Telling your Story
Rewards
Pitch Video
Building Fans for Your Project
Marketing Your Campaign
Backer Engagement
Telling your Story
When telling your story, you need to rub off your passion on the audience. You need to share all the details that can convince people about your plan to deliver the project.
Think like the audience, someone who you’re telling your story to. What would you say to them to convince them of your passion and credibility for this project? You literally have 5 minutes of their attention.
You should cover the following points:
- What is this project all about?
- Who are you and why do you care about building this project?
- How did you come up with the idea?
- What’s your action plan, schedule, the team on board?
- What is the amount you need and how will it be used? A simple budget breakdown.
Rewards
The more interesting, unique and quirky the rewards, the better your chances at crowdfunding.
People back projects only when they love the idea and want to support you to make it happen. Rewards are those incentives that nudge people to give a little more.
Pitch Video
The crux of a good pitch video lies in a good script! A script which has a capturing start, talks about your journey so far and an ending with a call to action. Follow the script format that we think is best for pitch videos.
First Minute of the Video
- Greet with a smile and introduce yourself and say that you’re crowdfunding upfront in the first 2-3 sentences. Something like – “Hey, I am John, I am the Director of the film “XXX” and I am here on WingsOfIdeas to raise funds from you awesome people. Let me take you through what this film is all about.”
- Explain your project in a crisp one-line description and then give details about the project:
- Talk about how did you come up with the idea and why do you want to make this project
- Talk about the significance of bringing this idea to life
- Show what you have done and how did you bring your project this far
- Add visuals of your work in progress & shoot in your workplace or with a background which relates to your project
- Introduce key team members in the video
Last Minute of the Video
- Give more information about the crowdfunding campaign & be transparent. Talk about the amount you are targeting to raise and what will it be used for
- Give people a reason to fund your project
- Tell people about some of the cool rewards you’re giving back for their support
- DO NOT FORGET to mention – All or Nothing, and the number of days left to raise the target amount – this helps create a sense of urgency
- End with a call to action – fund, share, collaborate and spread the word
Building Fans for Your Project
Define your target audience
Who are the most likely audience to fund your project?
- Friends and friends of friends
- Family
- Colleagues
- Alumni
Take an excel sheet, and make a list of all the above kind of people with their email addresses – simply download your contacts from Gmail, Facebook and your phonebook. Tag your relationship with these people and group them accordingly.
Emails
Send emails about your project to your email lists at least once a week. This will help you get people interested.
Facebook page
Create a Facebook page of your project, start sharing it with your friends and ask them to pass it forward.
Post interesting content
Remember, good quality content is the best way to get the right audience’s attention to your Facebook page. Make a social media calendar of the posts you will put up each day. A good practice is to post at least 3 times a day. But nothing will yield results if the quality isn’t good. So, get a graphic designer and a copywriter onboard to help you with this!
Make a project website
Create a one page website for your project [something like this] and share it on your Facebook page. Have a call to action on the website to collect email addresses of more and more people.
PR
Getting the press to write about your project builds credibility. Research and list down contacts of journalists and bloggers in relevant publications, websites and blogs. At least 4-5 media mentions before the launch of your campaign are necessary!
Our Social Media and Marketing team will asisst you with all of the above activities.
Marketing Your Campaign
Target 1 – How to meet the first 50% of your campaign target in the first 10 days of your campaign?
- Remember those email groupsFriends, family, colleagues and alumni. Target the first 10-15 very close people in these groups who you know will definitely give the money quickly to support you. Make sure you convert them first.Don’t make the mistake of converting your closest people in the end. They are the fastest to give you money and the faster your campaign page shows money coming in, the more likely for your project to be noticed by strangers.
- Remind, remind, remindPick up the phone, send an SMS, create a whatsapp group, do whatever it takes to get the reachable network to fund you immediately.Don’t think the money will start coming in with just one email. You have to remind people when crowdfunding.
- Get friends to spread the wordIdentify 3-5 friends/team members and ask them to post about the campaign at least 2-3 times a day everyday till the campaign ends. This way you can reach out to friends of friends as well.
- Facebook postsMake sure you are posting interesting content about your project plus thanking your funders.When posting, remember to mention the following: campaign link, number of days left, and All or Nothing. It builds urgency.
- Change Facebook cover photoThe first thing that people see when they come to to your profile should be about your crowdfunding campaign. In the photo description of your cover photo, make sure you add the link to your campaign page.
Target 2 – How to meet the remaining 50% of your project in the remaining time period?
- BloggersGet the relevant bloggers to write about your project. Go after bloggers who also cater to the same kind of audience you are targeting.
- PressGet mainstream press like Times of India to write about your project.
- InfluencersFind out Twitter influencers and celebs who identify with the project, and get them to promote your project by tweeting about it to their followers.
- RadioGet on the right radio channel that can help you reach out to the larger public.
- Facebook adsRun Facebook ads for your campaign by targeting people who share interest similar to your project.
- Facebook groups/communitiesMake a list of relevant Facebook communities and manually spread the word about your project in them.
Our Social Media and Marketing team will asisst you with all of the above activities.
Backer Engagement
During the Campaign
- Send prompt and immediate Thank You emails.
- Update all new developments around your project, press coverage or any work in progress on your campaign page.
- Turn your backers into advocates! Send them a cool FB cover photo of your project along with the campaign link and get them to update it on their Facebook pages.
- Be prompt with answering questions and reviews that backers may leave on your campaign page
After the Campaign
- Keep in touch; send them weekly or fortnightly updates about the project.
- Send rewards on time.
- Get feedback from backers; involve them in the work in progress and show them the first draft of the project.