The GTA rule of rewards

Welcome to the GTA rule of rewards, not the popular video game, but yet another one of the 20 golden rules of crowdfunding.

You might have seen crowdfunding campaigns that for £5 only thank you. Don’t you find this annoying? So do most of the people landing on that page. The GTA rule of rewards will help you design attractive and effective rewards, together with the other three rules on rewards.

What’s the GTA rule of rewards?

In a nutshell, GTA stands for rewards that are Generous, Tangible and Abundant. In each of the reward levels in a campaign (£5, £10, £20 and so on) the three qualities must be present if we want to define them effectively.

Let’s tackle each of these three characteristics, one by one.

En la regla GTA de las recompensas crowdfunding defino que éstas deben ser generosas, tangibles, y abundandes. En cada tramo de aportación (por 5 euros, por 10 euros, etcétera) que haya en una campaña, se deberá cumplir esta regla si se quiere diseñar bien las recompensas.

Veamos una a una en qué consisten estas tres características de las recompensas bien diseñadas.

Generous rewards

Saying thank you is just not enough in a crowdfunding campaign. Your backers are much more than just a fan or a customer. They’re people that bet on your idea and trust that you will execute it. That’s why from the lowest to the highest level of rewards, the backer must feel that they’re receiving much more than what they’re giving. This will be the ultimate motivator for a potential backer to support your project.

Would pay £5 to back a project just to receive thanks? Most platforms will offer you an option for donations, but when you’re designing your rewards tiers, you must focus on giving value.

Let’s see what I mean by generous rewards with a couple of examples of a possible crowdfunding by a music band:

• Good example: for £5 you’ll receive an exclusive wallpaper signed by the band, a sticker and a direct download of our first single.
• Bad example: for £5 you’ll have our eternal gratitude.

Tangible rewards

It doesn’t matter if your product is digital, or that your campaign is for a community cause, you must make your rewards tangible. Tangible in the sense of “concrete”, that is, it is a reward that people understand perfectly.

If you’re raising money for a digital product, do your best to explain it clearly with images and visual prototypes of the project. If it’s a community cause, perhaps the backers would love a token, physical or digital, to remember their help. And if it’s a physical product, it’s even easier. It will be enough to show the photos of the prototype you’ve built.

Si se trata de un producto digital intenta explicarlo muy bien con imágenes y prototipos visuales del proyecto. Si es una campaña solidaria no olvides que los mecenas pueden valorar un recuerdo de su ayuda, sea digital o analógico. Y si es un producto físico lo tienes más fácil, bastará con fotos del prototipo que hayas construido.

Let’s try again with a couple of examples for a book project:

• Good example: for £10 you’ll receive a bookmark (that you can see in the campaign description), a signed photo of the author and access to private videos in YouTube where you can follow the writing process of the book.
• Bad example: for £10 you’ll have access to the premium area of our website. (Not specific enough).

Abundant rewards

In each reward level, you should put your creativity at play so there’s a minimum of 2 rewards (ideally 3). A good strategy is to accumulate the rewards each time you go up a level. If in the first level you’re giving X + Y, in the next one you would offer X + Y + Z. This has the advantage for the backer of not having to choose between two things they might want – if they back the higher level, they will get it all.

• Good example: for £15 you will have everything in the £10 level plus premium access to the beta version of our platform, a ‘backer’ badge in your user profile and you’ll appear in the backers page and credits.
• Bad example: for £15 you’ll have our eternal gratitude and you’ll have access to the beta version of our platform.

How do we make sure we meet the GTA rule of rewards?

• Be creative and don’t be satisfied with your first idea.
• Be generous and remember that each backer is special.
• Remember that everyone likes to give and receive something back.

Wrapping it up

We can meet the GTA rule of rewards and design generous, tangible and abundant rewards for relatively low cost. It’s worth to put our creativity at work and make the backers feel special.

If you have any queries about designing your rewards or any other aspect of your crowdfunding campaign, please do not hesitate to contact me.