Want to start a new Indiegogo campaign?
Want to use crowdfunding to get pre-orders for your business?
Well buckle up your seat belts—this is going to be an intensive post showing you step-by-step how to start an Indiegogo campaign.
You can follow along with me as I create a mock campaign, explain the functionality, and get into some of my tips and advice for you.
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It’s time to talk about how to start an Indiegogo campaign—let’s get to it!
Initial Research
I highly suggest you start out by perusing some of the successful projects on Indiegogo— especially the ones in your product category. That way, you can get a feel for what’s doing well.
Get a sense of why these projects are successful. What’s the video like? What kind of layout are they using for their campaign? What kind of rewards are they offering?
This will be invaluable research to help you get a better idea of how to move forward with your own campaign.
Starting Your Campaign
The first thing you will have to do is create an account.
This doesn’t take long, and once you’re registered, you can start a campaign.
There are two types of Indiegogo campaigns. The first is a project, which brings entrepreneurial ideas to life, and the second is a cause, where you can raise money for charitable causes.
Today we’re going to focus on the project campaign type, but I have another great video on how to run a successful GoFundMe if you’d like to check it out.
The first part of your campaign is deciding how much money you want to raise.
The key here is to set as low a goal as possible while still making the project feasible. If you meet your goal quickly, you will start to trend on Indiegogo, thus bringing even more attention to your project.
The next step in the process is picking a title. This will be the first thing potential backers see when scrolling through projects, so make sure to have a promise, explain who this is for, and what it is in the title section of your campaign to draw excitement.
A really great example of this is a project I worked on called Hupnos, a ‘Self-Learning Sleep Mask To Stop Snoring.’ The promise is to stop snoring. It’s for snorers and their partners to get a better night sleep. And it’s a self-learning sleep mask.
You will then set a description which builds on the promise. Returning to the Hupnos example, the description is: ‘Analyzes and gently corrects you or your partner’s snoring patterns. Wake up feeling refreshed.’
From the description, you will be prompted to set a campaign card image that represents your campaign. This image should be emotionally evocative and continue to demonstrate value.
To finish up starting your campaign page, you’ll fill out a location, pick a project category, set any tags, and choose a campaign duration. Standard is 30 days.
Building Content
Now that you have started your Indiegogo campaign, you will need to start building out the content of the page.
When a potential backer reaches your page, the first thing they are going to encounter is your video. This is super important, which is why I have a video explaining crowdfunding videos best practice.
In short: you want to sell the customer that this product can change their life. The video should be about three minutes, and no longer than four minutes.
From there, you will have to construct campaign text. I would recommend starting with a short and value-driven overview of the product, then utilizing bullet points to clearly lay out some of your product’s top features, functionalities, and benefits.
Aside from the video, storytelling is the most important part of your campaign. You have to be able to tug at the emotional heartstrings of your potential backers to create urgency and get them to donate to your campaign.
Use subheadlines, images, gifs, and graphics to tell your story on the campaign page. The more interactive and visual appealing your page, the better.
If you’re looking to consult with me in more depth as to how to build your campaign page, I suggest you schedule a coaching call; I’m always happy to help you out.
Setting Perks and Rewards
Perks are what your backers will receive after they donate. This is usually a discounted version of the product that is available only for a limited time (again—creating urgency any chance you get!)
You will then choose items to offer to backers after they claim a perk. The items are what’s included in the perks package; the exclusive benefit that the customer receives for donating.
There is a ton of great functionality embedded in Indiegogo that you should explore surrounding your perks: including images, product descriptions, etc.
Other Indiegogo Campaign Features
There are some great additional features that Indiegogo provides to make your campaign stand out.
For example, you can add members of your campaign team available for public view. This helps to tell your story, and builds trust by putting faces behind the project.
Additionally, you can choose your funding type. Indiegogo provides two options: flexible funding and fixed funding.
Fixed funding is an all-or-nothing approach. If you meet or exceed your goal, you keep the money. If you don’t meet your goal, backer credit cards aren’t charged and you lose that funding.
Sounds a little harsh, right?
The important thing to remember about funding is that you have to make good on your promises.
So if you need at least $10,000 to send out your rewards, then you should go with fixed funding. If you can make good with $2,000, per say, then flexible funding might work for you.
You just don’t want to get into a situation where you choose flexible funding, and then have to dip into your own pocket to make good on the promised rewards after not meeting your goal.
Make sure to check out other extras like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixels to retarget users that visit your page and drive up engagement.
Indiegogo InDemand
A really awesome addition to Indiegogo is their InDemand program that allows successful campaigns to continue to sell their product after the campaigns duration has been reached.
This is similar to running an online store like Shopify, where both new and returning customers can visit your product page to continue purchasing.
By staying in the InDemand marketplace, you are maintaining social proof surrounding your project. Potential backers can see the success, making it a ripe opportunity to turn a complete stranger into a backer.
Conclusion
We’ve talked about all the major components of making an Indiegogo campaign. I recommend taking at least an hour to get familiar with the dashboard yourself, as you will be referencing it a lot.
And as always, if you’d like more information, please feel free to schedule a coaching call with me so I can help you optimize your Indiegogo campaigns success.
I hope you found this post to be helpful. Make sure to check out my Youtube channel and Podcast for more great crowdfunding tips!
