crowdfunduk

How do the number of rewards or perks relate to the success of campaigns?

IndieGoGo blog entry from November 3 2011 says that 88% of campaigns which exceed their funding goal offer at least three perks.

The chart below shows the number of rewards offered by successful campaigns on its platform. 70% of successful campaigns offered 3-8 rewards with 41% offering 5-6 rewards.

3-8 rewards is a manageable number to create and distribute and would therefore be the most popular.

Offering no rewards is risky so fewer projects would try this. Likewise 11+ rewards would be difficult to manage and not be a popular choice.

Look carefully at the chart and question what it does not show (as with any statistics**)

It does not show the percentage of projects that met their target which offered 3-8 rewards (or 0 or 1-2 rewards for that matter). Therefore do not assume cause and effect. In other words if your campaign offers 5 rewards this does not mean you have a 70% chance of successfully reaching your target.

Most sites have an overall success rate of c40-45%. Success is dependent on your campaign, your ideas and your hard work. Creative rewards are only part of the incentive for people to donate.

“how to look a phoney statistic in the eye and face it down; and no less important, how to recognize sound and usable data in [the] wilderness of fraud”