What happens in the early phase of your crowdfunding project can make or break your happy ending. While there is always a chance anybody who comes across your crowdfunding project will back it if they really like it, many others will check the day you started the campaign and how much money was already raised. If people will see that you didn’t raise little to no money and your crowdfunding page is several weeks old, something might be wrong. It might be the way your page is presented, the way your product is designed or something else. It is up to you to make sure your project stands out and offers something of considerable value. But if you strongly believe you ticked all those boxes, it is important that start strong by adding an attractive reward tier – the “Early Bird” reward.
Some might refer to it as a “preorder bonus” but an early bird tier is basically the same as your cheapest reward tier that entitles them with the final product. The difference is that the early bird tier is cheaper and backer slots more limited.
A perfect example is to check out Pebble’s highly successful crowdfunding campaign of the Pebble Time smartwatch. The main thing to take note of is the three price points of the product. First you have the retail price which is $199 and it is mentioned specifically at the second reward tier from the top. Backers who picked this tier only had to pledge $179 so it is considered a cool $20 preorder bonus. The early bird tier entitled backers to the exact same product but they only had to pledge $159. This reward tier was quickly depleted because of the scarcity of the tier.
The early bird tier only gave way for 10,000 backers while the standard one was open for 23,000 backers. Creating this kind of divide can spark demand for your product providing it is really good. Just remember to be upfront about the retail price and the amount of savings your backers will get and it should help with the early phases of fundraising. Just remember to do your accounting just to make sure you will have enough money to actually deliver these physical products without delay. If you are targeting international backers, be sure to disclose the shipping costs too.