Adam, Author at Wow Your Crowd

Express Your Story With the Help of the Kickstarter Campaign Page

One of the biggest questions when you launching your campaign, is “how should I design my campaign page and what should I include? Hopefully, after reading this blog post, you will be better positioned to answer this question.

When creating a project campaign page, its best to think from your customer/backers perspective. What do they need to know, like and understand in order to support your project?

Imagine having a conversation with a person about your project:

What would you say to them?
What could they ask you?
Most importantly, what would you say and show in order to convince them that backing your project is the right thing to do?

What is your Project’s campaign page?

Your project/campaign page is located on the crowdfunding platform of choice e.g. Kickstarter. Your page gives you the opportunity to tell people your story, idea, and plan. It covers the aspect of who you are, what you plan to do, and why you are doing it. Even if your project is simple and straightforward, you still need a campaign page that shares the right information with your audience and compels them to support you.

Some basic questions to answer and include on your page are:

Who are you?

In this part, you can present yourself, your team, and the overall big idea / aim for your project.

What are you doing - Explain your offer, idea or cause?

The greater the details, the better. Photos, sketches, demos, prototypes, and videos will bring your project to life, and help your audience understand your idea of what you want to achieve.

From where did this project come and Why?

Explain to people why you are doing what you are doing, why you care and show what you have achieved so far. Sharing the history of the project allows people to appreciate the work you have done and will help to build trust with you.

What is your plan?

In this section, you can layout a simple plan or video of what an audience should expect from you.

List Rewards and your funding target

Develop some great rewards which people will love to receive in return for supporting your campaign. Show a breakdown of what is included. In a donation or equity campaign, you may want to show how the funds raised will be used.

What do You need To make an Excellent Project Page?

You can express many of your ideas on the project page with words, but there is more to a successful project campaign page than text. The best campaigns keep text to a minimum and use Images and videos to engage viewers into your story. Here are a few elements which can make your project page a success.

Choose a perfect picture for your project page.

Remember, the thumbnail image that represents your campaign is the first aspect of your project people will see. In order to make an excellent first impression select an image that tells the story of your project. If you are launching a product - show your product in action, if you are raising funding for a cause or equity raise you may want to show lifestyle images of your those who will benefit or your business.

Create a fascinating video

This is the perfect way to present yourself and showcase to people what you are working on. Your video should be professional looking and right on point. A poorly made video can really effect the way people perceive your offer, business or cause. You don't have to be a crowdfunding expert to know that a convincing video is a key to your campaign's success.

Use headings and subtitles

Most people don’t want to read long sections of text, thats why using headings and subtitles instead can work better as they allow people to scan a page and help them to understand quickly and clearly what the key message points are (regardless of their language and level of listening).

Get innovative

Other ways to bring your project page to life is to Include gifs, graphics, and photos. Try to keep those media items below 5 MB. So they can be conveniently shared online and don’t slow down the project page’s loading speed.

Finally,

To add all the above elements to your project page, you can also get the help of Wow Your Crowd. Our crowdfunding marketing services are here to help you launch a successful campaign and generate awareness and traffic you need to build your crowd.

We will help develop your crowdfunding campaign, from developing your story to visualising it, with project page design, and provide Kickstarter Video Production. If you want your campaign page to be successful, you need to invoke emotions within your target audience and impress them with excellent visuals and clever copywriting.

Pro Tip: Make sure that your product page clearly illustrates the dilemma and casts your product as the best solution.

by Adam

Common Myths About Crowdfunding Marketing Campaigns

Crowdfunding is a kind of social fundraising. It’s the new way to raise money, by leveraging your personal network to support your cause or campaign. Along with your network, you can use an online crowdfunding platform to raise the money you need to fund your personal or business venture.

Crowdfunding is an excellent option for startups, product creators, and developers to launch their ideas, collect funds and have a platform to build a community for their big idea.

When starting any crowdfunding campaign, you may need to keep these points in mind; you must be mindful of several misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding crowdfunding to prevent any issues that could have a negative effect on your project.

Crowdfunding Myths

Here are some important crowdfunding myths:

Innovative ideas are not crucial to the success

Wrong! The most innovative ideas have the best chance of succeeding and raising the funding they seek. Along with being innovative the best ideas need a good plan and strategy to bring it to life, which requires adequate time and attention to implement successfully. First, find out which groups of individuals are likely to support your campaign and then work out a marketing strategy on how to share your campaign with them to gain their backing.

The real work starts when your campaign starts

I will urge you to initiate your campaign at least two months before the official launch date. This is the time required to construct an effective plan, including a mailing list, and to develop a strong backer community around your project. These are the two crucial factors needed for your campaign's success. It would help if you used this time to study, prepare ahead, collect a good team, identify positions, and arrange all the assets before the start of the project. Planning well in advance will set you to campaign up for success.

The concept that people are waiting for your idea and project launch is misleading. Although crowdfunding begins with close friends and relatives, it hardly finishes with them. Many of us are also aware of the importance of news and social media promotions for business promotion.

To get the desired support you need for your campaign, you must start using other networks to inspire people to spread the word to their networks to gain mass awareness. With the right effort behind the campaign along with a well-advertised promotion, you will give your campaign a greater chance of success.

A Significant following on Social media DOESN’T assure success

Do you know that one of the reasons for your campaign failure is to post completely about it in advance?

Although social media is a key factor in crowdfunding success, you need to be aware of the fact that the majority of the donations will come from people you know already, such as your friends, relatives, or e-mail subscribers.

Keep in mind that undoubtedly Facebook numbers are important! Quite a few people will already have over 10k or more followers on their Facebook and Instagram, which they believe will be enough to help raise the funds they require. Unfortunately, this isn’t completely correct. Its best to work out the figures. How many pledges do you need of a certain amount to reach your funding target? Once you know this number times it by 20, (which = 5%). This is the ideal amount of people you need to reach out to and convince to back your campaign.

For example: For a 5 % conversion expectancy:

100 pledges x £100 fee = £10,000 funding target.
20 x 100 pledges = 2000 people

Facebook & Instagram are a great way to reach more people and build up your crowd. Review the number of followers you already have and then decide how many more people you need to reach.

Many campaigns set up a marketing funnel to capture leads for their campaign. The marketing funnel can include Facebook ads, press releases, email marketing and other marketing strategies.

If you haven’t got a social following or email list, it makes sense to start building one as soon as possible. Ideally 6 or even 12 months before you launch! You want people to know who you are and what you stand for. If you don’t have that kind of time then use the time you have to the maximum.

The crowdfunding campaign is only for startups

Many people think that crowdfunding is predominately for entrepreneurs and start-ups to raise significant capital to support their innovative ideas. This isn’t correct and is a misunderstanding. Crowdfunding is for everyone, entrepreneurs, start-ups, individuals and established businesses. Recently many big brands have started to use crowdfunding as a way to test their new innovations, rather than launching them direct to the commercial market.

Finally,

Implementing a Crowdfunding Marketing campaign is a great way to build awareness, build a community of followers and overcome any financial obstacles you may have with raising capital with conventional methods such as banks, schemes, investors, and other financial institutions. Any entrepreneur or business with an advanced concept can use crowdfunding to raise money quickly and easily without giving away large amounts of equity in their business or spending large sums of personal money.

by Adam

Crowdfunding 101 - What You Need To Know

In this article, we’ll explain the ins and outs of crowdfunding and what you need to know before you set up your first campaign. There are various types of crowdfunding and each type has particular methods that work better for that area of crowdfunding. However all types of crowdfunding generally follow a similar core process, which we will outline for you, so you can implement and kickstart your campaign successfully.

What is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is raising a set amount of funding for a particular project. The funding is made up of small amounts of money from the ‘crowd’ - a large group of people, who share an interest in your project.

What types of crowdfunding are there?

Rewards - generally ‘pre-selling’ an innovative product or creative project.

Equity - raising investment in return for equity in your business.

Donation - raising funding for charity and social causes through donations.

Where does crowdfunding take place?

Most crowdfunding projects take place on the internet and are launched on a specific crowdfunding platform, which specialises in your chosen area of crowdfunding.

For example, if you are launching a campaign to pre-sell your innovative E-bike invention you would choose Kickstarter or Indiegogo, who are the leading platforms for ‘Rewards’ campaigns.

If you wanted to raise investment for your E-bike company you would launch your campaign on an equity crowdfunding platform like Crowdcube or Seedrs.

And if you wanted to raise money for your new charity idea then you would use a platform dedicated to donation campaigns like Crowdfunder or Go Fund Me.

There are many other platforms out there to choose from but they are smaller and less reputable compared to the big platforms. This may have an effect on people being willing to support you.

It’s important to consider where your audience will come from. If you want a global audience then pick a global platform or if you want a local audience to choose a platform based in your country.

Who can crowdfund?

There are no restrictions on who can launch a crowdfunding campaign. As long as you can access a crowdfunding platform and social media platforms for marketing the campaign then you are well placed to launch a campaign.

That being said campaigns that have a team behind the project generally outperform projects with a single founder. The reason is simple, a team can spread the workload and access a bigger network of contacts, which increases awareness and momentum for the campaign.

I’m not going to pull the wool over your eyes, crowdfunding involves a lot of work and will take up many hours and many days to bring your project to life. Having a team that can work together on your project, implementing their diverse set of skills, will make things a lot easier for you and set your campaign on the road to success.

When should you launch a crowdfunding campaign?

Launching a successful campaign takes time to implement and build momentum. The most successful campaigns spend many months perfecting their project, messaging and building buzz around their campaign.

At a minimum, you will need 3 months to get everything in order and launch your campaign. So if you plan to launch sooner, then stop and think clearly about what you need to do. The worst thing you can do is launch your campaign too soon and see it fail, just because you weren’t ready.

Before setting a launch date ask yourself these key questions.

Do you have the time required to make the project work?
Do you have a crowd to help fund 50% of your target on launch?
Does your audience actually need or care about your idea?
Does it make financial sense to crowdfund your idea?

Unless you can answer yes to all of these questions it’s best to postpone your campaign until you can.

Why should you crowdfund?

Many people think ‘money’ when crowdfunding, but crowdfunding provides you with so much more than just raising the money. The best and most useful benefit gained from crowdfunding is building a community of followers and fans. For a start-up or cause building a crowd provides huge benefits.

A community can help to shape your offer and develop your product by sharing their ideas and feedback. The community are likely to feel connected to your project and support you long term, as they now have a vested interest in your success.

Here are some of the main benefits of crowdfunding:

Build a community
Validate your idea
Create brand awareness
Increase your social media following
Attract customers
Raise funding and Investment

Crowdfunding can be transformational and really propel your business or cause to the next level. So don’t be deterred by the hard work that is required to launch a campaign. Embrace the challenge and go out and make your big idea a success. Remember a crowdfunding video is an integral part of your campaign, so be sure to enlist the help of an agency like Wow Your Crowd, who can support you with all areas of your campaign guide you on your crowdfunding journey.

by Adam

Pro Tips and Advice for Launching a Crowdfunding Campaign Successfully

In this article, we share some useful crowdfunding tips and advice designed to help you launch a successful campaign. These are ‘inside pro’ crowdfunding tips and come from our experience launching various campaigns successfully (and unsuccessfully) over the past few years. Crowdfunding can be tough and the more information you have at your fingertips the better placed you are to launch a successful project.

1. When is the worst time to launch a crowdfunding campaign?

The leading platforms will argue that there is never a ‘worst’ time to launch a campaign, however from experience, there are certainly times in the year that are likely to make a launch harder than others.

Probably the most difficult time to launch a campaign is in January, followed by August. Why these months? Well, January is one of the hardest months to crowdfund in as people have the less disposable income to spend after Christmas and many people are away for summer break during August.

This ultimately means if you plan to launch in either month you will have to work even harder to get people to support you and make your campaign a success. It’s not impossible, and launching in January may be vital to the success of your campaign e.g. delivering a product for springtime, but compared to if you launch at any other time of the year it will be harder.

2. What information should I include on my campaign page?

Your campaign page has 1 purpose, to convert people into backers. How do you decide what information to include on your page? Simply, think from the ‘backers’ perspective. Why would a backer desire to support your project? What needs and desires does a backer have that your campaign offers them? How will their support make them feel? What visual and written content do they need to see to help compel them to trust you and support you? What messaging is going to evoke the right response of support from them? These are all questions to think about and answer when designing your page.

Some simple tips to help increase conversion are:

Make your campaign personal by including information about the team behind the project.
Include lots of nice imagery and photos rather than long paragraphs of text. Make sure the photos you show are relevant. e.g if you have a campaign for a craft food stall, include photos of people enjoying eating food at your venue.
Create rewards/perks that are simple to understand and choose between. If you have too many options this causes confusion and delay due to too much choice. This will inevitably make people go away to think about what to do rather than supporting you then and there. This will lead to missing out on vital sales.

3. What type of marketing should I use to promote my project?

One of the main principles of crowdfunding is to build a ‘crowd’ before you launch a campaign. For most campaigns, this means implementing various marketing strategies, which reach out to your intended audience and communicate your message.

The easiest and cheapest way for you to let a large number of people know about your project and what you are doing is to use social media. Setting up a Facebook, Twitter or any other social media account will be very beneficial to getting your message out there.

When using social media develop a strategy to release a post or number of posts each day, which give an insight into your project, the people involved and the problems your cause/project is solving.

Make your posts personal and this will help you to connect with your audience and make them aware of what you are doing. Remember people can only support you if they know about you. So mass, consistent communication will build up real momentum behind your campaign.

It's a good idea to set a team member who is responsible for arranging social media every day. They should write frequent, engaging posts with links and build momentum behind the campaign.

Other areas of marketing include ‘paid advertising campaigns’ on platforms like Facebook or Google Adwords. But you will need a separate ad budget to pay for the ads. This can be costly but also very effective at getting ‘cold’ leads and traffic.

If you launch an advertising campaign, direct the traffic from the ad campaign to a landing page, which captures the leads email address. You can then launch an email marketing campaign, which nurtures a relationship with the lead and entices them to support you.

PR can also be a great way to gain exposure about your project and attract interest, however, PR normally isn’t great at converting more sales, so if your budget is limited think carefully about how much money you invest into a PR strategy.

Optimising your campaign to be the best in can be is the best way to make it successful. Take on board the advice above to improve your campaign and avoid the pitfalls many projects make. If you are stuck and wish more guidance and support then consider hiring a crowdfunding marketing agency like Wow Your Crowd to help launch your campaign. An agency’s experience and knowledge can save you time and money in the long run. To your future success!

by Adam

7 Types of Video Content to Attract Backers to Support Your Crowdfunding Campaign

The sole aim for most crowdfunding campaigns is to attract backers to support you and help fund your project. But how do you attract backers to your project and how do you convince them to support you? In this blog, we’ll explain 7 different ways you can use video content to enhance your campaign and convince those who are sat on the fence to get off and back your project.

Launching a Kickstarter campaign is exhilarating and challenging all at the same time. Particularly if you are launching your first project. Many campaign founders have lots of questions buzzing around their head - ‘what should I do first?’, ‘how will I attract people to support me?’, ‘how do I make a video’?, ‘what should I say on my campaign page?’ and many many more.

When you find yourself in this situation it's easy to get overwhelmed and start focusing on the wrong things. Instead what we suggest is to clear your head, stay calm and plan out a simple step by step structure to approach each area of your campaign. Only moving onto the next step once the previous is complete.

Of all the different areas that make up a crowdfunding campaign, how you attract backers to your campaign and then convince them to support you is probably the most important area to focus on.

There are multiple marketing strategies that you can implement but which ones will resonate the most with your audience and attract them to support you? Well, if we take a step back first, the most important thing you should do is to build a strong relationship with your audience and that means building trust. Whatever marketing strategies you use, coming across as personal, likeable and trustworthy are a must when it comes to convincing people to support you.

In today’s digital world video is by far the best way to promote your message online and attract interest in your project. Using video is great because it allows you to showcase yourself, your team and your product in a personal and visual manner, which helps to build a trust relationship with your audience.

Here are 7 different types of video content you can create to attract backers to support your crowdfunding campaign.

1. The campaign video
These days, the campaign video comes hand in hand with a crowdfunding campaign. It's highly unlikely you will find a Kickstarter campaign without a video. The reason being campaigns with a video are more likely to successfully reach their funding goals.

We always recommend to our clients when creating their video to feature ‘a face of the brand’. This is really important when it comes to engaging with an audience, as it instantly allows the viewer to nurture a relationship and relate with you and your message.

2. Unboxing videos
An unboxing video is exactly what it sounds like - a product in its box being unboxed. If you are launching a new product an unboxing video is a great way to show your product in a favourable light to prospective buyers. Viewers get a good idea of what the product is like and what they will receive when they buy your product.

An unboxing video is normally a ‘no frills’ video, shot in 1 take, with either a recorded voice explaining what is in the box or no sound at all. These are very easy to make and if you upload the video to places like Youtube with the right type of keyworded video title, you can attract extra traffic to your campaign.

3. Customer & Influencer Testimonials
There are is no better way to endorse your product than with a video referral. Most people’s buying decisions are based on the recommendations they receive. Using a customer or influencer testimonial that showcases your product favourably is highly recommend and will go along way to building trust with potential backers.

The more raw these videos feel the better as they won't come across staged or made up. Simply get some past customers, early adopters or influencers in your niche to test your product and give an honest review of what they thought.

4. Behind the scenes videos
Behind the scene, videos are a great way to connect with your audience and show what life is like when creating a product and launching it to the world. Use your smartphone (if it has a good camera) to capture the daily goings-on of you, your team and all the things that are going into making your campaign. Your audience will see how much hard work and commitment you are putting in and this will help to nurture a relationship on a personal level. Showing your personal and vulnerable side is a great way to connect with audiences online.

5. Social media videos
Use video on your social media platform to build awareness about your product and campaign. You can upload all types of video content, just remember to make content that is suitable for your audience and the particular platform you release it on. For example video on Facebook is best shown in a square format, rather than a 16:9 format. The reason being you get more retail space in the Facebook news feed. On Instagram, you can only upload Instagram stories that are 15secs or less. Create content that is personable, informative, educational, and funny (if you can).

6. Campaign updates
Campaign updates are exactly that, updates about the status of your campaign. Use campaign updates to inform your crowd about the progress of the campaign before and after you have launched. You can build a direct relationship by speaking directly to people and ask them to help out by sharing and spreading the word about the campaign.

7. Meet the team
Introduce yourself and the team to your backers, let them know what you do, what makes you tick and what your likes and dislikes are. Anything goes really. Use these videos to give insight into the lives of those who work in the company and show people you are normal human beings just like they are!

Ok, that's your lot for now. Hopefully, the points above will get you thinking about what you can do and how you can use video content to attract more backers to support your campaign. Remember it's all about building trust!

If you require help with your Kickstarter video production or would like some advice on how to launch your crowdfunding campaign, then contact us and schedule a free crowdfunding strategy call. We’d love to hear more about your plans. Speak soon!

by Adam

Pinterest Marketing Simplified! 5 Simple Tips to Grow your Pinterest Account

Pinterest has grown to be one of the most popular social media platforms in recent years and has become handy for crowdfunding campaigns who are launching a new innovative product. In this blog, we explain 5 simple tips to set up and grow your Pinterest account.

Pinterest has made quite a name for itself in recent years. In fact, it has become the third-largest social network in the United States. In the last 12 months, Pinterest gained almost 70 million users. This is quite a large user base and it certainly gives marketers a lot to think of. What’s even more interesting is the fact that the majority of Pinterest users belong from high-income households and are predominately women. So, if you are a marketer or just starting a new business you should definitely use this platform to your advantage.

For your ease, we have listed down 5 actionable marketing tips to kick-start your Pinterest marketing campaign.

5 actionable marketing strategies for Pinterest:

1. Setting Up a business account:

It is highly recommended that you sign up for a Pinterest business account as it allows you to manage your targeted audience more efficiently through analytics and Rich pins.

Simply head over to the Pinterest Sign up section and create your business account.

Here’s a list of things that needs to be taken care of for a proper brand profile:

A professional profile photo: This one is simple. Use a professional picture of you or your company logo here.

Cover Board: This is the first thing your audience will see when visiting your profile so don’t be afraid to get a little creative here. You can use an image or a carousel that best displays your brand story or your best work/products here. Remember, it’s all about connecting with your audience!

Writing your Bio: Writing a bio for a Pinterest profile can be tricky as you are only allowed a 160 character limit. So, keep it short and simple and don’t overdo hashtags as they are not relevant here.

2. Planning your content strategy:

“What to post and when to post”, it all comes down to these two things when it comes to a good content strategy.

What to Post?

Creating captivating content based on the interest of your targeted audience is the key ingredient for a successful Pinterest marketing campaign.

You can create three types of content to promote your brand.

Product pins:

Pinterest is one of the few platforms where people are actually searching for new products/content from brands. In fact, 78% pinners find the content from brands including product pins very “Useful”.

So, if you are running a crowdfunding campaign, launching a product or have an online store and want to maximize your revenue, you should definitely take cool pictures of your products and promote them on Pinterest. Even better if your product is women-focused as almost 80% of the pinners from the US are females belonging to the age group 18-64.

Rich pins - Blogpost and Landing pages:

Have a story to share or a cool offer that people can’t miss? Create a beautiful picture with a catchy title and share it on Pinterest and you are almost guaranteed traffic!

You can drive traffic from Pinterest by inserting your website’s link on the pins. Whether you are promoting a blog or a landing page, you can make use of this strategy.

Video pins:

A great way to tell a detailed story of your brand and connect to your audience in a more engaging way. More on this later….

When to post?

Now let’s talk about when to post.

Picking the right time to post can certainly work in your favour and if you can hit the time when most of the audience is online using Pinterest you will win the Jackpot!

Past studies have shown the following times to work best:

During the day: Between 2 PM – 4 PM EST.
In the evening: Between 8 PM – 1 AM EST.

It’s all about analyzing your targeted audience however, the above mentioned times generally work well according to SocialFresh.

3. Optimizing your Pins:

Pinterest is labelled as a search engine for images and so it’s a good idea to optimize your pins for better visibility and reach.

Here are the two things you can do to optimize your pins:

Writing a compelling description:

Writing a compelling Pin description might look like a small thing but it matters a lot! In fact, Pinterest itself reported that using clear and actionable words can increase email sign-ups up to 70%.

When writing a Pin description, you should try to include your brand name and try to use clear, concise, and actionable words to better connect with your audience. Writing a Pinterest description is an art and every little detail matters so you must pay attention here!

Adding Hashtags:

Just like any other social media platform, Pinners use hashtags to find new content on the platform. Using relevant hashtags in your description can get your content discovered on Pinterest and really get things going for your brand.

4. Be consistent - Interact with other pinners and join group boards:

Posting quality content and interacting with other pinners regularly can take your marketing campaign to the next level.

Joining community boards is one of the best strategies to grow your Pinterest account. Here’s something that you can do:

Simply try to find group boards within your niche using hashtags and try to provide value to the viewers by posting quality content as much as you can. This strategy will help make your content more visible to the Pinners eventually leading to an increase in your follower count.

Pinterest is all about creating value for the viewers and if you consistently do that, your success is almost guaranteed!

5. Hidden Ninja - Video pins!

Now let’s talk about the video pins. Video pins are getting extremely popular on Pinterest. In fact, Pinterest reported that video engagement rose by 600% in 2019 as compared to the year 2018! This clearly shows the importance of video content and you should definitely use video pins.

Video Pins are great to connect with your audience and connect with them on a more personal level. Whether you are looking to share your brand story or a product that can change the lives of others or simply looking to raise awareness for your crowdfunding campaign, posting enticing video pins should be at the top of your to-do list.

When crowdfunding we recommend adding Pinterest to your list of marketing strategies as it is a great platform to help grow awareness of your new product and build interest in your project.

Contact us here at Wow Your Crowd if you'd like help with creating quality videos for your Pinterest content especially if you are planning to raise awareness of your new product campaign with a crowdfunding video. Catch you soon.

by Adam

10 Simple Tips to Make your Crowdfunding Video a Success!

The crowdfunding video is regarded as the most important marketing asset in a crowdfunding campaign. Your campaign will struggle to promote your offer and convince backers to support you if you get your video wrong. In this blog, we explain 10 simple tips that we use to create our client’s videos and you can use to create a better video and improve your campaign success.

Why are Crowdfunding Videos so effective?

A well made Crowdfunding video pitches your idea clearly and concisely, showcasing your offer in an appealing way. Turning viewers into backers.

Crowdfunding videos are:

Short: They pack a powerful message in a short time. (We recommend no longer than 4minutes in length). Their format keeps you engaged and informed.
Compelling: They are visually striking and appeal to your target audience. Videos work better than text because some audiences struggle to absorb information when delivered in long blocks of texts. A collection of stand out visuals and audio composed in an entertaining way is far more enjoyable to review and take in.
Emotive: An effective video will engage the audience through their emotions. Seeing a person or product in action (rather than a still image) provides more context to a situation and allows you to pitch your story in a way people can emotionally connect with.

And now the real question...

How do you make your crowdfunding video a crowd-pleaser?

Ten simple steps to make a great video.

1. Writing a compelling script

The script is the main ingredient in the video. This is where you tell your brand’s story and make your sales pitch. For this, you need concise dialogue, clear plots, and engaging characters. With a good script, you can move people and push your message forward.

2. Getting Equipment

To get a professional video made you need to have the right equipment. You can either rent equipment to make videos yourself or hire a professional videographer to do the job for you.

In any case, you will need cameras, lights, sound equipment and more for a video that looks professional and delivers appealing visuals with great audio.

3. Hiring Actors

A crowdfunding video should appeal to your target audience so you are going to need people (and locations) in the video that look appealing. If you have a tight budget, your team can become the on-camera talent. But if you can stretch the purse strings, hire an actor. An actor will be eloquent, persuasive, and believable—getting you the views you need.

4. Lighting and Blocking

A professionally made video is well-lit. Without lighting, you can lose the on-screen talent to the shadows, and with it, your message. Lighting sets the tone of the video and provides clear images.

Blocking is a technique used to get accurate and consistent placements in the video. In a scene, an object or person needs to have a fixed, consistent position for continuity and to look good

5. Shooting the video

Before shooting, you will need to storyboard the entire script. The director and camera crew will then shoot all the scenes seamlessly according to a production schedule and plan. You can use many takes and multiple camera positions to shoot the video. This way you can make sure that you get the best looking take.

6. Adding a Voice-over

Voice-overs are effective tools for persuasion in crowdfunding video production. You can either hire a professional for the recording or do the voice-over yourself with rented sound equipment. In any case, the voice-over should be clear, engaging, and relay your message effectively.

7. Adding and picking Music

There’s no successful video without music. From a few simple trills to an upbeat song, music can uplift and engross the viewer immediately. Bubbly music can excite the audience while sad notes can spark pity and sympathy. Your music should add character to your narrative and make it better.

8. Smoothing over the Sound

Shooting a video can mean a lot of background noise gets in the way. A video shot outdoors can especially have a lot of unwanted sounds like the rustling of leaves, chirping of birds, and the noisy sounds of traffic.

How do you handle this? It’s simple: ideally, choose a location where you can control the noise. Alternatively, you can edit out the sounds with professional sound editing software. If you can afford it, get a high-quality microphone for video shoots to prevent unwanted sounds in the first place.

9. Editing the Video

Raw footage can’t be used as the video campaign. To create and tell an effective visual story, you need to craft and edit it. Choose between fast and slow cuts dependent on the style you want your story to deliver. Add graphics and animation to bring elements of your video alive. Colour grade and use sfx and audio design to add character to your story.

10. Delivery & Marketing the Video

The final step in video production is delivery. In this case its marketing your video to your audience across social media and on your landing/campaign page. When delivering your video for social media you’ll need to make sure you export a version of the video, which meets the correct format for the platform. For example, the dimensions, tone, and messaging of the video will need to adhere to the standards of the marketing platforms. An extremely long video, for example, can’t be shared on Instagram.

If you need help with your crowdfunding video, or would like to discuss your campaign idea then schedule a free crowdfunding strategy call with us here at Wow Your Crowd. We are crowdfunding video specialists and will love to help you make a stand out the video for your campaign and help you reach your funding goal. Speak soon.

by Adam

Crowdfunding 101 - How to Crowdfund Your Big Idea Successfully Part 2

In the past, typically only enterprise companies with large R&D budgets could bring a product or innovation to market. But today, crowdfunding has levelled the playing field and enables businesses and entrepreneurs to make their ideas a reality. In this blog, part of 2 of ‘How to crowdfund your big idea successfully we continue to explain the key areas of how you can launch your crowdfunding campaign successfully.

Marketing Campaign

Once you have your messaging ready now is the time to build your marketing campaign. At the heart of your marketing is a marketing funnel, which generates awareness of your campaign and attracts leads to support you.

The key areas of your marketing funnel are:

Landing page
Email marketing
Facebook Paid Advertising Campaign
Social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc)
PR

Landing page - is a 2-page website, which has a ‘home page’ that works as a sales page and a ‘Thank you’ page. The home page is designed to showcase the launch of your campaign and request people who are interested in your campaign to sign up using their email address. Once someone signs up they are taken to the ‘Thank you’ page, where you can have additional messaging such as requesting people to join your Facebook page or community page.

Email marketing - Once someone registers their interest on the landing page their email address is added to your email list. You can then email the person on a regular basis nurturing a relationship with them. The idea is to provide them with relevant content about you and your campaign which entices them to back you when you launch. The whole idea of the email marketing sequence is to foster a relationship with the leads and get them to know like and trust you. This makes it easier to sell to them when your campaign goes live.

Facebook paid advertising campaign - is the preferred choice of traffic source. Running a Facebook ad campaign almost guarantees leads from your target market and is a very quick way to build up a large lead list. The only drawback is that is can be expensive, however, most successful rewards crowdfunding campaigns have used this strategy, understanding its important to invest money upfront in order to generate the leads required to make sales when your campaign launches.

Social media channels - use your social channels and your team’s channels to promote your campaign. Its best to start talking about your campaign as soon as you can, to build up the buzz and noise around your launch. Post about all topics to do with your campaign - the cause, the prototype, the team, experiences to date, campaign news, fun stuff etc.

PR is good for brand and campaign awareness. Not all campaigns use PR as it can be a bit hit and miss, with some industry stats indicating it is only responsible for generating 5% of campaign sales, however PR if done right is great generating awareness and building interest in your product and company.

Build a Crowd

Building a crowd of hungry backers before you launch, who are ready to support you, is vital to the success of your campaign. Its a fact, the more people you have on your email list when you launch, the more money you will raise. But building a list is not easy and you will need to work hard using various strategies to build your crowd.

Many people think the crowdfunding platform will send people to your campaign but unfortunately, unless your campaign reaches around £25,000 in the first few days of launching, platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo will not promote your campaign. Industry stats show that 75% of funds raised by campaigns come from the traffic they sent to the campaign page. So, how do you build a crowd?

Leverage your network - Your own network is the foundation for your campaign and the best place to start building a crowd is with your friends and acquaintances. Sit down with your team and create a spreadsheet, which lists all of your contacts, use your phone's contacts and platforms like Facebook to build out your list. Once you have your close contact lists build a list of your 2nd and 3rd tier of contacts like friends, people from networking, relevant and related people and business. Use Linkedin for help with 2nd and 3rd tier contacts.

You need your campaign to gain momentum early on, so leveraging your close contacts to support you is a tried and tested method for gaining early support and getting your campaign off to a good start.

It takes more work to build a relationship with a cold lead and get them to know like and trust you, so don’t be shy to let your friends and contacts know what you are doing.

From your and teams list of contacts choose 15 to 20 people who can help amplify your campaign. Reach out to them and ask for their support in advertising your campaign across their networks, directing traffic to your landing page or campaign page depending at what stage your campaign is at. The bigger your team the bigger the reach you have.

Some tips for using social platforms to build awareness of your campaign:

Pinterest

Set up and use your Pinterest account to promote your project’s vision and “brand.
Pin pictures of your product/rewards and anything else visually interesting that relates to your project.
Pin images and videos that direct people back to your campaign.

Instagram

Post pictures documenting your product development and campaign journey.
Post pictures of the team and events relating to your project.
Tag your pictures with a link that relates to your campaign.

Facebook

Set up and use a personal & business Facebook page for your campaign to send regular campaign updates.
Always include a link to your campaign whenever posting about it on Facebook.
Set up a private group and get leads to join it. Ask them for feedback on your project and use their comments to build a stronger campaign.

Twitter

Use popular and trending hashtags to raise awareness for your campaign.
Ask contacts for retweets to help spread the word about your campaign.
Tweet at people (even those you don’t know) who might have a special interest in the subject of your campaign.
Make sure your team also tweet to their contacts about the campaign.

Crowdfunding is a game-changer and has made it easier than ever before for you to launch your big idea. Use the information explained in both parts of this blog to help develop your campaign and launch it successfully. For more information about how Wow Your Crowd, crowdfunding agency UK can help support you with your campaign, get in touch today and arrange a free crowdfunding strategy success session. To your crowdfunding success!

by Adam

Crowdfunding 101 - How to Crowdfund Your Big Idea Successfully Part 1

Many entrepreneurs and businesses struggle to raise the funding they require to turn their big idea into a reality. Crowdfunding helps to solve this issue, but how do you crowdfund? In this 2 part blog, we explain the main areas of ‘how to crowdfund your big idea successfully’, and highlight certain strategies we use here at Wow Your Crowd, which you can implement and help launch your campaign successfully.

Crowdfunding is being used across industries in many different ways to great effect. Helping individuals and businesses to build communities of customers and followers and to raise funding, which helps to advance projects and causes and improve the lives of us all.

The three main types of Crowdfunding are Donations, Equity and Rewards.

Rewards Crowdfunding is the most known form of Crowdfunding, due to the rise of Kickstarter the famous Crowdfunding platform, where projects generally pre-sell products, in order to raise the money required to manufacture the product.

Equity crowdfunding is on the rise with more platforms appearing around the world as it becomes a legitimate way to raise investment for business projects. Investors gain shares/equity in the business for their investment.

Donation crowdfunding is primary for charity and social causes, where backers of campaigns donate to a good cause but generally don’t receive any form of reward for their donation apart from gratitude.

Although the three main types of Crowdfunding are quite different the core strategies that need to be implemented in order to run a successful campaign are the same. These strategies once learnt can be repeated time and time again whether you are crowdfunding or marketing your business or special cause.

The steps for how to crowdfund your bid idea successfully are:

Research & Analysis

The very first thing to do is to carry out research into successful campaigns similar to yours. Whether you are launching a product, raising investment or asking people to donate to your cause its vital you understand why campaigns have been successful.

Make notes, compiling a spreadsheet, which lists information about the campaign: for example campaign name, raise amounts, value propositions, positioning, messaging, target markets, reward types, pricing, type of imagery, type of video, website and campaign page design.

Message

The next stage is to clarify your message. Crowdfunding is about Innovative products, disruptive businesses and strong causes that will change the world for the better.

Use the information collected from the ‘research & analysis phase to position your product, business or cause so that it differentiates itself from other campaigns. Your offer should sound different from previous campaigns.

Think about who your audience is and write to them. What are their problems, pains and needs? Tailor the messaging to solve their biggest problem. Create copy that makes them feel emotionally connected to your project and wants to back your campaign. You are the leader and guide, make them want to be part of your movement and community.

All big brand advertising campaigns have a ‘planning’ phase at the beginning of a project. Where the planning team develops a ‘comms strategy’, which clarifies the key points that the campaign messaging should focus on. The comms strategy is like the launchpad for your rocketship. Without the comms strategy or more importantly the key points from it your campaign will struggle to take off.

Before you start your project, create a comms strategy and use it to help create the messaging for your campaign. Key points of your comms strategy include:

Your why - the reason why you are doing what you doing.
Your mission and vision statement.
USPs - unique selling propositions,
Features and benefits and the value they provide.
Target market/persona of your ideal audience, their likes and dislikes, age, backgrounds, jobs, financial position
Develop a branding guideline, including tone of voice and styling.

The comms strategy will form the foundation of your business moving forward as well as your campaign, so it's worth spending the time developing it.

Use the points from the comms strategy plus the research you carry out to craft the best messaging for your campaign, which attracts your audience and entices them to back your campaign.

Marketing Campaign

The key areas of your marketing funnel are:

Landing page
Email marketing
Facebook Paid Advertising Campaign
Social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc)
PR

Social media channels - use your social channels and your team’s channels to promote your campaign. It is best to start talking about your campaign as soon as you can, to build up the buzz and noise around your launch. Post about all topics to do with your campaign - the cause, the prototype, the team, experiences to date, campaign news, fun stuff etc.

PR is good for brand and campaign awareness. Not all campaigns use PR as it can be a bit hit and miss, with some industry stats indicating it is only responsible for generating 5% of campaign sales, however, PR, if done right, are great generating awareness and building interest in your product and company.

Build a Crowd

It takes more work to build a relationship with a cold lead and get them to know like and trust you, so don’t be shy to let your friends and contacts know what you are doing.

Some tips for using social platforms to build awareness of your campaign:

Pinterest

Set up and use your Pinterest account to promote your project’s vision and “brand.
Pin pictures of your product/rewards and anything else visually interesting that relates to your project.
Pin images and videos that direct people back to your campaign.

Instagram

Post pictures documenting your product development and campaign journey.
Post pictures of the team and events relating to your project.
Tag your pictures with a link that relates to your campaign.

Facebook

Set up and use a personal & business Facebook page for your campaign to send regular campaign updates.
Always include a link to your campaign whenever posting about it on Facebook.
Set up a private group and get leads to join it. Ask them for feedback on your project and use their comments to build a stronger campaign.

Twitter

Use popular and trending hashtags to raise awareness for your campaign.
Ask contacts for retweets to help spread the word about your campaign.
Tweet at people (even those you don’t know) who might have a special interest in the subject of your campaign.
Make sure your team also tweet to their contacts about the campaign.

Crowdfunding may sound difficult but with the right team behind you and a solid plan, crowdfunding is simple and produces amazing results for those that get it right. For more information on crowdfunding video and how we can help support you with your campaign, get in touch with Wow Your Crowd, a crowdfunding Agency in the UK and arrange a free crowdfunding strategy success session. Speak soon!

by Adam

3 Types of Crowdfunding Video To Successfully Fund Your Kickstarter Campaign

The crowdfunding video is your campaign’s most important marketing asset. Get it right and a successful campaign beckons, get it wrong and months of hard work could be ruined. Here at Wow Your Crowd, we are pitch video specialists and in this blog will explain the 3 different types of video you can make for your campaign.

Running a successful crowdfunding campaign comes down to 1 thing, getting your audience to buy your product. If you can’t convince your audience to support your project and buy your product then it's highly likely your campaign will fail. So everything you do should work towards the end goal of enticing your audience to support you. But how do you do this, how can you engage your audience and take them from one end of the buying spectrum, where they are hearing about you for the first time to the other end of the spectrum where they buy your product?

Well, your crowdfunding campaign should be built around a marketing funnel strategy, which creates multiple touchpoints with the audience, allowing you to pitch your key marketing message points to them. The most important touchpoint in your marketing funnel strategy is your crowdfunding video. Without a doubt, your crowdfunding video is your campaign’s most important asset as it is the key to convincing your audience to buy.

The crowdfunding video is what converts viewers to buyers and so it's vitally important you develop a standout video, which pitches your story and showcases the value of your product, convincing backers to support you.

Here at Wow Your Crowd we are pitch video specialists and have been solely making pitch videos for many years. We have developed our own unique P5 Pitch Video formula that we use when creating videos for our client’s projects.

We can let you into a little secret - there are three types of crowdfunding video that you can create for your campaign, which type you choose is up to you and your current situation.

One thing I implore you not to do when creating your video is to make a ‘promo video’. Time and time again I see campaigns who have created a ‘promo video’ instead of a ‘pitch video’, Creating a promo video will have a negative effect on the campaign, as it doesn’t provide the viewer with the correct information they need to make a buying decision, which usually results in campaign failure. So when seeking help with creating your campaign’s video be sure to hire an agency like Wow Your Crowd who understand how to create a pitch video and give your campaign the best chance of success.

The 3 Types of Video you can create for your campaign are:

The Traditional Pitch Video
The Product Demo Video
The Promercial Pitch Video

The Traditional Pitch Video - is the classic style of video that features the campaign founder introducing their big idea and the backstory to the campaign. This type of video is great for building a relationship with the audience, as the audience is able to associate a face with the project and build a subconscious relationship with you. You want your audience to trust you, so by showing a face behind the project, you are allowing the viewer to get to know, like and trust you. This has a very positive effect in convincing a backer to support the project.

The problem with featuring in a video is when the person delivering the pitch isn’t very good at speaking on camera. They may be shy and feel awkward in front of the camera, which comes across in the delivery of their pitch. So, when deciding what video to make you need to first ask yourself, do I want to feature in the video and can I deliver a strong performance to the camera? If the answer is yes, then you should definitely make an appearance whether that is through the whole video or in 1 or two bits, as it will help to nurture a personal relationship with your crowd.

The Product Demo Video - does exactly what it says on the tin. It demonstrates your product, explaining the features and benefits to the user. A product demo video is usually narrated by a voice-over or set to a music track with on-screen text explaining the main marketing message points.

Product demo videos are good when you have a limited budget or you don’t want to feature in the video. The video consists of shots of the product in different scenarios/locations. For example on a white background in a studio and then in a lifestyle location like the kitchen or office. The video generally doesn't feature any people unless you see a hand appear to pick up or activate the device.

If shooting a product demo video it's better to keep the video short and to the point. This will help to keep the viewer engaged and excited about the product.

The Promercial Pitch Video - is a name we here at Wow Your crowd have created for a specific type of pitch video. The video is a cross between a product demo video and a commercial. The promercial video showcases the product being used by models or actors in lifestyle situations, selling a story of how the product will benefit the user in real life. The promercial can also feature the founder speaking to camera or be presented by an actor or narrated by a voice-over.

In recent years the promerical pitch video has pretty much overtaken the traditional pitch video as the main type of video for promoting Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaigns. Many of our clients prefer to go for the Promercial video over the traditional video as the footage created can easily be repurposed for future marketing videos.

One thing to bear in mind is that creating a promercial video is usually more expensive than a traditional style video or product demo video. This is because the productions are generally bigger, with more people involved, more time required to develop the creative and the additional cost of actors and locations etc.

Whatever video you chose to make for your crowdfunding campaign the secret is to make the video as engaging and entertaining as possible, hooking the audience quickly, whilst showcasing the value your product provides them.

For help and advice on how to make the best video for your campaign contact us at Wow Your Crowd and find out more about our award-winning crowdfunding video production services.

by Adam