Indiegogo Beginner Lab Presentation August 21st

Editor's Notes

• #2: Welcome to Indiegogo Lab Get food and drinks Introduce Indiegogo team How many of you are completely new to Indiegogo and crowdfunding? Pay attention to the questions asked by the campaign owners in the room – you’ll have these questions one day! Please tweet your experience at #gogolab Bathrooms are on the 6th floor. Follow signs
• #3: Indiegogo’s mission: to empower people to fund what matters to them. Our founder Slava Rubin, tells it best. We’re going to watch a short video created by the Kauffman Foundation which explains what Indiegogo is at it’s core. (Play video by clicking to the next slide)
• #4: That’s the gist of what Indiegogo is, but how are we different from other platforms?
• #5: Oldest and largest global platform Flexible vs. Fixed Open Great Customer support Merit-based
• #6: You can raise money from an Indiegogo campaign and ALSO: Gain visibility Gauge demand/mitigate risk Connect with your audience
• #8: Hi I’m [insert name]. I’m going to walk you through how to create a strong pitch. A pitch is made up of three parts – the goal, the video, and the pitch text.
• #9: If you don’t remember anything else from this lab, remember that a higher goal doesn’t not mean you’ll raise more money. In fact, we find the opposite is true.
• #10: Which campaign appears more successful? Correct! The campaign on the right appears more successful because it has reached a higher percentage of it’s goal. Contributors want to give to a campaign that appears successful so you should set a goal that is attainable. Contributors are actually deterred from giving to campaigns that have raised a low percentage of their goal – we call this the green bar effect. Later we’ll talk about how to overcome this, but your goal should be smallest amount possible to still move project forward and fulfill perks
• #11: - This pitch text answers the who what when where and why of the campaign before I ever have to scroll down. I would go a step further and include this information in a concise paragraph at the top. Ask the audience the answers to: who, what, when, where, and why Put the meat of the information “above the scroll” just like a newspaper’s most important information is above the fold Make information easy to reach with infographics and pictures Sell your project and project Be genuine! Videos are important! Campaigns with a video raise 115% more versus campaigns with out a video. Average contribution is 12% higher for campaigns with a pitch video. Contributors want fast and easy information
• #12: Share your campaign basics What worked in your pitch text and video Campaign experience Video tips
• #13: Who is the campaigner? Why is she raising funds? What do you get in return for contributing? Great, so we learned in less than 3 minutes the who, what, when, where and why of this project. Be sure to answer these big questions quickly –How would you describe the campaign owner?
• #14: -Really own your project. Start building hype before the launch. -Reach out to audience before-hand to see what services are there. You have a friend willing to donate their time for a video/photo shoot, editing, etc. (talk about how video was made and how we paid the videographer with PayPal funds after the first day). -A beginning, middle, and end event helps to bring excitement to your project and involve your audience. Can manage and maintain momentum -Offering perks that can be fulfilled during the campaign. Capture these experiences and make updates to have better audience involvement -A campaign is an organic living thing. Pressing the “go live” button is the scariest part. Once the campaign is live you’ll need to be able to adapt and strategize based on the audiences reaction. Comment on Bruce’s “you put water in the cup, it becomes the cup…” analogy
• #15: A perk is something you give back to a contributor to say Thanks! Having perks in your campaign is an opportunity for you to get creative! Just warning you, I’m about to throw a ton of examples your way, and I know it’s a lot to take in. My hope is that some of these examples will stick out and inspire you when you’re creating your perks.   People contribute to your campaign out of passion, pride, and participation. The best perks tap into these three reasons and further encourage your audience to become contributors. This specific perk is from the Mission Cheese campaign. Mission Cheese is located on Valencia St. If you’ve been there, you may have seen this mural of sheep. Look closely, and you’ll see that the sheep are made of names. The campaign team offered to incorporate your name into the mural if you contributed a certain amount. The perk allows you to show off your participation and passion for the project, and you’re proud of it. You can take friends to Mission Cheese and show off your name!   While you technically don’t need perks, you’re much more likely to be successful with perks, and your contributors are more likely to be happy.   Campaigns with perks raise 143% more on average than campaigns without perks. And we find that the most popular perk price is $25. Perks are really powerful as well because they enable you to gage your community’s interests, and engage your contributors by asking what perks they would like to see. Perks can be added and removed throughout your campaign, which is a great mechanism for encouraging contributions through limited time offer perks, or determining what perks work best or don’t.  
• #16: So what is a perk? You can generally break them up into 4 categories: Experience: an event such as a concert. The perk can be tickets to your event, and then you can encourage further contributions at the event itself. It can be recognition on your FB page, mural, or plaque. It can be an opportunity to volunteer with your nonprofit or volunteer to help create your project. A perk can also be a chance to participate in your project, such as working on a film set! Example of recognition: I contributed to this campaign. They found every contributor’s profile picture on Facebook, and added this crown and tag to their image. They then posted all the new images as updates, and invited me to make it my Facebook profile pictures. I could show off our pride in contributing, and also show off my participation. Good or Product: a physical object, swag, t-shirts, or the actual object you’re creating with your campaign funds. Most people think of perks as a physical object. If you have these objects, you should give them out as perks.  Sprayable Energy raised $170 k by pre-selling their spray individually or in packs.   Digital Good: book download, song download, subscription to a newsletter, insight into project’s progress (such as blueprints). Making physical things is complicated, but digital perks are easy.  For example, The Exploratorium wanted to create a Living Innovation Zone on market and they offered a digital sketch of what their LIZ would look like. This is part of the sketch above, and now you can go to Market Street and see their creation.   In-Kind: This is where you ask your network to offer perks on behalf of the campaign. So in-kind perks can be access to exclusive places, dinner with a celeb or influential individual, tours, or teaching a special skill. This doesn’t have to come from your network—if you know something cool, share it too. I have learned archery thanks to a perk, and Josh has actually offered martial arts lessons as a perk too, which I’ve claimed. So now you can tell that I like to claim perks that teach me how to harm people.   Another cool example, featured here, is from a recent campaign called Help the Honest Politician Crash The Most Expensive Senate Race of All Time. Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the iconic Obama Hope poster, donated posters and shirts with an original image of the Honest Politician in the same style of Obama’s poster. This perk was very popular for the campaign and helped bring in thousands of dollars in contributions during its last few days.   I’d like to take a moment to reiterate that it’s important to add unique, creative, and even funny perks. People get excited to receive something one of a kind.  
• #17: So here’s a funny example of an original perk. An Australian team lead by a woman who goes by Anna decided to make a documentary about women and their bums. They made their pitch text and pitch video very playful and funny, and their perks went along with this theme. That’s how they got away with offering something as raunchy as a signed picture of Anna’s bum as a perk.   I claimed it. I wanted to show my support for such a cleverly crafted campaign, and claim something so unique and funny that I could show my friends. So be creative with your perks, and see how your audience responds.   Now that your head is brimming with perk ideas, there’s one other thing you should keep in mind: fulfillment. It takes a lot of time, money, and energy. So you want to be prepared. When pricing your perks, do the math- add up not only the cost of the items and shipping and the amount left over for the campaign, but the cost of your time, too. Know how you’ll fulfill at 10 and 10,000 units. One of our favorite examples is of the Angry Video Game Nerd campaign, which offered a personalized thank you video in return for $10. 1421 people claimed this perk. That meant that yes, the campaign owner had to record 1421 thank you videos. Luckily, there is a way to limit the availability of each perk when you’re writing the description on Indiegogo, so you don’t end up spending every waking moment making thank-you videos.
• #18:   Finally, research international shipping! Indiegogo is proud to be an international platform, and you may find out that your idea really resonates with folks from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. Ensure beforehand that you calculate how much it costs to ship a thank you card, t-shirt, or product around the world, and factor that into your perk price. And if you’re not able to support international shipping, that’s fine, just make sure you clearly indicate that in your perk description and campaign’s pitch text.
• #19: Now that we have discussed how to create a great campaign through your pitch and perks, lets talk about how you are going to run and promote your campaign!
• #20: Having a plan is very important Running a campaign is time consuming and is a lot of work Planning ahead will reduce some of your work during the campaign The more you plan out how you will run your campaign the more likely it will be to succeed
• #21: Helpful to divide your promotional plan by timeframe Let’s start with your pre-launch promotion Your prelaunch is about building out your layers of support Start with your team Expand to your inner circle Goal is to not leave your campaign up to chance Gaining 30% of funding in the first few days is important for establishing early momentum
• #22: Also helpful to think about when you will launch your campaign and for how long Most successful campaigns will launch on a Mon or Tues in the morning Time when most people are checking emails and your campaign is far more exciting than any work email Optimal campaign time will vary But 21-45 days is where we have seen the greatest success You can run for a max of 60 days but you don’t want your campaign to run too long and lose audiences interest
• #23: Once your campaign is live, how do you promote it? Email has the highest conversion rate on our platform This is why it is important to build out your layers before When you launch let your inner circle now that you are live and give them a clear call to action You can also be creative in your use of email to reach a wider audience Use a vacation responder Or add your campaign to your signature
• #24: Social media is the next best promotional strategy It has the second highest conversion rate and on average accounts for about 22% of the funds a campaign raises Some people get nervous about social media Ask do I need to be on all of the platform? Our advice is pick your strongest platform and stick to it Or the place where you think your audience is most likely to be If you don’t already have a community on social media don’t try to promote through it
• #25: So what content do you use in your emails, social media, and promotional methods? The goal of using any of these strategies is to maintain active engagement Most campaigns look like this This is normal, but really successful campaigns find a way to overcome this dip When thinking about what content to include in your promotion focus on fresh interaction with your audience Add perks Continually engage people through updates Campaigns with at least 3 updates raise 239% more funds Offer a competition or a survey The goal is to make people feel involved in a way that is more than just contributing Campaigns: (HAVE TO REMEMBER) Gosnell Movie
• #26: A campaign that did a great job of maintaining active engagement was LUUV LUUV is a stabilizer for your GoPro or other action cameras so you can take shake free footage Instead of telling people how awesome their product was, LUUV showed them They posted regular video updates of their product in action Their audience could see and feel exactly what the product would do Shooting these videos also had the benefit of promoting their campaign offline By going to skate parks where their target audience hung out they were able to generate buzz and excitement about LUUV
• #27: A campaign that did a great job of maintaining active engagement was LUUV LUUV is a stabilizer for your GoPro or other action cameras so you can take shake free footage Instead of telling people how awesome their product was, LUUV showed them They posted regular video updates of their product in action Their audience could see and feel exactly what the product would do Shooting these videos also had the benefit of promoting their campaign offline By going to skate parks where their target audience hung out they were able to generate buzz and excitement about LUUV
• #29: Answers: At this time, we don’t manually feature campaigns. The campaigns featured in the Discover feed are automatically generated from those that have a high gogofactor. Indiegogo does not endorse any services that offer marketing consultation for your campaign, so we can’t verify the merit of any firm. If you believe a service provided by an outside firm can benefit you, we suggest asking the company to provide recommendations from other campaign owners along with examples of the value they added to those campaigns. Hire someone? -Depends. Do you have a team? What are your constraints? -It might be helpful to hire an intern or assistant for an area that you feel weaker in, like social media, PR, or communications. -Many crowdfunding agencies exist now. If you’re interested in engaging these services, definitely do research beforehand. Ask them for the names of the campaigns they’ve worked with, and reach out to those campaigns and ask about their experience with this agency. -We also offer resources on our Blog and in our Field Guide for writing a great pitch, online marketing, PR, and more. You may feel that these resources, as well as tips on the net, and tips from our team, are enough to plan your campaign strategy. Flexible funding campaigns can decide whether to enable contributions through PayPal or/and credit card. With a Flexible Funding campaign, contributions raise through PayPal are automatically disbursed to the campaign owner’s PayPal account. Credit card contributions are sent as a lump sum to your bank account within 15 business days after your campaign ends. For Fixed Funding, contributions are disbursed as a lump sum after your campaign meets its funding goal.
• #30: Bathroms are on the 6th floor – follow signs Break into discussion groups We will send you the slides and resources to read