6 Crowdfunding Mistakes That Can Kill a Campaign

Scott Steinberg is a leading expert on leveraging new technology trends to enhance business strategy and family life. The noted industry consultant and bestselling author has a new book The Crowdfunding Bible, which is free to download here.

Interest in crowdfunding continues to skyrocket, thanks to the record-breaking success of campaigns like the Pebble: E-Paper Watch, and Double Fine Adventure. The recent passage of the JOBS Act and the popularity of websites such as Kickstarter, RocketHub and IndieGogo have only reinforced its popularity.

But for every successful crowdfunding campaign you hear about, many more have utterly and completely failed to meet funding goals. The reasons? Well those are plentiful. Based on the research I did for my new book, here are several common characteristics that appear to lie at the heart of disastrous ventures — all worth heeding before hitting the launch button.

Among the most common reasons campaigns croak is the lack of a meaningful brand identity. Projects with existing followings or known personalities attached (e.g. Wasteland 2) often do well. Unproven or obscure projects, such as Class of Heroes 2, don’t fair as well. In fact, according to Kickstarter, 75% of projects fail just in the video game space alone. It makes sense that building and maintaining trust and awareness is imperative in a connected world where the options, particularly to invest, are many.

This is where, when possible, it’s a good idea to tie your project to an existing brand, fan base, or personality. Also, recruiting testimonials (including videos) from well-known industry celebs and support from other creators can build trust and help raise awareness. Pairings should be both genuine and synchronous, however, appending Kim Kardashian’s likeness to your family hot sauce recipe or line of drink holders won’t do anybody any favors. Consider the case of Shadowrun Returns, which piggybacks on a sci-fi role-playing franchise popular in the early ‘90s. Creator Jordan Weisman, who appeared in pitch materials, made impassioned pleas to potential investors. It worked. The once-dormant franchise raised $1.8 million in pledges.

Crucial to any campaign is your ability to clearly and concisely explain and illustrate a projects’ core value proposition and benefits. There are too many examples of campaigns that have generated good traffic and awareness, but have failed to monetize it because customers don’t understand the project or key sales points. Getting a lot of questions about your concept, supporting features or how you plan to accomplish building it? Consider those red flags.

The good news: Extensive pre-launch preparation, including testing and screening campaign pitches and materials by presenting them to objective third parties can help you avoid this trap. You should also review successful examples and failed projects alike to see which ideas, rewards, and promotional activities click. Also vital is that you understand who your target audience is, how big it is, and how to best reach it online.

If you’re pitching a movie, video game or even smart watch that sounds like dozens of others, why should people invest in yours? Finding ways to quickly and neatly position your project uniquely is vital. One to three core benefits and vital sales points should be communicated in all supporting messaging and assets. A good examples is the Pebble watch, which summarizes itself with the tagline: “Customize your perfect watch — it’s as easy as downloading an app.” Ever wonder why a great project, campaign, or video pitch consistently fails to raise money online? It could be suffering from a lack of consumer awareness, a terminal condition caused by insufficient or ineffectual public relations (PR), marketing, or social media tactics. Competition is tougher than ever, and backers’ attention spans more fractured. To generate awareness, don’t just look to social media services or press mentions. Also consider building unique and/or exclusive rewards, develop an eye-catching video, and team up with other creators and industry celebs to raise awareness. And definitely don’t forget to listen to fan feedback. Backers will let you know what’s resonating, and how to tweak campaigns, promotional activities, and rewards to better spark interest. It’s crucial to maintain a running dialogue throughout campaigns in the form of project updates, newsletters, and social media outreach. Thank contributors often, and keep them abreast of new developments worth passing along. Outreach should occur on a daily basis — it’s imperative to stay top of mind and may help spread the word or lead to valuable suggestions.

Similarly, other campaigns may have generated media attention and buzz, but little in the way of actual cash. As Ed Petterson of The Giuseppi Logan project points out, it wasn’t until an appearance in The New York Times that the campaign truly took off. But the write-up wouldn’t have happened without his and his wife’s daily outreach to bloggers, critics, and collectors to raise awareness. Likewise, Wasteland 2 creators recommend constantly reviewing which rewards connect with donors. In that case, the game’s $15 rewards generated huge donations out of the gate, its $30 pricing tier quickly stalled. Once the team revised the $30 offering to be more attractive by adding new bonuses, and introduced more rewards such as a novella and video blog, this pricing level began to pick up steam.

How much is too much to ask for? Tough to say, but the smartest thing you can do for your campaign is to set funding goals to the plausible minimum required to realize your vision. The more reasonable the figure, the likelier fans are to believe it’s attainable and contribute. To improve your chances of getting funded, start by right-sizing products, trimming extraneous features, focusing only on the elements needed to deliver a high-quality and compelling value proposition. Estimate conservatively and provide some financial cushion — e.g. a 20 to 30% buffer — in case of unforeseen mishaps. The more realistic you are about audience size and funding goals, the safer you’ll be. Remember, any money earned above and beyond initial targets can always be reinvested into new project expansions.

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Ten Social Networking Mistakes to Avoid When Marketing Your Business

Business owners worldwide are utilizing various social media platforms to promote products and reach out to consumers.

Many companies thrive, thanks to strong web presence. However, some struggle as a result of costly mistakes made during the online marketing process. Thus, before you began marketing your business it is advisable to brush up on your social media skills.

Better yet, read on for a crash course on the ten most common social networking mistakes and how you can avoid making them yourself.

Forbes columnist Pamela Springer notes that many business owners fail to properly budget their resources. “Even though many social media applications are free,” she writes, “they still cost small businesses time – and time equals money.” She suggests a formal online marketing plan, with a clear goal for each step of the process.

With a marketing plan in place, every Tweet and Facebook post should be planned in advance to avoid inconsistency. Terri Seymour, of Site Pro News, advises company marketers to draw up a weekly social media schedule—and then follow it. “Choose a couple of the best sites and give them the time and attention they need to work their magic,” she writes.

BusinessWeek columnist Mike Proulx says inattentive site management can lead to a PR nightmare. Every site on the Internet is vulnerable to hacking viruses and other online malfeasances. As a result, web programmers must remain one step ahead of violators by continuously checking up on all company sites.

“Bad grammar and spelling can make a good page go bad,” Seymour notes. All blogs, posts and tweets should be professional in appearance, even though social media sites are generally informal in nature. Authors should read posts as they are writing them, and have a co-worker look over the copy before it is uploaded online.

Springer notes that most social media sites include multiple fields for profile owners to personify their page—but many business owners leave them blank. “Your company information, logo, and any other links or images on your profile are the sales tools you have to pique a potential customer’s interest in your business,” she writes. “If your profile is half complete it reflects poorly on your company.”

Businesses with multiple sites should install a mechanism to link them together—and connect various users of these sites in the process. Seymour advises business owners to link social sites on their official homepage using widgets. Additionally, posts on the homepage should be automatically uploaded to all social sites simultaneously, rather than one at a time.

Springer reminds business owners that, whether or not they choose to participate in social media, their sites are part of the public domain. Yelp!, Google Places and other services create company profiles for owners who have not done so themselves—and this is a great opportunity to build web presence. “All of these services give you the option to control what’s shown about your company and how it’s shown,” she says.

In the event of bad publicity, Proulx warns that waiting too long can result in further disaster. When businesses err, he says immediate, humble acknowledgment of wrongdoing on social media platforms is the best route to take. “Taking the time to craft a perfect corporate response with layers of bureaucratic approvals will only cause more damage to your brand’s social reputation,” he says.

Seymour notes these seemingly arbitrary terms are highly relevant in the age of Facebook and Twitter, because they can greatly increase social activity on a business site. Company owners should include a request in their email signature, print a URL on their business cards and post links whenever possible. Many companies offer customer incentives to those who “like” or “follow” them—and these are typically the businesses with the most active sites.

A social media campaign should be continuous, says Proulx, since a cardinal goal of networking is to reach new clientele. Furthermore, new platforms emerge every year, and web users will often cast aside “old-fashioned” brands for those who acclimate to current trends. “While campaigns that have a social media extension may come and go,” he writes, “you must maintain an “always on” approach and outlook.”

Company owners today must contend with all the nuts and bolts associated with social media, for it has become a standard of modern business practices. Brands that embrace the social networking phenomenon are much likelier to draw in new customers—and their money.

However, firmly understanding how various platforms work, what their limitations are and how people use them is a fundamental first step.

Guest Author: Kate Manning didn’t expect to find herself at the intersection of business, marketing, and the Internet, but with sound writing and editing skills, she makes the most of it. She’s worked under others’ supervision and on her own for herself.

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Impress the Future Boss: 9 Interview Mistakes to Avoid

A job interview is one of those few formal moments left in a world that is becoming less and less formal. Understanding just how much we need to up our game to ace an interview can be tough. If you’ve gone to all the effort of landing an interview, present your most poised and polished self by avoiding these nine mistakes. (See also: How to Answer 23 of the Most Common Interview Questions)

Plan for contingencies. If you’re interviewing in a new city or a new part of town, it’s easy to get lost or make a wrong turn. Maybe you hit traffic or can’t find a parking space. Life happens. Prepare for the worst-case scenario and give yourself plenty of room to make it on time. It’s always better to be 20 minutes early and sit in your car preparing than 10 minutes late and arrive apologizing.

Silence that cell phone before you even enter the building and keep it off until you’ve left. A ringing phone shows lack of respect for your interviewer’s time and shows that you’re a novice in handling the basics of business etiquette. To be safe, don’t rely on vibration mode to do the trick — a buzzing briefcase is just as bad as a ringing one.

There is an art to shaking hands properly. Etiquette dictates that you should let your interviewer extend his hand first. Return the shake with one that’s firm and confident. Don’t be too passive; don’t be too aggressive. If you’re worried about it, try a few test shakes with a friend beforehand.

Your interviewer may not have your resume on-hand. Maybe she’s passing it around to colleagues or fitting you in between meetings and has misplaced your paperwork. In these moments, it’s nice to pull a freshly printed resume from your bag and not make your interviewer run and retrieve the original. This shows forethought and preparation, and it’s a great way to start an interview.

Exuding confidence is never a bad thing in an interview — but confidence goes beyond your resume, your qualifications, and your suit. Make eye contact with your interviewer, especially when you’re answering a question. Stand and sit up straight, smile, and speak clearly — make this brief time your time to shine.

Interviewers are trained to put you at ease, and that’s a good thing. Just don’t get too comfortable. Remember, the occasion is still formal; the interviewer is gauging not only your qualifications, but your demeanor and your ability to fit in with the rest of the group. Avoid personal stories or negative talk about past employers.

Expect questions from your interviewer that are designed to gauge your knowledge of the company. In the Internet age, research takes all of 15 or 20 minutes of effort online. Learn some facts about the company — when it was founded, new acquisitions it’s made, who the main competitors are, etc.

More and more interviews take place over a meal. Remember, even though a restaurant atmosphere may be more casual, the interview isn’t. Don’t order complicated or messy food, don’t order something more expensive than your interviewer, and don’t ever order alcohol. Treat the wait staff at the restaurant especially well, and brush up on those basic table manners.

The post-interview thank-you happens in two stages: first, in person at the conclusion of the interview, and then with a hand-written note that you send in the mail. Yes, it may seem archaic to send a note via snail mail, but it conveys a sense of propriety, professionalism, and follow-up that just might set you apart from the competition.

None of these tips will come naturally at first, especially for new graduates just entering the working world. Interviews are admittedly a dog-and-pony show, and sometimes the level of formality can be stifling. But knowing how to navigate that formality to showcase your strengths and qualifications will take you from interviewee to interviewer much more quickly.

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6 Mistakes to Avoid When Shopping for Car Insurance

Shopping around for car insurance can help you find the best possible deal and even help you negotiate for a better rate. You need to do more than just focus on the rates the insurance company has quoted, however. Asking some critical questions and taking a good look at your coverage options will help you find an insurance policy that truly meets your needs — and also helps you avoid some costly mistakes. (See also: How to Get Cheap Auto Insurance for Young Drivers)

Here are six mistakes to avoid when shopping for car insurance.

If you are changing auto insurance providers, want to add a new vehicle, or are moving out of state and need to purchase insurance, take a good look at the coverage options and your state's minimum requirements. Buying excess coverage is a common mistake — especially if you are a new customer and have been pressured into signing for a policy by an insurance agent.

While most of the major insurance providers are listed on online insurance quote sites, some are not, and these companies might be able to offer a better rate. Make sure you’re aware of all of the insurance agents or companies in your area, so you’re not relying solely on the online shopping comparison sites for the best quote. You just need to set up a phone call with an insurance agent and provide some basic information about your driving history, your vehicle, and insurance needs; and the agent can extend a quote over the phone within minutes. If you submit your information on an online shopping comparison site, you may need to wait a few days for an agent to get back to you, and the “instant quotes” may not be anywhere near what you will end up paying.

If you purchased an umbrella policy in the past, make sure you’re able to purchase the same level of extra coverage with your new insurance provider. An umbrella policy provides extra coverage when your liability coverage ends. If you have a considerable amount of assets and want to avoid a costly lawsuit, make sure you have the option to purchase an umbrella policy. Most insurers will charge extra for this policy, so you’ll need to factor this in when requesting a quote.

While some discounts are applied automatically, others require a fairly extensive review process to determine eligibility and will require some action on your part. If you’ve taken a remedial driving course, started working from home, or switched employers, make sure your insurance company knows about it. Not all discounts that you are eligible for may be advertised on the company website, and the insurance agent might not even bring them up during your first meeting. Ask about a “good driver” discount, employee discounts, and other incentives that might bring down your insurance rates.

If you are planning to switch insurance providers, you’ll need to fill out a formal application and include details about your driving history. Make sure you’re providing accurate information about your driving record, or you could be guilty of insurance fraud. If you can’t recall all of your traffic violations and tickets from the past five years, just get in touch with your state’s department of motor vehicles and request an official copy of your driving record. The DMV will have a long list of all violations and reports on file and can pull the information you need fairly quickly.

While most insurance companies offer convenient payment options and even online bill pay, late payment fees and other charges vary from company to company. Don’t forget to ask what the payment policy is, when payments are typically due, and about discounts for paying the entire balance upfront. These small details aren’t always listed on the company’s website and may only be revealed when you see the final contract.

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Do You Make These 8 Personal Development Mistakes?

Most people suck at improving themselves. Even when they’re trying their hardest to become a better person, they wind up running on the dreaded personal development hamster wheel – hours of effort, zero results.

It’s not because they’re stupid. It’s not because they’re lazy. It’s definitely not because it’s not possible. It’s because they’re making the mistakes that most people make when they’re trying to change their life for the better. That’s why there’s so many people reading self-help blogs, self-help books, and taking self-help classes and yet so few people making a meaningful and lasting difference.

So here’s a list of the eight most common (and most damaging) mistakes that people make in personal development.

Are you guilty of any of these?

• Are You Fixing Your Weaknesses?
  Don’t you just hate being bad at things? It makes you feel dumb playing tennis when you’ve only ever played against Wii characters. You feel small when someone mentions James K. Polk and expects you to know he was the 11th American president (not that anyone would ever expect that).
  
  So it’s natural to focus the majority of your personal development time on fixing your weaknesses. That’s all well and good, but you get a much better return on that time if you focus on improving your strengths.
  
  Think of it like this. The vast majority of any successes you have in life will be because of your strengths. Your career security will be based on the strengths you bring to the table. You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule (80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts). That’s what I recommend here:
  
  Focus the majority of your personal development efforts on your top 20% of skills, strengths, and talents. For the rest of the 80% do what you can to avoid them, delegate them to someone else, or create a system to avoid doing them. If a weakness is preventing you from hitting your goals, then get just good enough so that you can continue to focus on becoming an expert at what you’re good at.



• Do You Want to Become “Better”?
  Why do you focus on personal development? Well, to be a “better” person. To have a “better” life. To have “better” skills.
  
  ...What does “better” mean?
  
  Every sane person on earth wants to be “better” in a bunch of ways. That’s a good thing – we’re ambitious. But “better” is a vague goal. We all know the thing about vague goals – vague goals produce vague results. Or in other words, vague goals don’t produce real results.
  
  Your personal development path must have a purpose. There has to be a reason you’re working on whatever it is you want to improve. That’s the only way anything will actually ever happen. Change “better” to something like “know how to build a website so I can share my advice.” That’s how personal development actually happens in the real world.



• Are You Learning Awesome Theories?
  Theories are awesome and a lot of them are amazing. Seriously.
  
  An investment strategy can sky rocket your wealth. A lifestyle design philosophy can get you out of the cubicle. A productivity system can help you get a whole heck of a lot more done.
  
  But theories are also like crack or girl scout cookies – they’re addictive.
  
  Once you’re exposed to a compelling theory or philosophy about something, it’s hard not to try to learn everything about it. Then it’s hard not to look for all the other competing theories or philosophies and learn everything about them. Then it’s hard to not look for comparisons to figure out which one’s best.
  
  Worst of all it’s hard to bring any of the theories into real action.
  
  It’s helpful to remember this simple concept – “everything that’s not stupid works.”
  
  For example, there is an infinite number of ways to lose weight – choose from a million diets, exercise programs, supplements, gyms, programs, etc. – but nothing works if you’re doing nothing but researching.
  
  It doesn’t matter if you have the #1 possible theory. It’s better to just find a path that’s not stupid and stick to it. (You can always improve it later). Learning theories isn’t personal development. Implementing them is.



• Have You Never Had a Major Failure?
  Avoiding failure makes you feel successful. After all, failure is bad. Right?
  
  Well, kind of. No one should try to fail. That would make you weird. But if you’ve never had a major failure, then you’ve never really tried to succeed. If you’ve got your skin in the game for long enough something will go wrong. Period.
  
  Don’t believe me? Name one successful person who’s never failed.
  
  The strange paradox of it is that you cannot learn much from successes, but the bigger the failure the more you learn. In most aspects of life, people tend to look at the successes and copy them so that they can avoid the failure. The first part is good – copying previous successes is just smart. But you should expect to fail eventually. The only possible way to avoid failing is to not try in the first place.
  
  Work hard for those failures, because that’s the best way possible for you to grow.



• Are You Crazy Busy?
  Everyone intends to improve themselves, but it’s just damn hard to find the time (see New Years resolutions).
  
  You got work, family, obligations, travel, chores, and sleep. Who has time to work on themselves?
  
  Yep, it’s tough.
  
  It’s really got to be a matter of priority. How much of a priority is it that you improve yourself, your skills, and your life? It may be obvious that that’s a top priority for you, but real world implementation may be a bit tricky. Time may only allow you to settle for reading advice, not implementing it.
  
  There’s two solutions:
  
  First, you can schedule time for whatever kind of personal development you want to focus on. Then you guard that time with your life.
  
  Second, if you can’t do that for whatever reason, you need to find ways to incorporate your improvement in other activities you have to do anyway.
  
  Truth be told, you should probably find a way to do both.



• Did You Choose The Newest and Shiniest Version?
  It’s easier to think that the newest thing out there is the best. The newest strategy, technique, tactic, idea, book, etc.
  
  It’s true with a lot of things – technology and medicine being two obvious examples. It’s not true with a lot of others.
  
  Want to get an amazing memory? The best current memory courses are variations on methods from ancient Greece. Want to calculate crazy math problems in your head? India had that figured out about 2,500 years ago.
  
  We like bells, whistles, and that new car smell, but sometimes we’re missing the old and tested approaches to things. Most personal development is about subjects that are timeless – the mind, the body, the spirit, selling, finances, communication, friendship, love, etc.
  
  I guess the point here is no matter what you want to improve about yourself many people have gone through the same thing. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.



• Is Your Personal Development for Personal Development’s Sake?
  If “personal development” doesn’t have a result, then it doesn’t count.
  
  By “result” I mean a tangible, objective, other-people-can-see-change kind of result. That means you have to get something from your improvement efforts.
  
  What’s that something.
  
  Well, if you truly improve yourself then you should see some of the following things come into your life:
  
  
  
  
  • More money (gasp!) – Yep, if you’re more skilled then you should command a higher income whether your self employed or work for someone else
  
  
  • More confidence – You’re more confident when you’re good at something. The more you improve, the more that should happen.
  
  
  • More influence – The more you improve in a noticeable way, the more others will value your opinion on things
  If you’re not seeing those things, maybe your personal development path isn’t quite on track. Instead, focus your personal development efforts on things that will cause real world effects.



• Do You Love to Read?
  Loving to read is great, but dangerous.
  
  It’s dangerous because it takes you to another world. When you’re reading your imagination sparks and you are inspired by great possibilities. The world in your head is fantastic!
  
  ...then you go back to the real world.
  
  With your personal development, spend maximum 25% of your time reading, learning, and researching. The other 75% (or more) should be spent taking action.
  
  Let’s be honest, with most things we already know what we need to do, or at least where to start. Wanna be fit? Start with jogging before work and stop eating fast food. Wanna make friends? Start by joining a club or organization. Wanna be productive? Close your email.
  
  For something we just don’t know how to do, finding that information is simple – Google it.
  New information can inspire and motivate, but more often it can derail. So, maximum 25% reading and minimum 75% doing.

So Put Yourself Out There
Testing the quality of your personal development efforts can be one of the most powerful things that you can do today.

Making mistakes can be frustrating (especially when it comes to something personal), but identifying those mistakes allows us to improve. Most progress starts by noticing a mistake and deciding to do something differently in the future.

The worst personal development mistake didn’t make the list. The worst mistake is ignoring or refusing to do anything about failures. It’s turning a blind eye to potential learning opportunities. When that happens, people are doomed to continue running on that personal development hamster wheel.

I didn’t include it, because folks in that situation will always be stuck. On the other hand, if you’re passionately pursuing improvement and have an open mind to change, you’re almost guaranteed to succeed.

So go out there and become great.

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Five Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb

One thing blogging and good copywriting share is a conversational style, and that means it’s fine to fracture the occasional rule of proper grammar in order to communicate effectively. Both bloggers and copywriters routinely end sentences with prepositions, dangle a modifier in a purely technical sense, or make liberal use of the ellipsis when an EM dash is the correct choice—all in order to write in the way people actually speak. But there are other mistakes that can detract from your credibility. While we all hope what we have to say is more important than some silly grammatical error, the truth is some people will not subscribe or link to your blog if you make dumb mistakes when you write, and buying from you will be out of the question.

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Feynman: comic biography of an iconoclastic Physicist

Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick's Feynman is an affectionate and inspiring comic biography of the legendary iconoclastic physicist Richard Feynman. I've reviewed Ottaviani before (I really liked T-Minus, a history of the Apollo program, as well as his Dignifying Science: Stories About Women Scientists) and I expected great things from Feynman. I wasn't disappointed.

Feynman is primarily concerned with its subject's life -- his personal relationships, his career triumphs, his mistakes and misgivings. From his work on the Trinity project to the Feynman lectures to his Nobel for his theory of Quantum Electrodynamics, Feynman paints a picture of a caring, driven, intelligent, wildly creative scientist who didn't always think through his actions and sometimes made himself pretty miserable as a result. But the Feynman in this book is resilient and upbeat, and figures out how to bounce back from the worst of life.

Feynman's technical achievements are mighty, but very few people understand them (Feynman claimed that he didn't understand them). But the way he conducted his life was often an inspiration. The authors even manage to wring sweetness from his tragic romance with his first wife, Arline, who contracted terminal tuberculosis before they married, meaning that their marriage was conducted without any intimate physical contact lest he catch her sickness -- but for all that, they clearly loved each other enormously and made one another's lives better.

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