One of the things you have to consider when running a Kickstarter campaign is the tiers of rewards. I am in favor of more rewards over fewer (within moderation, naturally, I’m saying I’d rather have 8 choices than 3,) but this blog post by Dave Slusher on Decision Fatigue has me thinking.
…compare going to Subway to Jimmy Johns. In either case, you walk out with a fairly similar sandwich. All told, you get more food for cheaper at Subway, but I prefer the experience of going to Jimmy Johns. Why? Because I walk in to Jimmy Johns and tell them I want a #6. I even make a substitution, deli mustard for mayonnaise but when I place that order, that is the end of it. I hand them money and shortly get a sandwich handed back to me. I can order three or seven, and the experience is the same. Contrast that to the Subway experience. Going to the head of the line at Subway is like being interrogated at the station house.
“What sandwich do you want?”
“What bread?”
“What size?”
“What cheese?”
“Do you want this toasted?”
(ED- more questions cut for brevity)….By the time this experience is over, I’m exhausted from having to answer all of these frigging questions when truth be told, I don’t give much of a **** about any of it. You could hand me my sandwich on any bread, with any cheese, and with any permutation of toppings and I’d feel about the same about it. Scale this up to across your whole life all day, and it begins to get abrasive.
I’ve seen this in video games- I like being able to choose my hair color and style, but do I really give a crap about the width of my jaw or the height of my eyes or how high my ears are?
I have seen Kickstarter campaigns that have 1, 5 10, 20, 40, 50, 65, 75, 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000, and more levels. I’ve seen people offer different rewards for the same level, so you can pledge $50 and get the t shirt, OR the hat, OR the album.
There is a point where too many choices turn us off, we can’t decide and go with, “nothing” as our answer. When it comes to raising money with Kickstarter, that’s deadly. Well, I suppose it’s deadly for any business you’re trying to run; you don’t want to scare away the customers. Is there an ideal number for rewards? In my opinion, you want a very low bar with a personal thank you as the reward. You want a very high bar with an awesome reward to entice people who want to support on a large level. As Tobias Buckell said in a recent podcast, the most popular pledge levels are $25, $50, and $100. Definitely have those on there. Do you need more? I’d probably add a couple more, but not many.
Of course, your mileage may vary, but keep decision fatigue in mind when you’re interacting with the customer.
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3 Responses to Decision Fatigue and Kickstarter
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I understand the potential stress of trying to order food at a twenty-questions style place (I mean, I don’t want to eat what would be a perfect lunch if only I hadn’t forgotten to say “No I-hate-that-sauce sauce”). This is exactly why I place a lot of food orders online and then go pick them up. Online stuff usually doesn’t have the same time pressure without a chance to review.
Still, I have seen Kickstarter campaigns where I had to read the levels over four or five times. I prefer ones where the higher levels include the lower levels, rather than four options that are essentially the same level, but with a different item. Then I gravitate towards the level that my personal biggest “ooh, shiny!” shows up as a starting point.
I say quality over quantity. The rewards should be compelling in their uniqueness, value, or offer a real connection for the consumer to the project and the creator. Personally, I want to feel like an important part of the project.
Assuming all the reward tiers meet the above criteria, I agree that less is more.
The idea that decisions are harder when too many options are presented is well researched (very famous and interesting study “When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?”). At one point, people may opt to not choose at all. There’s a tension between the expectations of many options online (and the time to research as Jason points out) and the reality that people really do have trouble making decisions when too many choices are presented. What if they choose wrong? What if there’s a better deal elsewhere?
There are ways to mitigate this–group options, present fewer options, have other shoppers recommend/review options. The kickstarter interface really doesn’t facilitate this beyond letting the campaigner choose the number of reward tiers. I think maybe “most people help out with $__” would help, and it would add a subtle element of social pressure. “This is the right choice, and other people do it, so you should do it too”
For me personally? I don’t have time to understand the kickstarter campaigns with more than 5 reward tiers. To satisfy my curiosity, I will look at the highest value one, but trying to decipher the rest? I really have better things to do with my time.
And omg, creating my Skyrim character? For real, Mur. I just wanted to play, yet there I was debating the merits of close eyes and far apart eyes. And I couldn’t even tell the difference in eye liner colors. I just wanted to be female, not pasty white, have cool hair, cool eye color, and be inclined to magic.