So our crowdfunding campaign to produce issue one of our comic book series (which I hope will one day be a live action project) has just gone live. My question is: should I keep our trailer/pitch video exclusive to Kickstarter or should I share it far and wide? My instinct tells me to share it, share it, share it wherever possible - but will audience curiosity be satisfied with seeing it outside of the campaign page (so people won't bother to look further) or will they then follow the crowdfund link? Does anyone have experience of this? Thanks!
Financing / Crowdfunding : Should I keep my trailer exclusive to my campaign page or share it far and wide? by Elaine J Jackson
Should I keep my trailer exclusive to my campaign page or share it far and wide?
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Thanks for the feeback, Willem. I've had quite a few shares on social media so that's comforting...
Yes, ideally the endgame with 'Minding Mama' would be movie or TV.
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Hi Elaine!
Congrats on getting the project together and up on Kickstarter... Check out a KS campaign that I co-managed. We made well over our 125,000 amount but it was sooo much hard work. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/munkyking/grief-encounters Well done on making sure #mindingmama is included in all posts. Check out #griefencounters on Twitter.
- Straight away trawl your linkedin for any connection to KS. Get an email to them to tell them of your project and how KS is helping you achieve your dream...
- I would ask that you consider changing your main page image. We changed ours half way thru was cos we deduced from the KS internal stats that we were getting few KS click-throughs even tho we were a featured project on the front page and probably mailed out on the KS email list. We put a face, eyes, and the NAME OF THE PROJECT.
Make it block color.
We popped in higher contrast because we felt it didnt pop enough. BOOM we got hits. Do tests and figure out what will work better in the thumbnail. We also de-centered our image too so that the play button didn't affect.
-Your SM
Everybody involved needs to change their bio links to the KS. Change your Twitter bio to say "Crowdfunding... #MindingMama comic... please retweet" Everybody should the KS as a pinned tweet. Peeps are too lazy to investigate scrolling the tweets. Their profile and banners should be THE SAME IMAGE from the KS campaign.
FB page is great too the About should start with "we are crowdfunding". Pinned post is perfect. We noticed that FB posts were not getting as much love as necessary. We believe FB hides any KS posts from peoples feed. We recommend posting without KS links. We posted an image with our information and popped "link in comments". This seemed to get our posts onto peoples feeds.
We logged into the KS platform and found where the most conversions were coming from and then retackled with that knowledge.
Everyone involved should change their profile pic on the day with a link in comment to the campaign("Crowdfunding... #MindingMama comic... please share")/ change the banner image too - these images show up in peoples feeds - this means it cannot be ignored by friends. First comment should be you posting the link to ks
Insta
All bios must say crowdfunding. Bio links should be changed to KS link.
"Link in bio" should be in every description as links in comments don't work.
No black screen on video edits, have a flash image as first to make them watch the vid otherwise insta will look black.
Linkedin
Surprising how much this got the word out. This is a different audience so treat your posts differently. More factual. Announce the KS and post press as it comes along.
Email signatures should have a link, of course.
Yes, share the video but break it down into chunks. Perhaps make a meme? Look to popular # for inspiration. I really dont know if it really made a difference. It was just something new to post.
- Press We found it hard to get press so reached out to fan blogs. This worked out v well for us. It's a pain but you will need to find the name of each person and copy paste a personal message. Have a google drive folder with images they can use and a press release with snippets they can use. We also asked if they cant blog we'd appreciate a SM shoutout and had PREWRITTEN handy twitter/fb/ig friendly posts with tags that they can copy and post. We found they dont like to advertise ks campaigns so we found the best press to get was with the "how to" style post. Brainstorm about doing a "Did you know... " "5 surprising facts about xxx/about you, about graphic artist" and has your message at the end.
Friends
-All friends should get a link to a document with PRE-Written handy copy paste with images links too tailored to tw/inst/fb. We updated this as we went along and retweeted everyone that tweeted. Some cant give money but can share.
Email
-Email everyone in the industry that might help you. This is coming out and you'd appreciate their support and advice. Some will message back and others will say they will help. People just like to be involved and know what you are up to.
PERKS
10 "gets a shout out! Please @us on @tw @intsa @FB so we can find your handle to properly grace you with THANKS." THIS GIVES U AN EXCUSE TO tweet!
Most popular is 25 perk so you just need 290 people to pledge this... "FIRST LOOK and Stunning A2 FULL COLOUR PRINT." Teehee!!
Go through your contacts and see if someone can make a badge for you.
Think about -
Signed storyboard with notes separate to the book
Can you sell a character? Offer for 200 your face will be x character or y character 2 limit.
Sell background for 95 - your face will be used in crowd scene etc. This can be part of your press spin. Post an unfinished storyboard with a " ? " and a "This could be you!"
Perhaps sell tickets to a live reading with projected images? Separate 65 option with signed copy of issue on the night "MUST SELL 10 to happen" March 2019.
Patron credit $500
During the campaign
Think about going Kickstarter Live
Have an email out to all your contacts to ask for them to go to the document and tw/inst/fb and again half way thru emailed friends directly. "I'm sure you've heard about xxx We are just over half way if you could give us some SM love it would be appreciated here are some already prepped posts Tw/Insta/FB image attached. Thanks"
Plan your sm. Use hootsuite and post fb / twiiter with day hashtags eg #MondayBlues
#MotivationalMonday #TravelTuesday
#TopicTuesday #TuesdayTrivia, #TuesdayShoesday etc. These can be timed so get the bulk of these primed over the week- get inventive...
Set up retweet bots to retweet Anytime your hashtag pings etc You can edit this whenever you login.
Thank retweeters too. We did #ShoutoutSaturday
Update at the end of the KS page links to press/blogs mentions. It legitimizes you.
Your updates are great but we need more in your description Pop Amandas image on the main page. We found that many backers came back and back again so we did backer updates perhaps 2 a week. Some of our updates were secret backer only but most were public. We released vids of our artist at work through updates too. One a week an interview, a ty,
KS have a metrics section - use it. We discovered where our clicks were coming from and we then capitalized from that.
Finishing up
Remember
WARNING The Forever Profile
We also had an image ready so that when the KS closed we had our forever profile sorted. Once your campaign closes you cant change it. 30 mins before closing we deleted any levels with no backers.
We embedded in the text a thank you video. Changed out the text too to tidy it up. Have a image to fit their final page specs as its different to the main size. oiii!
Have a different video main video too - ours removed any mention of the perks and was just a this is what the project is about page. As the clock counts down removed perk levels that were not bought.
Change the text for the forever page have a version for if you succeed and one where you fail. For the fail you can remove all your names if you want. For the success one insert a vid that says Thank You!
WARNING
Adding shipping onto the amount of the perk means that it adds to your total.
We noticed that many backers are in LA to save on shipping we are having a pickup party in LA.
Campaign
Love the images you have there already.
Think about adding in a piechart of spend adding in shipping and production of perks to show how expensive that will be.
Look at how we intro'd the creatives. You need to let people know who you are. Short Elaine, Amanda, Dan and Grant bios are necessary with LINKS. How'd you all end up working together. SELL US your story.
Consider renaming your perks, perhaps after characters.
Consider having the images of the Rewards in the body too.
Consider how we filmed the artist paint.
I dont know what an A2 is going to look on my wall so show me how cool its going to be with a website like this https://petapixel.com/2014/11/11/wallapp-shows-photo-look-wall-art-room/
-Put your own money in right away. Get the numbers up. This will inspire FOMO (fear of missing out) you can take this back out gradually. Have spare money to put in halfway through when it slumps and have the cash to pop in at the very end incase you need it.
Really hope this helps you out Elaine. V exciting project!! Looking forward to sharing :) xxx
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WOW! Rachel, thank you so, so very much for this veritable mountain of valuable info/insight - I'm truly grateful for the time you took to compose this! I really appreciate it, there's so much there I hadn't even thought of....! Bless you.