The Language that Gets People to Give: Phrases that Predict Success on Kickstarter
Summary:
The paper studies only successful Kickstarter campaigns in an attempt to discover common features among them that may make crowdfunded projects successful. From all of these successful campaigns the author of the paper obtained around nine million unique phrases. The author then trimmed down this list of phrases to around twenty thousand by excluding all of the phrases that pertained to the specific product and all of the phrases with less than fifty occurrences. The author then analyzed these remaining phrases and separated them into six categories. Reciprocity, or giving a favor for a favor. Scarcity, or how scarce the product is in either amount of products or amount of time. Social proof, or emphasizing that many other people have done the same thing. Social identity, or making people feel like they’re part of a community. Liking, basically just positive comments about the product and Authority, or getting the appeal of an expert. All of which are common ways to sell a product.
Reflection:
I think it’s pretty unsurprising that successful Kickstarter tactics turn out to mostly just be pre-existing and successful marketing or advertising tactics. The reciprocity aspect may be a little higher for crowdfunded projects as a crowdfunded project pitch is somewhat of a combination between a pitch to consumers and a pitch to investors. It’s akin to a pitch to investors as you don’t actively have the product but you promise that if they invest a product like what you describe will become available and they get some sort of benefit for investing. However, it’s also like an advertisement to consumers because it’s made to a very large audience of average Joes in the hopes of attracting as many people as possible and may use emotional arguments to sell rather than to a small board of professionals who invest for a living and will require a much more logical, numbers based argument to convince them they’ll get their money back.
Questions:
- Do you think crowdfunded project pitches more closely resemble advertisements or investor pitches?
- How much impact do you think the pitch itself has on success compared to the promise of the product?
- How do silly crowdfunded projects like “Potato Salad” become successful?
