This band raised $21,250 to buy a new tour van.

Wayland launched a well executed Kickstarter that shows how a strong Purpose Worth Backing sees no boundries. If you were to assume that you can’t get your fans to foot the bill for your new $20k van, you’d be wrong.

As it turns out, your Kickstarter doesn’t have to revolve around your album or creative endeavors.

Personal Connection With Existing Fans, Friends and Family

When I first glanced at this project, I pegged these guys as having a huge fan base (read: email list) and so of course they can raise $20,000 for a new van without a problem. I think this is an assumption all of us make all to often when we see success.

As I went deeper into their online world, it was obvious that their secret to success is not their number of fans, it’s their ability to connect with these fans.

We feel we are becoming the people’s band, and that’s a title we hold in the highest regard. The 4 of us are ready to use this opportunity to remain the band that never stops delivering our music straight to the people. We are the band that is truly always on tour! Getting a new touring vehicle is the only way to continue the path we’re on. We promise to remain the blue collar, hard working band we have always strived to be. ~ From their project page

After watching their video, we can tell that all four of these bad-ass rockers are very personable fellas.  When you live in a van all year and meet new people every day, this personality asset goes a long way.

These guys are masters of Personal Connection, something that doesn’t come easily for most bands.

Purpose Worth Backing

This video does such a solid job of presenting the Purpose as a credible and urgent mission.

They’re not just a band experimenting to see if they can get fans to spring for a major business expense. Even if that IS the case, they did a great job of framing this challenge in a way that fans can get behind and relate to.

All too often we see bands talking about what THEY care about (ProTools, Businessy stuff, making the most professional sounding record possible, having their BEST songs EVER) when they need to be framing that same stuff in a way that a fan can relate to in their own terms.

These guys did exactly that:

We want to continue to spread this music as far as we can and for as long as possible.  The challenge that we face is that tour and travel expenses outweigh what we make every night. We’ve been to a lot of places already, we’ve met a lot of great people, we want to keep pushing and spreading this music for as long as we can

Great Kickstarter Rewards Matrix

Wayland had a staggering $114 average pledge-per-backer.  This is absolutely phenomenal considering the music Kickstarter average is $70 and many un-optimized projects struggle to get above $50 per backer.

This is especially amazing considering that this isn’t a traditional album funding project with the standard album related rewards.

These guys had to get creative and put in hours of strategic thought to come up with Kickstarte Rewards that had great buy-in from $10 to $5000.

Their effort to create rewards in the mid to upper tier that people would actually buy is the true genius of this project. Do yourself a favore   and study their rewards.  Take a look at the profit margins, price spacing, and creativity.

The Takeaway

Wayland has actually only been touring since early 2012.  Less than a year.  Although they’ve been together almost 7 years, it seems they didn’t start pouring gas on the fire until recently.

When looking at their social circles (Reverbnation and Facebook) it appears that their mailing list is under 5000.  Their Facebook page has 10,000 fans, but that doesn’t mean instant success.

Nope.  It’s not their shear number of fans that gave them a staggering $114 average pledge-per-backer, it’s their perfectly crafted Purpose Worth Backing and their expertly crafted rewards that did a great job of hitting low, mid and high tier rewards that all received ample action.

These guys made it look easy, but as we all know, the simple, easy looking things are often the hardest to do well.