Campaign Page Examples That Work
Christopher Hawker
Lessons
Class Introduction
07:56 2What is Crowdfunding?
32:23 3Is Crowdfunding Right for Me & My Project?
21:22 4How to Build & Manage a Team
12:23 5Choose a Crowdfunding Platform
11:44 6Create the Campaign Page
12:49 7Campaign Page Examples That Work
29:44 8Set the Campaign Timeline
08:18Determine the Perk Strategy
12:04 10Campaign Goal & Referral Strategy
11:31 11Produce a Campaign Video
02:23 12Campaign Videos That Work
46:59 13Pre-Campaign: Build Email List & Buzz
41:50 14Pre-Campaign: Social Media Strategy & PR
08:36 15Launch Your Campaign
07:57 16Live Campaign: PPC & Facebook Ads
12:08 17Live Campaign: Email Updates & Adjust Goals
18:32 18Post-Campaign: Workflow & Delivering Your Product
23:47 19Post Campaign: Obstacles & Backer Communication
07:01 20Your Crowdfunding Future
02:22Lesson Info
Campaign Page Examples That Work
So start off with is your headline every one of these pieces is important and the headline is is key because it's what's going to draw people in, they're going to see a picture and they're going to read the headline, and if the headline doesn't hook him, then they're not going to go in, and if they don't go in, they can't back your project, so you contest different headlines using google adwords, you know you can see which things people are responding to by running ads using different headlines and seeing which ones get more traction. This is the thing charger this was created by my good friend seymour segment her and this campaign and as you can see, did very well raised so far nine hundred forty three thousand dollars, I believe the original campaign raised over seven hundred thousand it's now in the in demand portion of indy gogo and just briefly on indiegogo. After your initial campaign ends, you can go into the in demand phase where you're still collect money while you're getting ...
ready to ship the project and it's just not in the initial campaign rush, so they've raised another couple hundred thousand since the original campaign ended january thirteenth of two thousand fourteen there is two thousand five hundred and ninety one percent of their original goal and it's for the awesome new charger for your things and sometimes it's hard to know why one headline will work better than another which is why it's important to test them because you might think that you want something that's like really straightforward and it might turn out that it's something that's less obvious that's intriguing to people that catches him who knows why and then here's their video we're going to spend the whole lesson on the video itself but right here you're just seeing what's the cover to the video because when you show up you khun select you know the frame that they see before the video starts and you want to have something that a compels them and b is calling them to action so you know putting in a play button so they get that there is something to watch here and it says please watch this video first right there's a call the action right there and see where the press is going wild you know so they're not like leaving anything just chance in case you didn't know people are going crazy about this you could say that even if the press weren't going wild and people might react to that so now you want to be authentic you don't a lie or misconstrue things but you also want to spend things in the way that's most exciting such that people are getting you know you're putting your best foot forward so thinking about what's that image is super important and working in northern right hand side for now, but then believe below this we see our tag line. So first you have your headline at the top, which is the piece that draws people in, but then they get a nice year tagline, a clever, beautiful design unlike anything we've seen before, use a smartphone tablet must have and here's something like, if you look at this is pretty clever, it's like putting, quote it's like who's saying that is that indeed, go go saying that or, you know, it's, actually, seymour saying that but it's kind of, you know, there's a little implication that it's being supported by whoever is running on this site. So a lot of thought going into all these pieces, and then we've got, you know, a little option to contact thing charger if you have questions and then what we call a press logo grid, which creates social proof with a nice, you know, high quality quote popped out there's a lot of different ways to do these in in one of the bonus materials is, you know, we show samples of each one of these components in the pdf that shows different samples from different campaigns of local grapes and there's different ways you can do it. But the local groups super important as you get press, you want to keep adding it to the site, because then when people show up, they see that people are talking about it, and this encourages them to back your campaign because of, you know, social proof and one piece of in fact, I'll just touch on here is press leads, you know, it's good for social proof it drives traffic, it doesn't tend to be the best inverting traffic compared to other sources, you might get a lot of people, but it still has a lot of benefit cause that traffic increases to the algorithms on the sites, the apparent interest in your product and raises you up in the organic searching so that people are more likely to stumble across your product organically if they come to the site and therefore they have the opportunity to back it. So you get more organic it's as a result of that press, even if the press doesn't convert as well, then we've got the part where we're answering the question, what is that thing? Charger and why do I want it? So you know, we've got this piece giving us proof. That people are going to want this thing and now we're getting into the part where we're telling you what is so awesome about this how is it going to change your life so you want to start with benefits not features you know telling people how it works you're telling them how it's going to change their life giving them some great imagery that really helps land to them the value in the product and then you know you might give more or less information here and then once you know answer any significant questions again they're hitting up a lot of times there were really into using quotes from other people here they've cleverly used a quote from johnny ive from apple that had nothing to do with their product but there's like they're implying that johnny ive supports what they're up to which is very smart and then we're seeing some lifestyle shots of how this thing can play out your life they've got this whole thing about un designed like it's it's not meant to interfere in your life it's the value of it is that it's almost invisible and then we're showing you again you know hitting with the value propositions here's something with a comparison grid which is a common feature in sites in campaigns where what our other options how is this better in the thing charger clearly is the best look at all those checks that no one else has you know that's your option to share what you're going to share and then it goes on against great imagery compelling story if you read the copy it's super well written you're seeing sort of like a before and after shots of how things look before you are blessed with the thing charger and how things looked after and like, oh my god, my life is perfect now I can eat my cereal or lot now we go into the details of how it works more social proof and then updates about where they're at and then a lot behind the scenes and more you know, different installation instructions answering questions so for the more analytical people as you get deeper in the campaign, you tend to get more and more detailed information so there's a lot of people who were going to watch the video and then they're going to choose to back there's a lot of people who are going to watch the video and then want to read more and more and more and more details so they like I've decided I'm interested now I want a tremendous amount of detail to back up my decision that I'm interested and so I'm going to read all the things so as we're looking through this campaign in the next couple campaigns I want you to just ask yourself the questions were present to this of how clear is the value proposition in this campaign how is it showing the value proposition? What is the value purposes and what did they put forward? First what's the marketing angle and tone is this so what you guys see here? What would you say is like the marketing angle? Is this irreverent? Is it in that kind of line you guys have any ideas or online anyone wanna chime in on what you think the marketing angle and value proposition is with the thing charger cleanliness organization clean organization writings like clean and organized it's goingto light it's light, right? And then you sort of see that in the graphic design as well like the whole thing's got a light, airy feel to it that's reflection of the value proposition that is going to clean up your life and then there's a per creed illustrating all the ways in which you can get great deals and showing you where you're gonna get the best value. So per create is a common piece or you got your perks on the side where you're actually choosing the perks but in the parker and you have the opportunity to drive people towards where you wanted to go and we're gonna spend a bit of time talking about perks in a minute but here you're seeing you know one thing charges twenty nine dollars to his fifty eight but I can get three and I get one free so but if I get seven, I get three for you oh my gosh, if I get eleven, I get five free, which seems like a lot, but jesus a lot of free thing chargers and, you know, their average customer buys, I think over four on average, so people are getting driven towards that. And so as your creating your park structure, you're not only getting, you know, people that you know, you're showing them so they can make easy decisions, you're also showing them the value that well, one is a really bad value, and eleven is a really great value, but maybe I'm gonna land somewhere in the middle, whereas if you only showed him one and they could by eleven and they're less likely to buy more. So by giving him that visual cue, you're helping them to see, you know, what's possible, and in that pdf, we have several different examples of per creates and how you can represent that, then more social proof and what's coming in the future. And now we're getting into the story of how it came about seymour's story, more social proof you just see that over and over hitting that social proof that this is something you're gonna want, that people love extra videos, you know, and it goes on and on, so one thing you see is that the campaigns it's a long scroll so people can decide to buy at any point in time and they don't have to go through the whole thing but the more you give someone who's going through it more and more and more by the time they get end they're going to be very likely to back your campaign on account of they've taken and invested in all that time to get there and then we've got safety certifications now we're getting to the real nuts and bolts stuff that most people may not care about when they're buying it but they're super analytical people want all the answers and went to expect delivery and risks and challenges which are super important pieces to address in case you know, because people are gonna have these questions and you also get to address the possibility that you may not be able to meet on time the deadlines on time because their estimations and there's all these risks and challenges and so later if you do suffer delays which there's a likelihood then you you know you have proof you know you said there's a possibility lays we're not perfect and therefore that helps defray a little of that responsibility so I'm likely keep going here but you can sort of get the point of how they created a graphic design and a tone that matches what they're doing and targets their target audience which isn't little kids it's not teenagers or millennials they're going after tip it's like middle aged people who are interested who have homes and want to clean up their homes so very, very intentional I know these guys were, well, an extremely intentional campaign. This next campaign is very interesting it's ah, radio station in columbus we consulted on this campaign and ultimately didn't reach it's extremely audacious goal of a million dollars, but it did raise over two hundred thousand dollars for an existing radio station that was looking to raise money to support it in covering the lease of its antenna, which is outrageously expensive. And so the the headline is keep alternative radio independent that's what pulling people and it was the last major independent radio station it is the last major singley owned independent radio station in the country, the last of the old fashioned giants like almost famous style radio stations and their radio station has broken many bands has been responsible for like playing some bands you heard of that no one had played before because they're really playing music. They're not playing off of a corporate lee generated playlist of who you're supposed to be listening to and with the cost of keeping the radio station tower was becoming exorbitant, and so this became one the most successful music oriented I think the second most successful music oriented campaign in history super fun again so there's support independent radio investing cd one o two point five and randy mccloy is the owner of the station and he's the one who was really driving this and then into the value proposition tired of playing this same stale playlist generated by reading the sales the best rock n roll is scientifically tested ct one or two point five is your alternative to corporate radio so they're making their value propositions and super clear there doing the rate in the music that you want to listen to not the music that you're told you want to listen to and here's some of the bands that they've got great relationships with and they created an amazing campaign where they had hundreds of bands around the country sending videos to support them that they were to share through social media bands like the foo fighters and cage the elephant walk the moon and tv on the radio tv on the radio came into the show actually got to go to it's amazing and like a room about this size called the big room and there was a super fun thing they were uh plug it every day on the radio station multiple times has helped drive it again independent versus conglomerate and you could see this is a very authentic looking campaigns that's not corporate it's not slake it's real people who just loved music who are committed to creating you know great community around the rock and roll lifestyle, and here they are in front of their band, there's, randy holding the guitar, these air real people you're supporting and then they're talking about why they need money. So a million dollars to negotiate the least renewal three million to get alone five million to purchase of their rights so they, you know, five million dollars to buy their radio antenna, which is more than presumably they could afford again, so it didn't hit its ultimate goal. But this is flexible funding in indiegogo and indiegogo. Flexible funding, even if you don't reach your goal, is to keep all the money. So here we're getting into the more analytical information where we're outlining the monthly cost to rent the tower in november twenty five thousand dollars per month and that's a lot of money for the single radio station believe you me in some timelines, then we get into the perks. We'll talk about perks more in a little bit, but perks for a radio station are very different than if you're selling a product. They're selling experiences so red and also one of a kind items that they had so signed album signed guitars, they also had t shirts. A brick in their wall, another brick in the wall that was cute that they have a bar at the radio station called the big room, which is where they host there when bands come to town, small shows private shows and there's stools the barn so you could get a big room bar stool and you could by like, oh set list, you know, for like two hundred dollars you could create a set list for a show or you could be a guest deejay a lot of different cool experiences for sale so another different type of campaign that did quite well here's the carbon fire is in a campaign right now four hundred six raised four hundred six thousand dollars this was our carbon fiber airplane you control with your phone, cell phone controlled airplane pretty straightforward and it's the ultimate cellphone controlled airplane super tough super fast personal high tech awesomeness we're going for kind of like a super cool effect, not just a you know, not irreverent and not fun necessarily but cool it's a tech toy you see a little plug for carbon fire two point over the plane involved as the campaign and didn't we developed it towards commercialization so one of the realities is sometimes you have a prototype and then as you develop that prototype for production, certain changes might be required this is just a reality of product development you take your prototype, you start working with factories in certain realities come into play that caused the designed to evolve this khun potentially result in disgruntled backers who are expecting something and end up getting something else but it's a reality of if you're profiting a product before it already exists and then you start interacting with manufacturers were going to mass produce something and mass production is different than prototyping, so we had a perfectly great working plane and prototype, and then when we went to mass production we discovered we couldn't get carbon fiber is thin is where would a prototype in mass production the plane shape had to evolve to get a bigger wings in order to get enough lift for it to fly as well as we wanted it to given the constraints so that's just what happened and we did that carbon fire two point oh again, nice looking imagery details about why this is a great product and what it's going to do for you, which is going to be awesome and fun our logo grid from press some lifestyle shots and then we get into the features so you don't want to start with features a mistake people make, sometimes they lead with the features what it how it's doing in what it does instead of the benefits, the benefits or why you want to buy it like no one wants him broom with bristles that air so long they want a clean floor so you're selling a clean floor. You're not selling a handle in bristles, but once you're convinced that this is a great solution for a clean for and here's how it's producing that again with the playing, you're not buying carbon fiber and plastic, you're buying a thrilling flying experience. But now it's getting too how it's achieving that so that builds credibility, and also for certain types of people, they're very interested in that that's exciting to them because they're analytical or their engineers they want understand how it's gonna work, and so we go into details of all the pieces here's our perk grid again outlining some of perks. Now, again, we're going to perks quite a bit, but here you see a perk that is, you know, it's telling you how much is going to sell for, and you're gonna get better deal on it, then you're going to pay for it retail, and you can buy multiple samples of it, and we have this thing at the end of crowdfunding consultation where you can hire us, and that was just us using the opportunity of people coming to the site, and we actually got several deals because people saw this, so it wasn't related specifically the campaign. But there's ways to be creative here and people can offer different kinds of creative perks it a question too so I look at the campaign it's four thousand eight hundred thirty you got to be a ninja to sell something for for thousands of dollars on their so who was like your target person? You're going after for to sell this resellers really sort fifty units are buying him a wholesale price and so we had quite a few people by fifty units who then will then sell them through their retail stores people selling our sea planes or drones so one of the perks that we offer always when whenever we're doing campaign is we offer what we call a retailer wholesale perk where people are buying it because they intend to resell it later not as for personal use though presumably they'll keep one or two but as a way to help people who wanna become retailers get on board early people who backed it was three cellars or oh no no no the vast majority but one we're throwing one but what your target was resellers or what? We wanted to send the message to resellers that this is going a product that they're going to want to sell ok these people and they saw proof that people are buying the products so again product comparison chart and then deeper dive into each one of the detail features so the carbon fiber and the wing designed the nose cone all the different pieces so that people who really want to get to know the product can get into the details of project timeline you know, development a lot of times people like to see development process prototype sketches that led to the product, the team who was behind it and why were crowdfunding risks and challenges, etcetera and then always an faa q so what the frequently asked questions and that is yet and then here's last campaign I'm going to show you this cap off it's another campaign that we did this was for this bottle opener for the craft beer enthusiast, which was a reissue of a product that was available in the forties and fifties and then stop being available when the company went out of business and these gentlemen found it because one of them's father uncle had in their bar and he saw it and they're like, I think it's cool I wantto, but they're available on ebay for like two hundred dollars he's like we should remanufacture this thing and so that's where the cap off came from, you see the video cap off the bottle opener for the beer craft beer enthusiast and again we tested a lot of different headlines to find out which one was going to work the best and we looked like we used american made as a tagline, there were a lot of different tag lines that we tried to see, what she's going respond the best crack their enthusiast was by far the best responding audience and it's a fifty dollars bottle opener for beer, you buy a bottle opener for two dollars so really like who's going to spend that kind of money on something in the reason it's, so expensive, is because it's, an american made beer bottle opener. Meanwhile, they raised fifty four thousand dollars, they sold a lot of them even at that price. Here we get the lifestyle shocks, great little video you can in bed some gifts in this, a super valuable tool to use, showing the value of the cool things about the cap off is it creates the smoke when it opens it, because instead of peeling it back up, pops it all off at once, into the pressure drops so fast that the constancy comes out of the air. Increase this little steam smoke, which is super quote also makes up pop sound instead of because but it's very, very fun when we got nice press, and so you're starting to see, you know, this is pretty common elements around it and again, looking at this, you're asking yourself what's the value proposition, what are we leading with? Who is it targeting? You know, what kind of person is a targeting what's the angle of the campaign is it is it going for serious is going for fun as this one's going for a little bit of nostalgia, americana and quality and, you know, a little industrial feel to it, and then ask yourself, as you're looking for these campaigns, you know, what's working that what's not working most, the campaigns we're showing you here are mostly things that are working here. We're getting deeper into the history of it. How did this come about then as you're asking these questions and this especially for you know, those of you considering your own campaign at home, like looking at thes and ask yourself what's working what's, not working, and then going through similar campaigns to the product you're going to launch to say, what do I love if I got into a bottle opener of some kind or something towards beer enthusiasts, I'm going to look at this campaign as he asked myself what I love about this campaign when we're not not love about this campaign what's working for me, what's not working or you know, and then like gathering all the ones that you like best is saying, you know which per credo I like the best. And they might all be fine, but which one do I like the best? And this is personal preference. There might be a reason for it or not, it might just be a feeling, but you want to make decisions and choices, not just do things randomly, so you're looking at it and taking the time to really understand the different things they're out there and clearly, you know, here we go showing manufacturing facility, the prototypes thing broken apart, we're gettinto per grid, you know, again, five, ten, twenty year getting into real retailer package. So you get twenty of these guys and then the vintage pack, which is kind of fun with a bunch of stuff. So the time lines about the team it's really helpful to have details, but the people who are involved because again of that, I want to support people because I like the people who are behind the project, and I want to get involved and they can't do that if you're not, you know, showing yourself and then the risks and challenges in the ethic you. So that is some campaigns that I think are, you know, great looking campaigns that we've been involved with or not, but they each have you know, different elements to them, so you can see sort of the range of types of components that you might want to include in your campaign in different ways of executing them, and you want to be very deliberate about how you're doing that. So I just can't emphasize enough how important it is to take the time to do your research and to really look at this stuff because you're gonna put a lot of time and energy into it. It's a little bit of energy on the front end that impacts all the energy you're going put in along the way. The context realization of that effort, rather than just doing the stuff just doing the graphic. So you want to be careful about this is is branding really is what it is is where you're coming up with a brand for the products, so you might have a brand specialist a lot of times graphic designers are also very good brand specialist. They understand the concept of creating, like what's the message of her brand who's, it appealing to et cetera. It could be someone that you look for, but, you know, most people have kind of instinctive grasp of these concepts at this point, based on being saturday consumers, so think of yourself as the savvy consumer and what do you want to create? A few things that you want to avoid in your campaigns and I've touched on these a little already but low quality images got have high quality image if you have rough looking computer renderings and that's what using to showcase your product it's just doesn't show up is credible and if the product doesn't already exist as a prototype and all you've got his computer renderings if that first shot let's say you have a prototype but the video still that showing is a is a rendering people are going to just skip right over it they're not going to get into the video to find out you have the working prototype you want to lead with your most sexy image because that's what's going to draw people in and or drive them away so you want high quality images no grainy low res images at all if you're going to have that and don't bother during the campaign. Secondly, too much copy lots of words that people don't have to go through you want to minimize your words and have a great image to copy ratio I'd say two to one like twice as many images and like some copy between them and different campaigns do it differently but you really want a lot of eye candy that's what people are looking for they want to scroll through it's like, hey look at all this awesomeness! I want it not like they're not reading it mean and then they get a headache so like really you don't I can't emphasize enough like imagery and nice looking imagery and then also confusing messaging avoid that sometimes I get to a campaign and I don't even know what it's about like I'm like what and then I'm gone like I don't even if I can't figure it out like very quickly like less than three seconds have already moved on to the next campaign so that's your headline in your tag line so again nice little homework for anyone at home you're thinking about your product what air three different taglines don't just like come up with the first tagline try several different taglines than testing with your friends testing with google and then what's your tag line and compared these things what imagery is going to work the best and we can use testing when we get a little into the marketing campaign in order to find out which imagery looks the best but you could start off with you know your friends and family and co workers and people that you know and just find out you know what do you see when you look at this image and take the time to ask the question before you launch your campaign so really just being focused on those those things in the other team you wantto always be clear about is what's going to make your campaign different so as more and more time goes on, more and more campaigns are being launched like it's growing exponentially the number of crowdfunding campaigns that are out there and, you know, I'm sure all of you are getting hit up all the time at this point by people's campaigns like everyone knows someone who's got a go fund me going on about something and or they have a kick starter or need to go, go and, you know, I don't know I haven't seen many specific statistics around over my sense is people are already starting to get a little fatigued with the number of people reaching out for support, and now you're thinking about being the next one you like here, fatigue, you're yourself, so if you're going to stand out if you're going, you know that that being said more and more money is getting poured into it as well. So there's more projects asking for you no more money, but overall probably less available for each individual campaign. And so in order to stand out, you gotta have something distinct a reason why people are gonna wanna back years over other things and that's going again, come down to the value that you're offering in terms the product is going to come down to how compelling your pitches and it's going to come down to how effectively you engage your network
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
Dyan deNapoli
Really helpful class for anyone planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign! Christopher was a great presenter (very comfortable and relaxed), and he clearly knew the topic extremely well. His presentation was very thorough and well thought out. One thing I would've like to have seen is more questions taken from the virtual audience. There were quite a few on the thread, but the moderator only passed along a few of them to Christopher to answer. Another thing that would have been very helpful is advice about creating successful crowdfunding campaigns that are for projects or experiences or ideas, rather than for physical products (which this class was focused on). Maybe Christopher can do a short crowdfunding part II class?? But I still give this class an A+!
Elizabeth Best
This was very helpful. I feel like it answered so many of my questions. It made me realize what a huge commitment crowdfunding is! As an entrepreneur I can see how this video saves trident a lot of time on calls and emails explaining what needs to be done. Great idea! I am amazed at how much technology is involved and online or social media marketing. I better develop a stronger team with millennials who know how to make it happen. Thank you.
David McNichols
Chris goes into the depth required to own this material in a way that is both essential and inspiring. Although my best friend launched 10 out of 11 successful Kickstarter projects, I could not learn from him through osmosis all the amazing material Chris has covered here in detail! The patent research information alone makes it worth the price! I highly recommend this course.