5 Crowdfunding Mistakes to Avoid So You Don’t Lose Money
Crowdfunding can undoubtedly be a key driver of your initial success, however, many people lose money on poorly planned and executing campaigns that do little to grow awareness of their product and build a community.
Major failures include selling yourself too hard or to the wrong people, and not focusing on sustainable trust-building and engagement strategies. To help you avoid this and other mistakes, we’ve outlined some steps to keep you on the right track.
Don’t Create too Many Reward Tiers
Your first initial challenge is getting people on board and interested in your project. You don’t want to confuse people with too many choices when it comes to rewarding tiers initially. People may be turned away because they’re not sure what they’re willing to pay for.
Create a low-level reward tier for a small value to bring on a good base of support first, then nurture your base so that they can change their pledge later on, once they’ve developed a closer connection to your project.
Don’t Forget to Nurture Your Community
Great crowdfunding campaigns are built on strong communities. Growing your total number of potential backers is important, but for them to be useful to your cause and goals, you’ll need to find ways to connect with them and get them excited.
Offering platforms for sharing and discussion will help individuals feel connected and more likely to support you.
Ultimately, people want to be involved and not left in the dark after making their pledge. One of the best ways to do this is to tell people what’s happening behind the scenes, regarding the development processes or milestones in your project. A few effective activities include:
- Live events and demonstrations of your product
- Educational content about your product
- Interviews with you and your team
- Generally being active on social media spaces
Don’t Sell Too Hard
Resist the urge to sell hard, no matter how much you think it's necessary. Often, the best way to sell your product is to simply share great, original content with your audience. Spend time finding out what people are likely to enjoy or the questions they have about your mission, and create content that is useful and interesting.
Don’t Launch without Laying the Groundwork First
Patience and timing are incredibly important when bringing a new product to market. Even with an amazing concept that you know people will love, you’ll first need to dedicate some time to community building so you have an excited group of dedicated fans ready to jump in on the first day and spread the word about your project.
As providers of crowdfunding marketing services and Kickstarter video production in London, we’ve witnessed the best campaigns exceed their goals within the first 24 hours. If you don’t think you’ll be able to do this yourself, consider what preparation you can make to improve your chances.
Don’t Forget to Be You
A crowdfunding campaign is quite different from a standard marketing or sales campaign for an existing brand or product. At the heart of it is the need to convey your personal vision and goals, and the great potential of your project to new audiences. This requires you to be genuine and authentic in your delivery of messages.
Showcasing who you are and why you truly believe in your project is one of the most effective ways to get people on board.
Start Promoting Your Campaign
Crowdfunding success relies on many things, including creating a dedicated community of supporters who will follow your company as it grows.
If you want help or advice on building your following, or would like to talk to us about Kickstarter video production in London, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
The Power of Kindness in Your Crowdfunding Project
There’s a lot of talk about kindness in the business world these days. Many brands are now realising the benefit that promoting kindness through internal practices and brand marketing can have.
This doesn't just apply to the way people feel and are motivated within the workplace, but also how brands interact with customers and connect with them on a genuine human level, ultimately helping organisations to generate better profits.
As a crowdfunding and Kickstarter video maker agency, this component of kindness is especially interesting for us because we see the way different businesses and projects leverage it to interact with new potential investors, fans and partners.
Within the context of crowdfunding and the need to deliver direct messages and CTAs to your audience in a personal way, there’s arguably a greater need for you to convey your self and your small team as kind, friendly, and personable people who care about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
As such, we explore the role of kindness in crowdfunding and brand marketing.
What Does Kindness Look Like?
- Showing people that you care about the world
- Promoting certain social or environmental issues
- Having strong company values
- Interacting with people on a human level
- Offering people value without an agenda
It’s What Consumers Want
People want much more substance today from the brands and businesses they support. There’s now a huge premium on kindness and what companies can do to show people that they care about something, whether it’s specific social issues or company values like equality and diversity.
Many consumers will continue to combine morals and money by making values-driven purchases and looking to spend their money in places that are less damaging to the planet.
As this trend continues, tapping into this aspect of the consumer mindset is something that can help you grow a strong following early on. When you’re trying to inspire people to get on board and make people care about your project, you must show them that you truly care about something too.
Attracting Impact investors
Many investors have money set aside for projects that focus on having a positive change in the world. When raising funds so that your business can grow, consider that investors are much more likely to back companies that align with their own values.
Illustrating certain passions, beliefs and goals for improving things in some small way can help you to connect with like-minded people who will be more likely to back you. Furthermore, these individuals are more likely to develop a long term relationship with your brand and can become a vital part of your community going forward.
This isn't to say that simply stating that your business is committed to having a positive contribution to society and the environment will get you more money. It means that when you compliment the soundness of your concept, business plan and project vision with the intention to do some good, people are much more likely to support you.
Making Your Values Clear
If you haven’t already, try to achieve some clarity about what your values are as a business. To attract investors who align with your own values you'll first need to be sure of what those values are.
This can help to define your vision for the future and makes it easier to convey through your crowdfunding marketing campaigns that you’re committed to achieving specific goals. The aim of this process should be to crystalise why you do what you do and what you and your business stand for.
Showing Humility and Transparency
Being transparent about the small tangible efforts you are making to improve the world and spread kindness, even within extremely small areas, is better than making bold claims about changing the world (and not following through).
People are ultimately tired of grand gestures that fall flat. For example, if you want to plant a thousand trees to offset your carbon footprint, dig deeper into how this activity will fit in with the local ecosystem and promote biodiversity for the future. Anyone can plant trees.
Also, long-term commitment to small achievable projects is always much better than generic goodness campaigns or one-off donations to charities.
It’s Good for Your Too
Running a project and business with greater integrity and values does more than just help you to collect more followers and grow. It can also be fundamental to your motivation when developing your organisation, whatever it may be.
If you want to explore how you can convey your core values and beliefs through your crowdfunding promotional content, we’re a Kickstarter video maker agency that would love to help you showcase your beliefs and ideas to your audience.
9 Steps to Effectively Promote your Kickstarter Campaign
Like it or not advertising your Kickstarter campaign is a MUST if you want to hit your funding goal. Whether you are starting or in the middle of your campaign, you should consistently promote your offer so you attract an audience to support you. In this article, we’ll discuss a number of ways you can advertise your project, reach your audience and crowdfund your big idea.
Why is the Advertisement important?
Why do some Kickstarter projects quickly reach their funding targets while other campaigns struggle to get the first donation? There are a number of variables that come into play. For example, pricing and product offer, but generally it's simply down to not enough people knowing about your campaign.
Typically you can expect to see a backer conversion rate of 5%. So for every 100 people who are interested in your offer 5 will back you. With these metrics, you can easily work out the number of people you need to reach in order to gain enough support to help you achieve your funding goal.
Here are some tips to promote your campaign and build your crowd.
1.Carry out proper research to create an irresistible offer
Understanding who your audience is and what your competitors offer will enable you to create an offer that is different and more desirable to potential backers. You can only do this by carrying out decent research before you start your project. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Who needs my product?
- Why do they need my product?
- How is my product better than alternative options?
- How much will people be happy to pay for the product?
Then consider how much you need to raise to make your campaign viable. Do the figures work out? If so, then get ready to tell everyone about your campaign and offer!
2. Create a Lead Capture Page
Create a stand-alone landing page or add a page to your existing website that focuses on your crowdfunding campaign. Add a ‘lead capture box', so anyone who is interested in your campaign can leave their email address, and be updated with news about the campaign launch. Use different traffic strategies to send people to the lead capture page and build a list of ‘hungry’ leads, who are ready and interested in supporting your project.
3. Use Facebook Advertising
Paid Advertising campaigns on Facebook are highly effective at promoting your product and generating interest. The top marketing agencies use Facebook ads to drive traffic to a landing page and capture leads. Using Facebook’s ‘Ad Manager’ there are a number of different campaigns you can run. For example, awareness, lead generation, conversion, and engagment. Facebook ads are great as they can reach really tailored niches and millions of people easily all at the same time. You just need a budget to make them work effectively for your campaign.
4. Use Email marketing
Connect your email marketing software up to your landing page’s lead capture box, so when people sign up they go straight into your email list. You can then message your leads directly and nurture a relationship with them. The key is to get your audience to know like and trust you. Build up momentum as you lead up to the launch of your campaign.
5. Social Media & PR
Use your social media channels to promote and build awareness of your campaign. If you have multiple social channels, post across all of them, or if not just focus on 1 channel. Engage your audience, speak with them, ask them questions about your topic, build up a relationship and encourage people to back your campaign.
Use press releases to reach out to members of the press who may be interested in writing about your product and campaign. Making appearances in the media will attract more interest and give your campaign more credibility.
6. Use Pinterest
People sometimes neglect Pinterest when it comes to advertising a crowdfunding campaign. Pinterest has great potential. It has a niche audience of its own and works as a search engine. You can posts images and videos about your product and promote your campaign. The platforms key features include creating ‘boards’ and using searchable #hashtags.
7. Use a Compelling Video and Gorgeous Looking Photos
Your video is your campaign's most important marketing tool. It's the first thing people look at, and if it's not good, most people bounce to another campaign. Hire an agency that specialises in Kickstarter video production to make your video. As well as your video you’ll want nice photos of your product. Take a selection of your product on its own and with actors in lifestyle shots. So backers can see what the product looks like in a real-life situation and imagine themselves using it. Use the photos and video on your Kickstarter project page as well as in for your advertising campaigns, social networks and pr news releases.
8. Use Super Backer Sites
Many successful crowdfunding campaigns have 1 thing in common, they are backed by 'super backer ‘supporters. Super backers are (predominately males) who have supported multiple campaigns. There are a number of dedicated super backer websites where you can pay a small fee and have your campaign syndicated to the platform’s list of super backers. Generally, you offer the super backers a special perk (Reward) which isn’t available on your Kickstarter project page. This can be a discount on the price, a free add-on, or an upgraded reward level.
9. Give Away a Prize with a Referral Campaign
Referral campaigns can be a good way to build a list of leads cheaply. The one problem with using ‘paid’ ad campaigns like Facebook Ads is that they can be expensive. Referral campaigns give you the opportunity to build a list of leads cheaply. By offering the chance to win a prize you can entice leads to sign up and build a large crowd before you launch your campaign. The only problem with referral campaigns is that the quality of leads can be quite poor when you give away a prize for free. Meaning the lead isn’t that interested in buying your product/supporting your campaign. They just want to win the prize. But saying that when you get your referral campaign right it can be a brilliant way to build a crowd cheaply and launch a successful campaign.
In Summary
There is a lot to do to effectively promote your Kickstarter campaign, but by following the 10 steps above, you will give your campaign the best chance for success. If you are feeling slightly overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done, then build a team to help you or outsource some of the workloads to experienced professionals who can support you. At Wow Your Crowd, one area we can help you in is Kickstarter video production. To find out more, simply get in touch today and arrange a free crowdfunding strategy call. To your success!
How to Set up a Successful Crowdfunding Email Marketing Campaign
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies for crowdfunding campaigns. In this blog post, we’ll explain how to set up a successful email marketing campaign, so you can nurture a relationship with your crowd and improve the chances of successfully funding your campaign.
Why does some email marketing not work?
Some people say "email marketing is dead," but research shows that 72 percent of people are more receptive to promotional content via email over other types of marketing channels.
If your email content isn’t working and It’s not generating the results you desire. Then this could be due to a few things:
- A poor quality email list
- Poor email content
- A Poor call to action
If you are sending emails to a list of people who aren’t your preferred target audience then the campaign is starting on the wrong foot. Poor quality, non-original or salesy content is a big turn off. As are campaigns that push readers to low-quality products or an offer that isn’t as good as your competitors. It may seem obvious to you, but you’ll be amazed at how important it is to tell your audience what you would like them to do. Use a call to action and encourage your audience to act.
What we experience?
From our experience, email marketing is an effective crowdfunding marketing technique that when implemented correctly encourages your crowd to support your campaign. Campaign data shows there is a correlation between sending out an email to your list and then seeing more donations or sign-ups take place. However, there are some crucial points that you should follow to increase the probability of your campaign’s success.
Before Pre-Launch
Before you launch your ‘prelaunch’ campaign you and your team should use your existing networks to build a list of contacts. Take the completed list and upload it to your email software of choice, for example, MailChimp. Connect your landing page’s ‘email sign up form’ to MailChimp. So any leads that sign up through the form are added straight to your main contact list.
You are now ready to start emailing your contacts.
Welcoming Email
It's best practice to have a ‘Welcoming’ email, which is sent out to someone when they join your email list. On signing up, an automated email is delivered to them straight away - welcoming them to your community. The ‘welcoming’ email is an ‘overview’ of your campaign and a chance to recap on the messaging included on the landing page or elsewhere.
Points to include: reintroduce your project vision, explain key benefits, highlight links to any related groups e.g. Facebook community group and give a good CTA at the end of the message. For example, information about the launch date.
During Your Pre-launch Campaign
The emails you send to your list during the prelaunch phase are intended to build and nurture a relationship. Use the opportunity to create interest and intrigue in your cause or offer and get people excited to be part of your project’s community.
How many emails you send during prelaunch depends on how long your prelaunch is. If your prelaunch is 4 weeks then we’d recommend sending an email every week for the first 2 or 3 weeks and then as you get closer to the launch date you can send a few more emails.
Wondering what you should talk about in your emails here are a few ideas:
Chat about your back story, your project’s history and your reason why highlight features and facts and keep your contacts notified about the launch date.
Reminder Email - ‘Launching Tomorrow’
As you get closer to launching you can send out more emails (every couple of days) to encourage backers to support you when you launch. The most important email is the ‘reminder’ email sent out the night before your launch. As people will join your email list at different points throughout prelaunch the ‘reminder email’ helps to put everyone on the same page. Notifying you are launching tomorrow.
Launch Day Email - ‘We are Live’
On the day of launch send an email to your list to let them know that your campaign is now live. Encourage your list to support your campaign straight away. For ‘rewards’ campaigns where you are offering a product at a certain price you can encourage your list with an ‘Early Bird’ discount offer which is available for a limited time. This strategy will help to encourage your list to support you straight away.
Live Campaign
During the live campaign, it's important to keep messaging your main contact list. Keep them updated with the latest campaign news, the milestones you have achieved, for instance when you hit your funding target. As the campaign draws to a close you can send 3 or 4 emails counting down the final days and hours of the campaign.
Generally, you’ll find the most amount of action for your project is in the opening and closing days of the campaign.
Important Things to bear in mind
When creating a list, keep in mind where your emails will go. Will, they hit your user’s inbox, promotion folder, or spam folder? All of these are dependent on your IP credibility and domain history, and credibility.
The best way to make sure your list is receiving your emails is to remind them when they sign up to add your email to their ‘contact address book’.
Their email client will then know to trust your email and you can relax knowing they are receiving everything you send out.
Make your emails come to life
Whether you need help with designing your email marketing or other areas of your marketing campaign or even Kickstarter Video Production then get in touch with us at Wow Your Crowd. We’d love to hear about your big idea and help your campaign to get funded.
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.
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!
