Video Production
How to Stand out From the Crowd with a Brilliant Crowdfunding Video
In the increasingly competitive world of crowdfunding, a great video can make or break your campaign.
Adding a video to your campaign page should be considered mandatory, not an option. Sure, some campaigns make it to their goal without one (or with a poor quality video), but these are the exception rather than the rule.
According to Kickstarter, 66% of campaigns that get fully funded use a video, compared to 33% of campaigns without one. Stats from Indiegogo tell a similar story – campaigns with explainer videos generate 114% more funding than those without
Video Is Incredibly Effective
Why is video so effective? Well, video is an excellent way of conveying complex information quickly and simply. And, they are popular with marketing audiences. 92% of B2B customers watch videos, and during 2019, it’s predicted that videos will account for 80% of all global internet traffic.
When it comes to crowdfunding videos make all the difference. Whatever the nature of your campaign, you’re trying to get people to invest in a developing project, and they need a compelling reason to do this. The crowdfunding arena is crowded; a great video gives you the best chance possible to stand out from the crowd.
So, how do you make a fantastic crowdfunding video that gets seen and motivates potential backers to hit “invest”?
In this guide, we’ll examine what makes for a killer crowdfunding video, and how Mount Bonnell Media can help you to create one.
What Makes for a Great Crowdfunding Video?
A great crowdfunding video is one which grabs attention and moves potentially interested backers into big “Yeses” for your project.
It should be short, snappy, and most of all, entertaining. Your video is the focal point for your campaign – the place on the page where backers go first to discover what your campaign is all about. So it truly is the most important part of your campaign page.
Your video should be able to gain the goodwill and trust of your potential backers and be extremely clear about your project. Once a backer has finished watching your video they should be able to tell who you are, what you do, why you’re running a crowdfunding campaign, and, most importantly, why they should back you.
A great video will be compelling and clear with a message that’s authentic to your business and what you’re trying to achieve. It should promote confidence in you and your business, so backers feel comfortable with investing in your campaign.
If all this sounds daunting, don’t worry. Let’s break down how to go about making a fantastic video!
First Things First – Do Your Research!
Check out similar videos across multiple platforms. See what worked for different projects and what didn’t. Campaigns that have been successfully funded or are close to their goal are a great place to start.
Don’t limit yourself to just the success stories. Look for campaigns that seem to be stalling or have not quite got off the ground. Check out their videos and see if a poor quality video has contributed to their slow progress.
Explore videos for different campaign types to get an idea of diverse styles and niches. Then narrow in on your competitors and other campaigns in your niche. Look at how they are presenting their projects on video and what their success rate is.
Decide how you would like to start developing your video. Do you want to make a similar video to those in your niche who are already successful? Or would you prefer to go another direction in the hopes of standing out more?
This research exercise should help you to clarify the tone and style you want to use for your video and start making a video development plan.
Things to Consider When Developing Your Narrative
Crowdfunding is about asking people to come on board as collaborators and investors in your project. So, you should be clear about what your campaign is for, but this should be married with authentic narratives that give a compelling reason to get involved.
Ask yourself:
What are you trying to achieve?
What challenge is your product/project solving?
How does it help people?
Why should you be trusted and why should people support your project? (clue: because you need the $$$ is not a compelling enough reason!)
Consider how you want to tell your story. Why are you expanding your business into the US? What has bought you to this stage? How can your European contacts connect with this new stage in your business journey? How can US-based backers connect to you and your desire to grow Stateside? Can you tell your European story to a fresh American audience effectively?
Asking these questions is the first step towards figuring out your unique business story – and how to tell that to campaign investors.
Campaign Video Basics
Some campaigns have enough of a marketing buzz and such an amazing product that they can get around a terrible video – but they are very rare. For the most part, a poor quality video is going to put off potential backers.
Your video should engender confidence in your ability to complete your project, as well as being engaging. A video with low production values doesn’t exactly say “hey, we know what we’re doing.”
On a fundamental level your campaign video must:
Have excellent sound and image quality. Blurry or shaky shots, background noise, muffled speech and lack of exciting visuals can mark you as unprofessional. It should be well-lit with clear audio.
Be easy to view and share. Campaign videos that take too long to load, are monetized (which can happen when people lift video from places like Youtube) or are not easily shareable will also give a negative impression.
Be clear, concise and explain your project quickly and simply. Most people will not wait around for 2 minutes for you to get to the point and will click away. A video length of 3 minutes maximum is recommended.
Include a good call to action. Your call to action should not ask for money. Instead, ask for viewers to join in with your project, check out your rewards or other benefits, or share your project with others. Remember – this is an invitation to collaboration, not a begging bowl video!
Do’s & Don’ts of Crowdfunding Videos – The Details
There are a few ways that can help you to stand out from the crowd – but these can be either positive or negative.
Let’s get into the details of how to put together a winning video. We’ll take a look at the video “don’ts” first.
Video Don’ts – What to Avoid
The Epic Project Monologue. Lots of newcomers to crowdfunding see advice about explaining their project and take it a little too far. If you want to bore the socks off people rather than wow them, a surefire way to do this is to sit and monologue about yourself and your project to the camera.
Remember – your audience doesn’t want to be talked at. Yes, your video needs to explain what your project is, but it’s much better to do this by showing as well as telling.
The Super-weird Cheese-Fest. Using humor, being quirky and taking an original creative direction can all help you to make a truly memorable video. But, going down the cheesy or extremely surreal route is a fast way to get people to recoil rather than engage. If you are going to use cheesiness, try and do it in an ironic way like the successful Plexus Wheel + campaigners did.
The Carbon Copy Video: So you saw a brilliant crowdfunder video that made you laugh and got you thoroughly engaged. You tell your marketing team you want “that” for your video. Hold it right there! Yes, it’s important to check out your competition and use that to inform you on how to make a video for your niche – but a carbon copy only marks you out as unoriginal.
The Hastily Cobbled Together Video: These are videos that might even have the makings of a great piece, but have been cobbled together so quickly that they have poor editing, and broken narratives or unhelpful information in them. A good video takes time and planning – don’t rush it.
The Irrelevant Information Video: Remember, your main video should be short and snappy. Don’t make the mistake of wasting valuable time giving irrelevant information or info that can easily be found further into your page. For example, if you are using a rewards-based funder, you can mention some of the great rewards for getting involved. But a long list of each perk wastes space.
The “Wish I was Anywhere Else” Video: You don’t have to have the media skills of a daytime talk show host to connect with the camera and tell your unique project story. But, if you genuinely can’t bear to be on camera, it will show. If necessary, outsource the on-camera role to someone else in your company. Or use a narrator with great visuals.
Video Dos – What to Include
If you’ve avoided all the pitfalls in the caricatures above – great! This gets you a lot closer to creating your winning campaign video.
To make your crowdfunding truly special, there are no set formulas, aside from what to definitely avoid. That’s because an excellent crowdfunding video is genuine and unique to your project. It gives you a chance to develop your authentic business story and explain it.
If you do that, with enthusiasm and showing the passion you have for what you do – the rest falls into place.
That being said, here are a few more pointers on how to make your video as effective as possible:
Connect with your potential backers by sharing your story, and also the benefits they are going to get from backing you. Remember to speak clearly, in easy to understand language.
Be realistic about how much you want to invest in a video and the level of support you are asking for. If you’re looking to raise big money, then you need a video with high production values to attract those high-end backers.
Make sure your video gets to the point very quickly. A snappy introduction, alongside visuals, can get people on board within the critical first 10 seconds.
Shoot your video using a format and style that’s truly appropriate for your project and your ideal backer.
Tell a story rather than going deeper into technicalities. People need a basic idea of what your project is. If you need to add in more detail about how it all works use the rest of your campaign page to do it.
Tailor the video for your current brand, tone, and style. If you go for a classic, modern, emotive style of storytelling usually, people will be thrown if you suddenly switch to quirky, casual jokes.
Ensure you have the services of a great concept and script development team as well as a production team. The best sound and video editors in the world can’t do much with a bad story or an unclear narrative.
Make it entertaining! To entertain someone you need to touch their emotions in some way. That can mean sparking curiosity, humor, memories, inspiration. Figure out how your project makes you feel – and get potential backers to feel it too.
Let investors get to know the Real you. This is especially important when you are looking for equity investors and people to back you with more substantial sums of money. People want a face to a name and a personality to both. They want a connection and to know who they are backing – as well as what the project can do for them.
Using Video Throughout Your Campaign
Although your main campaign page video is the most important aspect of any videos you produce, you’re not limited to using just one video. Platforms like Indiegogo have space further down your campaign page for additional videos, and they can also help your campaign marketing.
Making further videos can be useful for:
Adding Explainer Videos and product/service demonstrations. This can help give interested potential backers the information they need to commit to backing you.
A Behind-the-Scenes video. Giving a glimpse “behind the curtain” into your business processes and the way you work can add authority and help potential investors to connect to your ethos.
Providing Testimonials. If you have people willing to give you great testimonials, especially if they are an industry expert or other authority, you can consider adding in short testimonial videos to your project page.
Social Media videos. You might consider adding videos to your social media channel to help build your brand and reputation.
Live videos. These can be tricky to get right, but live videos have a massive 600% higher engagement rate on Facebook than pre-recorded videos. If you feel confident to go live, you could use this tool on social media to give casual updates, explain your processes or just offer a further connection point – that’s shareable – with potential backers.
A Thank You video. When you reach important milestones, and especially when you get over the finish line it can be a nice final touch to add a personal thank you video to all your backers. Don’t forget – reaching your funding goal is just the first step. Once you’ve completed your campaign, you need to retain and grow your customer base. Thank you videos can be a great part of keeping that goodwill going.
How Mount Bonnell Media Can Help
At Mount Bonnell Media we have a team of experienced video professionals who can help you at every stage of your crowdfunding journey.
It can be stressful making the all-important video and hard to know where to start. We’ll be there for you from project conception through production and marketing. Our video production team are experienced industry insiders, who work for national media outlets.
We can help you with:
Research and concept development. We’ll help you decide on a theme, draw out your story and unique voice and help you match it to your ideal backer.
Scriptwriting and video planning. We’ll help you write a script, storyboard your video and iron out any pre-production issues.
Performance Coaching. If you’re nervous about being on-screen, don’t worry. We’ll walk you through how to talk naturally in front of the camera and coach you and your colleagues on how to present your ideas effectively.
Filming and directing. We’ll meet with you over a day or series of days (depending on how much filming you want to do) and provide you with a director and film crew to help bring your video to life.
Post-Production. Once we’ve finished filming, we’ll get to work on editing and producing your video to the highest possible quality. We’ll ensure it runs smoothly, has great sound and visuals and adds in post-production graphics, effects
Get in touch today to talk to one of our team about how we can help you develop a compelling crowdfunder video to complement your campaign.
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