Whilst crowdfunding has undoubtedly been a massive success, with hundreds of platforms emerging to help projects in all manner of fields seek funding, the relative success rate of projects remains something that can be improved.  Kickstarter for instance reveal that 43.66% of all projects achieve their funding goal.  Whilst this has resulted in over $900 million being raised, it should go without saying that improving the success ratio should be in the interests of platforms, backers and of course project leaders.

Step forward a new study conducted by researchers at Georgia Tech.  They analysed over 45,000 projects on Kickstarter to try and understand some of the secrets to success.  They found that the language used in the pitch profiles is key to success, with a number of key phrases of particular importance.  What’s more, this choice of language was found to be more influential than the choice of gift offered to backers for their money, with the phrases used said to account for over 58% of the variance in project success.

For instance, phrases such as has pledged or project will be were strongly linked with successful projects.  On the flip side, phrases such as dressed up or trusting were linked with unsuccessful projects.

“The discrepancy in funding success between projects like Pebble and Ninja Baseball prompted us to consider why some projects meet funding goals and others do not,” the researchers said. “We found that the driving factors in crowdfunding ranged from social participation to encouragement to gifts – all of which are distinguished by the language used in the project description.”

So if you want your crowdfunding to be successful, it seems to pay to watch your words.