The phrases that pay: How to write a successful Kickstarter

"Also receive two" is a money-making phrase. "Even a dollar," not so much.

Kickstarter
(Image credit: (Facebook.com/Kickstarter, Thinkstock))

There's more to Kickstarter success than having a creative idea. How you phrase your pitch may make a person more likely to donate to your project. And good news, donation seekers: Researchers may have determined the precise language that puts people in the giving mood.

Tanushree Mitra, a doctoral candidate in computer science at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, explained her research in a recent interview. Her team looked at about 45,000 projects on Kickstarter. They included everything from Ninja Baseball, a project that got significant press attention but couldn't reach its funding goal, to Pebble, which got more than three times what it asked for. They analyzed the way each pitch was written, and then noted how much money the project received above or below the goal.

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Michelle Castillo is a freelance writer and editor and a pop culture junkie. Her work has appeared in TIME, the Los Angeles Times and CBS News.