Pre-launch Product Survey Advice for Crowdfunders
Gathering essential feedback before you launch a crowdfunding campaign is always helpful. The more you do, the closer to the target you'll hit. This will also help you plan your campaign and gather credible data that you can showcase to potential investors.
However, when your project is at such an early stage of development, you might not think that extensive product surveys are possible, or even necessary. Should you conduct product surveys at all before launching your crowdfunding campaign or should wait until you have something prototyped first?
While it’s true that pre-launch surveys are very different to post-launch or soft launch activities where customers can actually trial your products themselves, there are still many ways you can gather key feedback, opinions, advice, and general input before you set your crowdfunding campaign live.
Based on some of our experience offering marketing and crowdfunding video production in London, we’ve outlined our advice on the right approach and techniques for gaining maximum feedback.
Start Conversations on Social
Before you actually send out a survey to anyone, your own social platforms are good places to get a general idea about whether people would be interested in your future product. As long as you don't give away any secrets about your brand, you can probe people to let you know their thoughts and feelings on your new concept.
Obviously, you need to apply some strategy here regarding where you post, who you’re targeting and the way you phrase your questions. For instance, simply posting onto your Instagram account which only has a modest following won’t give you much data and the information you do get will be distorted by the fact that those reading your post will already be familiar with what you're trying to do.
What you want to do is reach completely new audiences on platforms that foster exploration and discussion. For example, the increasingly popular Clubhouse could be a great place to soundboard your idea within a designated room.
The clubhouse also has the benefit of potentially putting you in touch with people in your industry who may be able to offer industry-related advice or potential collaboration opportunities. At least in the earliest days, it was known as a platform heavily frequented by SEOs and company leaders.
Send Newsletters
If you're lucky enough to have a growing email list, whip up some newsletters to get people to take a product survey. Contacting your subscribers and asking for product feedback will not just help you get valuable data but will also add more credibility to your campaign, with more people recognising that you’re actively engaged in forwarding your project and taking on board the feedback of your audience.
Hopefully, your subscribers will understand your eagerness to design a fruitful campaign and potentially pass on the survey to someone else. However, you can increase the chance of this happening with simple incentives.
Look for Forums and Online Discussion Platforms
Reddit’s topic-based forums can be a good place to put the feelers out there. This is one of the top places for crowdfunding campaign creators to get insights into their customer's preferences as these spaces harbour large numbers of people who are keen to share ideas, critique and contribute to various topics with strong and valuable opinions. Obviously, it’s hard to discern the background of who is actually giving you feedback or what their motives are, so take any serious criticism or opinions with a pinch of salt.
Tips for Creating Survey Questions
Asking the right questions is just as important as finding the right people to ask. Below are some tips for squeezing out the right nuggets of information that can help inform your process going forward.
- Don’t ask leading questions - Try not to put your own opinion into the question prompt, otherwise you risk distorting your survey results. You want to get as true and genuine an opinion as possible.
- Define a clear goal - Set out clear, attainable goals so that your survey information will actually be actionable and practical. Do you want to understand why certain customers don’t love your product as much as others? Are you unsure about specific features?
- Focus on using closed-ended questions - For larger-scale survey campaigns, questions that use pre-populated answer choices for the respondent to choose from, such as multiple choice or checkbox questions, are easier for respondents to answer and much simpler to quantify when it comes to organising the data and analysing it.
Learn More
For more great tips and advice about smashing your next crowdfunding campaign, get in touch with us at Wow Your Crowd where we can help you with your crowdfunding video production in London or other aspects of your Kickstarter campaign!
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!
