Here we are at week 5 of our 7 week series on how to build your crowdfunding project, and you should pretty much be on top of everything you should be doing. Your team is working hard, you’ve done your research, your story is told, and you have been identifying your crowd. So what are you going to offer your crowd in return for their pledges? This week we are going to talk about Step 4 – Creating Great Rewards.

So to recap on How it Works:

1. Create your project on Crowdfunder
2. Share your idea with the crowd, they pledge cash for rewards
3. Your idea gets funded!

In our previous blogs we discussed:

• How Crowdfunding Works – 6 Steps to Success
• Step 1 – Building your Team
• Step 2 – Your Story
• Step 3 – Identify Your Crowd

Creating Great Rewards

Rewards are benefits, products or services offered by the project. Examples of rewards are thank you tweets, events and experiences, products and mementos of your campaign. Rewarding contributors with prizes can be an effective motivating tool.

Unique incentives capture people’s attention and can be picked up by the press, which in turn can generate traffic to your project. Be creative, so that apart from providing a great item for people to pledge on, it’s something that will get talked about and will generate interest. You can even send media releases to local media outlets, telling them about your unique rewards, and possibly get some free press.

Do you know a high profile individual who might get involved in your campaign? Ask them what incentives they are happy to offer you as rewards.

Draw up a list of as many reward ideas as possible, no matter however extravagant they may be! Structuring the different tiers of rewards and offering better rewards as you move from low to high level peldges is a key feature of maximising the overall contributions you can get from funders. It’s also important to ensure that the tiers and rewards are set at the right levels to correspond with what backers wants and what they are willing to pay for.

Suggestions for Rewards…

• A sample of the product you produce, maybe make it a limited edition
• Nostalgic rewards that make people think back to their childhoods
• Memorabilia, does anyone have anything of celebrity status? (I have a pillowcase signed by Halle Berry)
• Know any celebrity that they can get their photo taken with? (even a local DJ, football hero, author,etc)
• Appeal to their ego. Naming of a product after them? Write a song about them? Offer a part in a play?
• A special experience! Flying, surfing, working on a archaeological dig, co-hosting a TV/Radio show, a balloon or racing car ride?
• Offer your company & take them to dinner. If they are interested in your project, they might enjoy your company for a meal.
• A community offering. A reward of your time spent doing a community activity for them.
• Artwork, with a personalised ‘Thank You’ on it
• A personalised Thank You message on Twitter @them
• Never underestimate the value of home cooked meals, cakes & treats!
• The backers name on a plaque of backers of the project
• A seat with their name on it

These are just a few, if you sit down & think about it, how many can you come up with?

The costs of your Rewards

Make sure you factor shipping into the cost of the rewards. Price of the goods + Shipping/Postage + Crowdfunding Fees + Payment Gateway Fees = Total cost of Reward.

How long will it take to deliver on your Rewards?

Make sure you can comply with the estimated delivery date. Choose a date that gives you plenty of time to meet rewards commitments. The more elaborate and complex they are, they more time they’ll take to prepare to send.