I’m Melissa and I’m an IndieGoGo campaign owner here on the blog to write a series of posts about my first crowdfunding experience. This includes everything that I do, questions that arise and areas I wasn’t expecting, from pre-launch preparation to what happens after my campaign is over. My case is a special case because I also just so happen to work here at IndieGoGo! This means that I have a bit of an “inside scoop” on the campaigning process and will pass along everything I learn to you through this series. 

Perks are items given to people in return for the money that they contribute to your campaign, almost like thank-you gifts.  They are a great opportunity for you to appeal to this subset of contributors, but they also add an extra incentive for the others to give.

Contributors make the decision to fund campaigns for a variety of different reasons:

• They might know the campaign owner personally and want to support them
• Others are interested in the campaign goal and want to help make it happen
• Some people just want to get the perk! 

It’s a good idea to offer a variety of perks. According to this IndieGoGo insight post, the majority of campaigns that reach their funding goal offer 3-8 perks.

It’s also a good idea to offer perks at different contribution levels. This is helpful for many reasons, people have varying budgets, and thus varying capabilities for contributing, but of course everyone would still appreciate a little something in return! This IndieGoGo insight post gives you an even deeper understanding of which contribution-level-perks are most popular, and which are most valuable.

Perks I Chose For My Campaign

I chose to offer “art with bikes on it” as perks in return for people’s contributions. I wanted to tie my campaign to the perks in some way (bikes); and I wanted to make the perks myself, which turned out to be an awesome way to motivate myself to do some fine art! I also made sure to offer a perk at the $1 level, so that no matter what, if someone donated to my campaign, they would get a little something in return.

Perks are a great opportunity to let your personality and the personality of your campaign, shine through. I love that this campaign for the film “27” has perks named after Boston landmarks. This campaign for solar-rechargeable lanterns offered a get-one-give-one perk. Write Girl offered personalized poems written based on a theme provided by the contributor.

Get creative! Perks are a great way to say thank you to your contributors and are another way for you to make your campaign even more "yours". Comment on this post with your favorite perks from campaigns past and present and with any perks that you’d like to see offered on IndieGoGo!