How to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign – Interview with Ebony Love, LoveBug Studios

Update to Original Blog Post

Ebony has run another successful Kickstarter campaign, meeting her goal yet again! This time she launched her own line of exclusive fabric cutting dies, and after successfully meeting her original goal AND her first stretch goal, she is working towards her second stretch goal of $25,000! You can find her project on Kickstater here.

Have you considered crowdfunding your next project?

If so, you definitely want to listen to today's interview with Ebony Love, founder of LoveBug Studios. She ran a successful crowdfunding compaign that generated over 2X her goal (and she admits she had a few #fails along the way).

I was surprised at some of the revelations Ebony shared with me: I thought I understood crowdfunding, but the tactics she used (and those she didn't) turned traditional advice on its head.

Crowdfunding with Ebony Love:

Interview Transcript with Timestamps

0:00:00 MARIA: Welcome everyone this is Maria Peagler with Socialmediaonlineclasses.com. And today I have with me Ebony Love the founder of LoveBug Studios and a successful Kickstarter campaign generator. Welcome, Ebony!

0:02:02 EBONY: Hi Maria. Thanks for having me.

0:02:05 MARIA: Absolutely, Ebony I have wanted to do this interview with you for a while because I was fascinated at the whole Kickstarter campaign that you did. I supported you. I contributed to your Kickstarter campaign. Can you tell our listeners out there a little bit about your campaign and your funding goal?

0:02:30 EBONY: Absolutely, Thank you so much Maria for supporting my campaign it really meant a lot to me to see your support there. When i initially started a campaign it was for a book about fabric die cutting and that particular topic is a very niche topic and there's only a certain segment of the quilting community that's going to be interested in something like that. Before I went to the expense and sort of going down the path of spending all this money investing in illustrators and graphic artists to solve these things. I wanted to make sure that there was actually a market to support this book that i was writing so part of this was market research a sort of test. We have to water a little bit and see if there was enough support for an idea like this to come out with a book for this particular niche. My initial funding goal was $5000 and when I put together my budget, when I thought about was. I'm willing to make an investment in this project and if other people are willing to invest with me as well then, I'm going to kick in some funding. My actual budget was about $10000 for the production of the book and so i set the campaign budget for half of that. If I can raise half the money I can kick in the other half and that would make it ok.

0:04:05 MARIA: Ok, so you came up with the budget of 10000 is like a fifty-fifty.50% you would be putting in and then 50% your contributors will be putting in. Now, what did you end up raising from your $5000 goal?

0:04:26 EBONY: I ended up raising just over $12000 for the project which it only took about 6 or 7 days to hit the $5000 mark and then the whole campaign went for about 30 days. So I was really elated to raise that amount of money so quickly the thing about Kickstarter is that when you set your campaign timeline you set it typically 30 days and even if you raise your target early the campaign doesn't end it just keep going that's how we went over the $5000 amount.

0:05:12 MARIA: How did you decide to use Kickstarter rather than someplace like Indiegogo. The reason I ask is because with Kickstarter for those who may not be familiar with it, with Kickstarter it's an all or nothing thing if you don't reach your goal or you don't get to keep any of the contribution but on Indiegogo you don't have to reach a goal you get to keep whatever you raise. And so, tell me how you decided on Kickstarter.

0:05:48 EBONY: Yes, both platforms when I'm just in this campaign back a couple of years ago both platforms are really really early on in there sort of introduction and the modelling. One thing about Indiegogo and I haven't look in a while but at the time if you didn't raise your campaign goal there actual cost to you was higher than if you hit your goal. So that was one factor, the other factor I thought to myself if I can't get the support that I need to do this project then i really need to think very hard about whether or not i should go forward and take this, so it wasn't just about raising a certain amount of money it was also making sure that I was able to garner enough support to go forward.

0:06:43 MARIA: Right, right, which was really smart to use Kickstarter as a market research tool because I know so many authors who just jump in they spend the money and then find out really that they didn't know how to promote the book there is really know readership for the book and if they have done something like this beforehand they could have save themselves a lot of heartache.

0:07:06 EBONY: Yes, Absolutely!

0:07:08 MARIA: So let me ask you Ebony, It took you 30 days. The campaign was 30 days. How long did it take you to prepare for the campaign to actually get everything on Kickstarter get your video, get all that materials that you needed, how long did that take you?

0:07:29 EBONY: It took me probably about 3-4 weeks of planning part of that time Kickstarter had a pretty rigorous review process also so you couldn't just put something out there and hit go and it just public they actually would go through and review your project to make sure it was appropriate for the platform the other component is writing the compelling copy. So I think in the media industry we call it romance copy. Writing that copy that's really going to inspire and really reach the folks that I'm trying to reach and communicate my own passion and devising the reward that In and of itself I was racking my brain trying to think about what types of reward I mean obviously the book a copy of the book that's pretty simple but in order to get people to sort of contribute that higher level i had to come up and really get creative with something and the thing about Kickstarter is when you offer a reward they have to be tangible reward it can't be like a coupon for a future purchase for something like that it's got to be something that people actually receive and it's worth something at the time and it's not some sort of "Hey if you don't knit here I'll contribute 10 dollars to charity. It has to be something that the backer get out of it. And i think i refer to it as investment but it's really not an investment because you're not yet shares

0:09:13 MARIA: Right, right

0:09:15 EBONY: But you should get something out of it. It's not a donation when you contribute you're getting something in return.

0:09:19 MARIA: And so, how crucial do you think to be the big prices were? That the prices they should offer and the levels that you offer, how crucial were those?

0:09:25 EBONY: I think that they were instrumental in helping the campaign go as far as it did. When I think about my entire network of people so just in my own personal network not everybody is a quilter not everybody is a die cutter so if all I offered was the die cutting book that's not going to be of interest necessarily to everyone so there could be folks think: "You know what? I support what you do I'm really thrilled about this and I want to make sure it is successful but I really don't need a coffee-table book.

0:10:13 MARIA:*laughs*

0:10:17 EBONY: The other piece two is by having different levels of contribution it gives people the opportunity to look and say "There's a level here that I can afford. Because not everybody can just say here's 30 bucks for a book that I'm not going to read. Some people may be able to contribute a dollar other people might say."You know what I really support this artist, I know this person I feel good about what they're doing, I can actually contribute a higher level so actually having those different reward level it gives you a choice i personally think i had too many and at the end of the day you're the one who has to actually fulfill all those rewards.

0:11:04 MARIA:*laughs* Right.

0:11:08 EBONY:*laughs*After a while but i think having at least 3 or 4 options gives people sort of a way to contribute at a level there comfortable with.

0:11:18 MARIA: And so you had levels from a dollar all the way up to 1500 dollars and what was your most popular level?

0:11:29 EBONY: My most popular level I believe was at the 50 dollar level you've got a copy of the book and some other little trinket so I think my average donation across the board was about 46 dollars so some people came in lower than that, some people came in higher than that but most people were right in middle of a reward.

0:12:00 MARIA: I'm looking at your Kickstarter site right now and it looks like you had a 104 backers at 30 dollars. Now, do you think it was the dollar amount? Do you think it was just the right amount? Or do you think it was the acknowledgement that they've got in getting the book as the reward?

0:12:22 EBONY: I think so, I think most of the people who purchased at that level were once who wanted the book. They were rolling to get that book so it was a way for them and what's interesting when you structure your reward, is it's not necessarily meant to be a like discount of a retail price although some that way it's actually meant to be because you do need feed bonds so the book actually retails for 30 dollars so that was like the level. I think that level people were going to buy the book anyway when it came out and that's the level that they supported.

0:13:09 MARIA: Okay, And what did you do to promote the campaign as far as social media and email marketing and get the word out, What did you do to promote it ?

0:13:22 EBONY: so I actually did a several tiers of marketing and I didn't want to bombard my network with you know just post after post after post of this particular campaign. The first method that Senel was just a family and close friends just to first get started with the toe on the water and also when you put it out to just friends and family you tend to get kind of that bubble of will support anything that you do and that makes you feel better. You feel better about what you're doing to get some of that initial push and then I put it up on Facebook to wider the audience which will include my friends and friends of friends and hope to unnecessarily no personally but we're friends on Facebook and that's the next level campaign and some of those folks even shared my campaign with their friends and that's another way to get to expanse. The third way was just through my newsletter list so I have an email list for my business where I send out announcement about where I'm going to be and what's going on with my business and where you can see me that went to my email list. I also posted on my blog talking about the Kickstarter campaign and what it meant and what I was trying to do. I have several avenue to pursue but I didn't do them all at once. I didn't' post everywhere on the same day. I spread it out over probably a week to 10 day period to reach all those audiences.

0:15:13 MARIA: Ok, and do you have any idea of which promotion garnered the most support?

0:15:22 EBONY: I believe it was probably the Iddy mount campaign just because there were thousands of people on my email list versus a couple of dozens on my Facebook page.

0:15:39 MARIA: So you have an email marketing list with several thousand contacts on?

0:15:47 EBONY: Yes. I think it's the time I probably had under a thousand people subscribe to my email list. Now it certainly grown as my name has gotten out there but I think it's the time it was under a thousand people on my email list but it was certainly a lot bigger of an audience than on my Facebook page.

Exclusive Members-Only Lessons

Members - Find out where the largest percentage of Ebony's supporters came from, if she had help promoting her campaign, and her advice to others considering crowdfunding:

In this part of our interview, Ebony shares  where the largest percentage of her supporters came from, if she had help promoting her campaign, and her advice to others considering crowdfunding:

Where the Largest Percentage of Ebony's Supporters Came From.

Did Ebony Have Help in Promoting Her Campaign or Did She Do It on Her Own? 

Ebony's Advice to Others Who Want to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

0:16:09 MARIA: Okay, I actually learned about your campaign from somebody on our yahoo group. We both belong to a quilter yahoo group and somebody posted on there: "Ebony is doing a Kickstarter campaign. I was so excited for you I went out and just immediately supported you on it because you were self-publishing a book. I've done it well and I know that having a child and so much work involved in that. I didn't even hear directly about it from you but I still supported you so that leads to my next question which is what percentage of your supporters would you say were people that you knew? Or you would have contact with before? And what percentage of people that you did not know at all?

0:16:57 EBONY: That's interesting. I don't have exact percentages but I would tell you that probably 80% to 90% on the people were folks that I did not know personally.

0:17:11 MARIA: That's incredible!

0:17:12 EBONY:*Laughs* That's funny because take you for example, I knew a name and obviously seen you on the email list but you and I have..... It's like knowing of someone isn't is the same thing as knowing them.

0:17:30 MARIA: Exactly!

0:17:32 EBONY: I had quite a bit of that where I see people's names pop up and say:" Hey! I read your blog", "I read your book" or "I saw a video of you on YouTube", I'm certainly sharing having other people hear about it and then share it with their friends. I don't want say viral because I think when people speak of viral I think it goes out to like millions of people. But from where I sat I was reaching a group of people that I never would have been able to reach on my own and it was purely because of other people. Maybe viral is the right word is I kind of like the passion and the excitement was of infectious. Now it cause other people to pass it along.

0:18:20 MARIA: Yes. It really was friends of friends sharing about your campaign. It's not necessarily on any particular social network but just wherever they were.

0:18:32 EBONY: Yes and it's so important. I sort of research for my campaign because I was looking to see what other publishing project have been successful and which one were not successful and what did that look like what were the lessons that I could've learned from kind of seeing those things and a lot of times where I've seen is people just putting stuff out there and it's like those are the people would come

0:19:00 MARIA: Right, yes, exactly

0:19:02 EBONY: No it's work you can't just put something out there and just hope upon hoping cross your fingers that some media outlet picks it up and raises you know 3 million dollars.

0:19:16 MARIA: Right, right, it was worth to promote it but then your supporters help you, your friends, and your colleagues they help spread the word. Yes absolutely! Did you have any help in promoting your campaign other than friends? Did you hire anybody to help? Was there anything that you did other than the things on your own to get help in promoting your campaign?

0:19:48 EBONY: I did not. I think the only other thing that I did is I reach out to shake bench from Generation Q magazine. They were the publishing project that I tried to model my campaign afterward so I reach out to kind of get some advice from her on running the campaign. It turns out afterwards I didn't hire anybody or seek any other consultants for that which should research reaching out to folks whose been there. Just like you're doing with me now, talk to the folks who's been there. The quilting community is so incredibly supportive and open and willing to share.

0:20:35 MARIA: Yes. Absolutely! Do you think that played a big part of it in that the quilting community has warned that it's usually support of pretty close knit and it's even though it's a large group, it's a small world?

0:20:52 EBONY: Yes. I think of it a lot like despite building a tribe, what you're doing is first you got this quilting community who are sort of already predisposed to share and a passion about something. You're already certain have something in common with that group of people. I think that that part of certainly types of people who are attracted to quilting tend to be very giving, open and just a happy bunch of people.

0:21:27 MARIA: Right!

0:21:28 EBONY: Just by that nature alone, you've already got a leg of so to speak, it doesn't mean that you don't have to do the other stuff and work hard and do the promotion. It certainly easier than trying to find out who you're actual audience is. If you were doing something completely random, then it's now necessarily community base. I'm trying to think of an example of that, let say you've got some new technology to fight or something. You have to find your audience for that.

0:22:05 MARIA: Right! For something that nobody has ever heard of before.

00:22:09 EBONY: Exactly!

0:22:12 MARIA: So Ebony, what was your advice be to someone who want to start their own crown funding campaign? If you were to do this all over again, what would your advice be?

0:22:22 EBONY: I think one of the major thing is think very carefully about the timeline because doing these types of creative project. The point about six starter isn't that there's kind of this readymade thing. It's not a pre-order. If you're trying to start something and if you've never done something before, it's going to take you longer than you're most optimistic thought.* laughs*

0:22:58 MARIA: So, build some buffer time in there! (Laughs)

0:23:02 EBONY: Yes, definitely build some buffer time in there. By doing most of the stuff by myself, I was just very optimistic about what I was going to be able to accomplish. I didn't anticipate further running into issue and things just happened. I mean, at the days that my campaign ended I was actually laid out with pneumonia.

0:23:27 MARIA: Oh my gosh!

0:23:28 EBONY: I didn't anticipate getting sick and taking actual month to recover from that. You have to account for the unexpected. Definitely, recruit friends to help beforehand because I have a bunch of friends to help me pack and ship rewards I had like an actual reward shipping day. Friends came over and they were put note boxes and pack boxes and writing thank you notes in doing all the thing they could help. There's that piece budget, I got a little caught up in the excitement. It's like "Hey, if you raise more money you can do more stuff with that money". I actually ended up producing two books. (Laughs) It was great to have both of the books but it did have an impact on the budget later on. If you really look at your expenses and make sure you're accounting for the cost of shipping, the cost of packaging supplies, the cost of stamps and tapes. All of those things cost money and have an impact on your budget. Definitely, you need to have an audience. You need to make sure that you have a network to pull from. Because it's really hard to do it on your own if you don't have that list. If you want to feed on it though, and you can't feed on something if it's empty, you know?

0:25:06 MARIA: Right, because I think people would believe that Kickstarter will promote your campaign. And no, you promote your campaign. You're the one who does that. That's interesting. Think about what it's going to cost you to fulfill all those rewards that you're giving and recruit help beforehand. Those are the important stuff. My last question in my interview is always the same. Is there a question that I should've asked you that didn't?

0:25:44 EBONY: Oh gosh. No. I'm thinking about a question that I have been thinking about.... The only thing that I would tell people is that, there's so many things out there. So many different ways to reach people. Kickstarter for me wasn't just about the campaign. So much happen afterward that just really helped roll my business and put my name out there. It connected me to so many people. For me, it wasn't just about that campaigning but it kick started my whole life.

0:26:33 MARIA: So, it opened up a lot of those opportunities beyond just the book.

0:26:39 EBONY: Yes

0:26:40 MARIA: You really weren't able to foresee but that you still benefitted from.

0:26:44 EBONY: No

0:26:46 MARIA: Fantastic

0:26:47 EBONY: It lead me to teaching and I travel and people when I walk around the foot show and people know who I am. Both contributed to the Kickstarter that reach out and: "Ah, I help you publish the book" and that's so much fun.

0:27:00 MARIA: So, you got a real sense of community involvement with your audience too. Everybody was in on it helping you to do something very cool. It's almost like they were - I don't want to say a key to campaign - but they felt like you were contributing to your success. So they were a part of it.

0:27:21 EBONY: Yes. That was so huge to have me fulfill like it's like they're bringing this book to life. It wasn't just like, "Here's 10 bucks. Take my money, give me the book and thats it". It's not like going to buy something in a quilt shop. It's like you're part of sort of raising this baby. (Laughs)

0:27:40 MARIA: Wow. Well Ebony Love, thank you so much for your interview today. Ebony Love from lovebugs studios, thanks for being with us.

0:27:50 EBONY: Thanks Maria. I have a lot of fun to talking to you.