Over the last few days you may have seen the video below on your social media news feed. What you may not realize is that video just helped raise over 3 million dollars of funding on Kickstarter and is going to make one man’s invention a reality.

What is Kickstarter and why is it Powerful?

Kickstarter is a site that helps artist, authors, and inventors fund their project before they even create the actual product. This is especially useful when someone is looking to buy materials in bulk (to get a discount) before they ever start producing a product. More importantly though, this “good idea” crowdsourcing is a great way to test the validity of your idea before you ever take it to market. If the idea is good and enough people back you on kickstarter, you idea tips and you get the money to make your project go. If not, no one actually gets charged.

The Story of the 3 Million Dollar Cooler.

Inventor, Ryan Krepper, posted the idea for “The Coolest” on Kickstarter Tuesday, July 8th with an initial goal of raising $50,000 in order to fund the production of his next generation cooler idea. Within 4 days of posting the Kickstarter campaign he had raised 3.3 million dollars. With 48 days left to go in his fundraising campaign he is poised to beat the most successful kickstarter campaign ever (it raised 10 million dollars and was a watch design called the “Pebble”).

So How the Heck did Ryan Raise that Much So Fast?

Social Media was a monster player in the spread of the Kickstarter campaign. The video that Ryan Krepper used proved to be highly shareable and it appealed to people who actually want to buy the cooler. While many people have backed Ryan on Kickstarter, the majority of those backers pledged a backing amount that will get them their own “Coolest” when it is released in February 2015. That is an amount of $165 USD or more. You can see exactly how popular the backing options were that got people a cooler in the picture below.

 

What Tactics helped this Kickstarter Go Viral?

It is absolutely no accident that this campaign has gone so well. Despite having a great idea for a potential product. There are several tactics that made this campaign really work. It was the perfect storm of “a good idea” and great marketing. Lets explore some of those tactics.

Tactic 1: A Video that follows a powerful formula

The video (see at the top of this post) uses some simple but powerful structure.

• The Opening of the Video Demonstrates the Problem the product will ultimately solve.
• It introduces the creator and give you a “hero” to latch onto and want to support.
• The product demonstration show the feature and the benefits of the product clearly.
• The “hero” explains what you get if you support the Kickstarter.
• The “hero” calls you to action (to support the Kickstarter campaign.

 

Tactic 2: The Kickstarter page doesn’t assume you’ll watch the video.

One of the biggest mistakes that people make in their business is that they assume everyone consumes content the same way. Smart marketers understand that some people won’t watch a video but they will read a page that talks about their product.

This kickstarter did an excellent job of conveying all the points of the video (see tactic 1 above) in the copy on the Kickstarter page.

 

Tactic 3: The Coolest Creator posted their video on youtube too.

The creator of this campaign didn’t rely on just posting their video and copy on the Kickstarter page. They uploaded their video to youtube and posted a link back to the kickstarter page in the youtube description. This also made the video much easier to share on social media.

Tactic 4: The Creator gave clear expectations of their plans.

One of the major things that people are looking for when they decide to back a Kickstarter campaign is that they are backing someone who has a realistic plan to deliver what they are proposing. Even when people are not looking for this right away, the mere presence of a “I will use your money this way and this is how I’ll deliver” type of plan is a huge conversion upper. Check out exactly how Ryan (the “Coolest” creator) did that below.

The “Coolest Kickstarter” Take Home Points:

The “Coolest” Kickstarter campaign (which you can support here) is successful because of a variety of factors. The most important are a combination of an amazing idea and some great social marketing to get it in front of prospective buyers. The best part about this entire campaign is what it says about the market viability of the product when it finally goes on sale to the general public. What Do You Think? What other important factors played a role in the success of this Product?