beginner who has yet to launch their show, try to write down fifteen topics, ideas, or guests you could have on your show, and try to put them in order starting from episode one. Don’t worry about the titles yet; fine tuning that can always come later.
And if you find you can’t list fifteen topics or show ideas yet, that’s a sign that you need to put a little more research in before you light that fuse.
I remember my first one-star review for my show. It was harsh, and it came almost immediately after my first episode came out.
Not a great way to begin.
The reviewer commented on the the fact that I spent time in that first episode sharing my vision of what the podcast will become.
Kind of harsh if you ask me. But it taught me a valuable lesson.
First, an introductory episode (episode #1) that shares what’s coming and gives nothing else to chew on is really just a big fat tease . . . and some people don’t like to be teased. This person had to wait an entire week to finally get the goods, which is not ideal. I should have launched with more than just a “here’s what you can look forward to.”
The launch of your show should be treated like an event, so give your listeners something to bite into! Launching with at least three episodes gives listeners more of an opportunity to dig deeper with you, and it gives them a sense of really what the show is going to be like moving forward.
For you, that means increased downloads, more calls to action inside of people’s ears, increased subscribership, and potentially even more ratings and reviews than you would have received otherwise.
A single episode alone may not resonate with a person, but if there are three, it’s much more likely one of those episodes will hit the mark.
I’ve already mentioned this in a previous tip, but it’s worth mentioning again. Before you launch your show, and even before you begin recording your first episodes, pick a launch date in the future, put it on the calendar, and make a commitment to stick to it.
Beyond that, the date you selected should be treated like it’s the day of a big event because it is!
Think about an actual in-person event that someone might host. Do they, without any notice to anyone else, open doors on the day of the event and hope people come in? Not usually!
Typically, there is quite an effort that goes into letting people know that the event is happening, and that date and the location are always mentioned. You could even set up a contest of sorts, get your friends and family involved, and make this day something fun and memorable for you and all of your new subscribers.
A-listers are the top people in your space, and in terms of people to interview for an episode, they are the ones most podcasters always shoot for.
Having A-listers on your show is great. They can definitely drop some amazing knowledge for you and your audience, and the credibility that comes with interviewing an A-lister is very real. I definitely recommend trying to make that happen, but there are a number of concerns that I need to bring up, especially for the beginning podcaster:
For beginner podcasters, I recommend interviewing the following three groups of people:
Lots of new podcasters have questions about using music and audio clips in their show. Even if it’s just a clip, even if that clip is only one second long, you are putting you and your business at risk by not getting permission to use other people’s intellectual property in your show.
Yes, a podcast is cool because it’s your show and you can build it and structure it in any way you wish, but you still have to follow the rules when it comes to legal stuff, or else you could get in trouble.
Not all podcasters follow the rules though, so just because you hear an audio clip or a song on another podcast doesn’t mean you can use one too. You don’t know if the other podcast licensed the use of that clip or song, which is also possible (but typically very expensive).
The best practice, especially when starting out, is to create the music yourself, hire someone to do it for you (and you own the song), or use a service that has royalty-free audio that you’re allowed to use in your podcast.
Here are a couple of resources I’m excited to share with you that may help you here at the start:
I once asked a friend of mine how often he checked his podcast downloads stats. His answer?
At least ten times a day!
Ten! That’s a lot, but I don’t blame him. One of the funnest parts of podcasting is seeing exactly how many people are on the other end listening. At the same time, it can also be one of the most depressing podcaster rituals, because those numbers may not be as big as you want them to be.
It’s always good to want to grow, and so you should always strive for bigger download numbers, but at the same time, I want to help you put into perspective what these numbers actually mean.
A podcast with only 100 downloads an episode may seem like it’s not going anywhere. But imagine this:
A room filled with 100 people, and you’re up on stage at the front. People came there to watch you and take in every word you said. For many people, that imagery scares people to death. Why? Because that’s a lot of people to stand up in front of and deliver a message to!
To me, a podcast is no different. It’s your message, on a digital stage, that people have chosen to listen to. You may only start with small numbers, but remember those numbers represent actual human beings who are interested in you and your message, and could potentially share your message with others too.
Is there no wonder why I prefer podcasting over speaking on stage? It’s not because I don’t have to travel and I can record straight from home. That’s a plus, yes, but the amazing thing is that in order to get in front of hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of people, each week, all I need to do is record an episode from the comfort of my own home.
Imagine trying to hold a real-life event each week with that many people, and how much that would cost.
An SOP, or standard operating procedure, is a written list of steps or requirements that you (or another person) can use for a repetitive task. When you have one for your podcast, it makes life SO much easier! After you get started, creating an episode from start to finish starts to become second nature. In the beginning, however, it’s almost like you’re learning how to walk for the first time.
As you create your episodes, write down the steps you take. Every little thing matters, from where you drop your files in the host that you choose, to your show notes and even how you promote your show on social media.
The benefit of writing this down is you don’t have to waste time thinking anymore, and you could even hand that off to someone else to produce most of it for you in the future so that all you have to do is record content, and everything else is taken care of.
I’ve helped thousands of people start their own podcast, and I want to help thousands more. Like I said, it’s the number one content platform available to you for sharing your message in the most impactful way, and if you’re hoping to build a strong rapport with your audience, there’s no better way to do it.
I created a free podcasting cheat sheet for those of you who are interested in starting your own show. The cheat sheet includes worksheets to help you learn more about what your show is going to be about and how it’ll stand out from the crowd, getting started with your content calendar, and also a checklist for all the things you need to do to from now until launch date to get your show up on iTunes and other directories.
Click here to download the podcasting cheat sheet for free, and I look forward to seeing your show up on iTunes soon! If you found this article helpful, please click here to share it!
These 10 Tips for Brand New Podcasters will help you get your podcast started!
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