Let's talk about how you pitch a crowdfunding campaign. It's absolutely critical, of course, that you make the right kind of pitch to the right kind of audience. And we actually have some data saying that some kinds of pitching are better than others. So that's what I want to talk about in this lecture. Specifically, I want to talk about what the elements of a successful pitch are and when to hire help in order to make your pitch more successful. So, there's some really interesting relationships between the kind of pitch that you're doing and the way the crowd responds. And a lesson that we'll talk about more in a future lecture is that the crowd is actually quite rational. They're looking for elements of a pitch that you'd expect to see in a successful project of any kind. So, I can tell you some signals that make your campaign more likely to succeed. One signal of success is that you have endorsements. Endorsements are quotes or information from other prominent people saying that your campaign is a good idea. This can be a, we were featured in Wired Magazine or Gizmodo or in a local newspaper. That can be an endorsement. An endorsement could be from a famous person in your field or a prominent person or critic who uses your material, or an award that you've won in some sort of festival. So, all of those endorsements increase the chance of your project succeeding. A second thing is showing that your team has experience. If you're able to show that your team has done this kind of thing before, then you're more likely to raise money successfully. Showing prototypes or detailed plans are also really important. So, those people who show prototypes, the more advanced your prototype, the more detailed your plan, the more likely you are to succeed in raising funds. And also, providing frequent updates at the beginning of your campaign are also associated with more successful fundraising. On the other hand, there are some clear problems. If you have a spelling error in your campaign in Kickstarter, your chance of success dropped by 13% for one spelling error. That's not because the spelling error itself indicates that you're not going to succeed, but it's a sign of sloppiness. And any sloppiness in your campaign, it can be a real problem, and is punished pretty severely by your backers. Additional problem could be having a lack of quality videos. So, videos are very important, and doing a nice clean successful video matters a lot. There are some really interesting research from the team at Stanford that looked at what phrases were associated with Kickstarter success. Now, I want to warn you that just because these phrase were associated with success, doesn't mean that just dropping these phrases into your campaign pitch will make it more successful. But rather, these are good indicators of the kinds of emotions or information you want to communicate in a pitch to make it successful. So what they found was that showing reciprocity, showing that you are talking about the reward you receive, offering things like free shipping, all of those things increase the chance of your campaigns succeeding. Talking about your social connections also seem to help, friends and family, type of community or friendship, those that were associated with successful campaigns. Showing some sort of emotion, your passion, dreaming. So, those sorts of things are helpful, but shouldn't take the place of preparation. So, showing passion, showing you care about this campaign matters, but also showing that you're prepared and ready to execute matters as well. Being thankful, showing that you're thankful, that you're grateful, grateful for support, this is also associate with successful pitchin. And giving clear reason of why people should support you, what your funds will cover, how those funds will be used, what you're going to do with the money you're raising, also associated with success. As well as having collective information. We'll work together to do things, works better than sort of I will do things alone. So these are things you might want to think about when you're creating your pitch, is that you want to have this place to motion, but also show how you're going to accomplish things, be grateful and thankful for community and talk about what you're going to accomplish in a very concrete way. So when I surveyed people and asked for their information about what they would do in a video which is absolutely critical to your pitch, that's a very useful advice back. One of the overall in videos advice was to be genuine. That being genuine in a video is actually very important. Having fun if that's appropriate. Obviously, it's not if you're trying to raise money for medical bills, maybe you don't want a funny campaign, but if fun is appropriate, that can be very useful. And good quality with a professional sort of music and lightning and professional editing can make a difference. So you might want to think about hiring a professional to make that video correct rather than trying to do with hand-held phone camera. You also want to be descriptive in your video, and describe what you're going to do with the money, and not just make it a skit, but talking about what you're doing and show the product. You don't want to make it too long, you want to sort of make it as tight as it can be. So, over 30 seconds but less than five minutes is a good idea. And having testimonials would be very helpful. So you want testimonials to show how the product is going to work or what you're going to use the money for. And ideally, it won't be just the team doing this, you'll show somebody credible in your field talking about why the money is important. So, I think this quote was very useful again from announce backer. They said, "Be yourself. If there's anything phony about your pitch, your vision, or you, it will fail. Being genuine is the key to success in everything you do." So, think about that on your video. Be genuine. Don't make it overly scripted necessarily, have testimonials and demonstrate what you can do rather than just talking about what you are going to do. Another key question in running a crowdfunding campaign is how you promote that campaign. And I think this quote is really important, illustrating why this is an issue in Kickstarter and another platform. "Kickstarter is not itself a promotional tool. You have to make your potential customers aware and direct them to your campaign." The same thing is to Indiegogo, or GoFundMe, or any other campaign you're running. The site is not going to be where people are finding out about your project In most cases. In most cases, they're going to find out about that outside of the platform, and that platform will be where they take action. So, how do you do this? Well, we talked in the earlier lecture about the importance of your network. Obviously, when you look at the fact that in most cases two-thirds or more of your money comes from your network. That means activating your network is most important. Now, what about that other third or so that you get from strangers? Well, paid promotions can be helpful. A lot of people do them. So, 25% of successful Kickstarter campaigns do paid promotions, about half do a press release, about a quarter hold that event, and everyone promotes on social media. So, these are techniques that you can use. People seem to be very positive about them. I have to tell you that I can't find a huge statistical impact of these approaches. So they don't seem to make a big difference in the amount of funds that you raise, but people do recommend them, and I think it's worth thinking about them as part of a package of a campaign. But on the other hand, if you don't have a lot of money, you shouldn't think that just because you can't do paid advertising, you're not going to get a lot of donations because again, your community and your friends and family is where you start with these things, and you don't necessarily have to pay to reach those groups of people. So, in summary, the quality of your pitch matters a huge amount. Spelling errors decrease your chance of success. Showing prototype, showing plans, having freshly edited videos, all increase the chance of success. So, spend time making your video and your pitch good, it will pay off in a real way. And consider hiring help if you need it, but don't expect magic as a result. So if you pay consultants, which we discussed in a previous video, if you are paying for advertising, those things can be helpful but they are not going to be what makes or breaks your campaign. These other factors matter a lot more.
