Create Amazing Rewards
One of the things that sets crowdfunding apart from fundraising is that, with crowdfunding, your contributors actually get something back from your campaign in the form of unique pledge rewards. Great pledge rewards motivate contributions: It gives your audience the knowledge there is an exchange taking place, not just a one way transaction.
What Is A Pledge Reward?
A pledge reward is a way of giving something back to the people who help fund your project. Depending upon the category of your project, pledge rewards can be in the form of experiences, products, acknowledgements and accreditations; anything that is related to your project and that you can offer to potential backers.
Without them, there is no funding. A single creative, well-priced reward can make a project, no matter how bad a project’s pitch is. Backers care what they get in exchange for their money and are automatically interested in a project if it has something worthwhile to offer. Furthermore, they want to share in a project’s success.
A pledge reward should therefore be better value or more unique than what you would normally offer your product or services for. It’s important to offer something unique, or something with a unique price.
With any project it’s important to have the right balance of what you want to offer and what you can afford to offer. Project owners essentially get to determine what’s a commodity and what’s not; they get to decide what constitutes success; and they get to sculpt how best to reward their own audience. Every project creates its own economy.
How Many Pledge Rewards Can My Project Offer?
Ideally between 5 and 12.
Too few and it gives the impression that the project doesn’t have much to offer. Too many, and the project runs the risk of becoming less gripping and losing the attention of the potential backer. The more options you have the harder it is to make up your mind and a person will likely leave before deciding what to do.
Is There A Minimum Or Maximum Of How Much A Reward Can Cost?
No, there is no limit- but it’s important for each reward to correlate in value in relation to the tier of pledges and to each asking price.
The most successful projects however, redeem the most backing from pledges costing between £10-25. Offering an exciting and affordable reward (like a pre-release or a limited edition item for example) within the £10-£25 range makes involvement in your campaign extremely accessible. When more people get involved with your campaign, your network widens. As a result you can reach out to your new community and ask them to help garner more contributions to reach your funding target.
However, while pledge rewards around the £20 mark are the most popular and help you extend your network and boost publicity, rewards in the £50-100 mark will support the bulk of your fundraising. These rewards will help you reach and exceed your goal, so we recommend having a killer reward that people will want to share with their friends.
It’s important to note though that a project will receive significant amounts of money from both the higher and lower valued pledge rewards, which is why it is important to have a good range of pledges.
What Makes A Good Pledge Reward?
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With any campaign it is important to know your target audience. Importantly, know what to offer and to whom. Within your tiered rewards, be sure to have pledges that appeal to your project’s core following as well as a catchable pledge that caters for a slightly wider audience.
Don’t kid yourself into thinking people are going to be as interested in your project as you are. People want things for their money! Pledge rewards don't have to be expensive: The best rewards are something intimate to the project, and often something that doesn't have a pound value at all. Some project owners have discovered that it’s not necessarily about stuff. It’s about involvement, it’s the warm glow, and it’s access and feeling special. A good pledge reward will get supporters excited about your campaign but at the same time enable them to walk away with a related activity, a token, or some artifact that will always remind them of you and that lets them feel like they played a role. This could be a chance to meet the lead actor in a film for example, a personalised note, a backstage pass, or an exclusive VIP tour of theset. Rewards like these are really personal and it gives another level of involvement for people supporting the project.
You might not want to offer anything of great monetary value that will eat into your fundraising success, but at the same time, be realistic: No one’s going to help fund a project that’s offering £15 for Twitter shout-outs or £30 for a thank-you letter. Nor are they going to pay £10 for a mug. The more a project has to offer, the more inviting it is to a potential backer. This proves that a project is not a charity and is offering something back in return. Remember to ensure that each pledge reward is easy and affordable to deliver: Exhaust all possible contacts you may have and make use of all resources that are readily available to you to come up with some brilliant, exciting and unique offers.
To Summarise, A Good Pledge Reward Is Something That:
• Makes an obvious incentive for supporting
• Connects your audience further to the work
• Is shareable
• Is unique – ("Not your run-of-the-mill thing you can buy on the shelf")
• Flows naturally from your project
