June 10, 2015 by Clay Hebert with 4 Comments

This is the eighth post in our 30 Day Ask Clay Crowdfunding Q&A.

I’m answering a new question every day in June.

Submit your question by going to CrowdfundingHacks.com/AskClay, where you can see all of the questions and all of my answers.

Full Transcript

Hey everyone…this is Clay Hebert from CrowdfundingHacks.com…and today’s question is…

Can I offer marketing (or other) services as a crowdfunding reward?

Great question. The answer is, yes, you can offer marketing services as a reward on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

But, if you remember from Episode 3, “How do I know if my idea is a good fit for crowdfunding?”, a great crowdfunding idea is a creative project, with a beginning and an end, in which something new gets created and shared.”

So, I want to walk you through two examples of offering services as rewards on crowdfunding.

Scenario #1:

Let’s say you run a marketing agency and your existing business offers marketing services. If that’s the primary crowdfunding perk you’re offering…an existing service that your business provides…then there’s really not a creative project where something new gets created.

If an ad agency just tried to sell some billable hours via crowdfunding, then no, that would not work well.

Scenario #2:

Now, let’s say your marketing agency wants to raise money via crowdfunding to launch a new app. Maybe one of the perks is the app itself, one of the perks is a lifetime pro version of the app, and maybe one of the perks is a full-day session where the backer can sit with your team and learn how to build and market their app.

That’s also offering marketing services as a reward but in this case, it’s a higher level reward and it’s not the main reward.

To use another quick example…let’s say you’re a personal trainer.

If you just want to use crowdfunding platform to just sell hours of personal training with you, that doesn’t make sense. Again, there’s nothing new being created and shared and crowdfunding platforms are not good ways to just sell existing service-based businesses.

But let’s say you own one gym and you want to raise money via crowdfunding to open a second location. If that was the case, and one of the many reward levels was personal training sessions (ideally, discounted from the full retail price), then that could make a lot of sense.

So to recap…

Yes, you can offer services as reward levels but they should be part of a larger creative project, not just selling existing hours or services. Something new should be being created.

As always, you can submit your question or see all of the crowdfunding questions and my answers at http://crowdfundinghacks.com/AskClay

End Transcript

Clay Hebert

My name is Clay and I'm here to help you fund your dream. After a decade at Accenture, I left corporate America and got a chance to study directly with Seth Godin. Since January of 2012, I've been fortunate enough to help over 140 entrepreneurs launch their projects and raise over $40 million on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. If you want to learn how to fund your project on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, signup for my free crowdfunding mini-class here.

masserm

Hi Clay,

Thanks for answering my question! (I’m the one who asked).

I’m definetely in the scenario #2, and my plan was to do exactly that. But if you check at the end of the Kickstarter rules ( https://www.kickstarter.com/rules/prohibited ), I see that marketing services are prohibited.

I asked KS about it, and they replied “Offering phone consultations or marketing services as rewards is not allowed per our rules.”

So maybe it’s in how you frame it? “A day with me” vs. “Coaching to build your app” ?

What do you think?

Thanks,
– Maxence
- http://www.spindows.com/ Clay Hebert
  
  Hey Maxence!
  
  Yeah, I knew you were the one who asked. I checked out your site and that’s why I made the “second example” a personal trainer. 🙂 Glad you heard it.
  
  I’m guessing you pronounce your last name “Wah” (the French pronunciation)? My last name is Hebert (pronounced “AYE-bear”) but everyone says it HEE-bert or HER-bert. But my girlfriend’s last name is Roy and it’s the american pronunciation (ROY, not WAH). 🙂
  
  Yeah, it’s really in how you package it. Those rules they have are to try to prevent the standard industries with a high degree of scammers from doing a Kickstarter campaign (health supplements, etc.). As long as it’s positioned well and it’s one reward level in a legit campaign, it should be fine.
  
  What type of campaign are you thinking of doing?
  
  Thanks for your question!
  - masserm
    
    Hello Clay,
    
    Well it’s funny you ask, because as I pronounce “Roy”, it really sounds like “RWAH”… Hehe! I’ll take note of your last name pronunciation, because I think I was also going to pronounce it like HEEEE-bert. Are you trying to learn french?
    
    Since you ask, I’d really like to discuss more with you about this kickstarter campaign: It’s an app for personal trainers to 3-10X the fat loss success rate of their clients (Go from less than 10% to up to 86%). Then, at least 2X their retention rates and get them more referrals. My video guys is finalizing the video, which you’ll be able to see.
    
    My online fitness programs business is already doing pretty well with over 1,000 new clients in the last 6 months, but I believe this app is going to change 1,000-10,000X more lives in the next 15 years.
    
    Why don’t you send me a quick email at m@masserm.com, and I’ll reply you with a link to the video when it’s ready?
    
    Talk soon! – Max
http://www.CornerstonesWORLD.com Oleg

Thanks for that Clay, a good read. I must admit that I am surprised that services don’t work when products clearly do (I’ve seen many people hawk lamps and other things, but I guess that falls in the ‘something being created’ category). I appreciate your candour and am always open to constructive criticism and will rethink our offering this weekend, BEARing 😉 your comments in mind. Thanks again!