Are you looking to start a new Indiegogo campaign for a product launch?
Do you want to use crowdfunding as a means of getting pre-orders for your business?
If so, buckle up—because this post is going to take you through step-by-step how to start a killer Indiegogo campaign.
We’ll create a mock campaign, explain some of the functionality available on the platform, and get into some tips and advice as you go forward with your project.
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For now, let’s show you how to start an Indiegogo!
The Beginning Stages
Before you even get started building an Indiegogo campaign of your own, take some time to review other Indiegogo campaigns related to your niche.
Take some general notes about things you like regarding campaigns that have already gotten funding or are performing well on the platform. This will give you a big head start.
For example, if you discover a six-figure campaign, pay close attention to aspects of the campaign like the video.
How does the video look?
Did the project manage to evoke emotion or tug at your emotional heartstrings?
From there, you can scroll down the page and investigate other important parts of the campaign page including text, images, gifs, etc.
Budget a good amount of time to look into other campaigns. Consider it research!
Sign Up For An Account and Start Campaign
After you’ve taken some time to do research on other campaigns, it’s time to get started on your own path by creating an Indiegogo profile for your product.
Once you’ve created your account with either your email or Facebook Profile, you’ll click Start a Campaign.
From there, you will be given two options for a crowdfunding project.
Project: Crowdfunding to help entrepreneurial ideas come to life.
Cause: Raise money for a charitable cause through Indiegogo partner GoFundMe.
If you’re looking to raise money for a charitable cause, check out this video that goes way more in-depth about best practices for launching a GoFundMe campaign.
This article will focus primarily on entrepreneurial pursuits. Let’s dive in further to the nitty-gritty of a project-based campaign.
Setting Your Fundraising Goal
The first prompt Indiegogo will give you upon starting your campaign is deciding how much money you want to raise.
To put it simply: set your fundraising goal as low as possible.
Why? Because you want to be able to hit your fundraising goal as soon as possible.
The idea is not to just hit your goal, but to exceed it. By exceeding your original fundraising target, you will start to trend on the Indiegogo platform and allow more strangers (potential backers!) to discover your project.
So if the bare minimum to make your product a reality is $15,000, you should set your goal at $15,000. We can hope for six figures later.
Titling Your Indiegogo Campaign
You will then be asked to title your campaign.
Your title should contain a promise. It’s the first thing that people will see when scrolling through various campaigns, and will set your campaign apart from the pack.
Take Kharbon Audio’s earbuds that raised over $275,000 on Indiegogo.
Their title was:
Kharbon: The Longest Lasting IP67 Wireless Earbuds
In this case, Longest Lasting is the promise. This promise describes the value that customers can expect to get should they choose to back the campaign.
It’s also important to include what the product is. In the Kharbon example, this shows up with the term Wireless Earbuds.
If you’re struggling with your title, take a 30 to 40 minute brainstorming session. Write out high-level promises, then try to fit those in with what the product is.
You don’t want to rush through this vital step.
Campaign Description
Now that you’ve brainstormed and titled your campaign, it’s time to expand on the title with your campaign description.
There are a couple of ways that you can go about this, from listing out high-level benefits to delivering further promises. Check out a couple of examples:
Kharbon: The Longest Lasting IP67 Wireless Earbuds
150-hours – 1 Month Battery Life | 100% Waterproof | HiFi Sound | Bluetooth 5 | Noise Cancellation
Hupnos: Self-Learning Sleep Mask To Stop Snoring
Analyzes and gently corrects you or your partner’s snoring patterns. Wake up feeling refreshed.
Take special note of Hupnos’ strategy (this was actually a campaign I built). Not only does it expand on promises, but it also gives an outcome: Wake up feeling refreshed.
You’ll have to fit a lot of value into a small character limit. This is another good time to brainstorm and workshop your campaign description until it feels just right.
Other Campaign Basics
So: you’ve titled your campaign and written a killer campaign description. Now it’s time for some other settings.
First up, the campaign card image. This image should be emotionally evocative and represent the value of your product as thoroughly as possible.
Then you’ll select things like:
- Your location
- Product Category
- Campaign Duration: typically 30 days
If you have great trust in your marketing strategy and expect consistent conversions, you might want to set your campaign duration at 45 days.
You can also create a sense of urgency with only a 20-day campaign.
However, in general, 30 days usually garners the best results.
Building Your Campaign Page
The basics of your upcoming Indiegogo campaign are now set. You can always go back and tweak these basics, but let’s dive in further to actually build out your campaign page itself.
Content
You notice a set of tabs available on the left-hand side of your screen that will allow you to edit elements of your campaign, the first on the list being Content.
Content sets the stage for conversion—and it’s most important element is the pitch video.
Some foundational aspects that every Indiegogo pitch should include:
- Show the product being used in different environments
- Sell the experience of how the product will change backers’ lives
- Who is it for / what is it for
An ideal run time for your video is about three minutes.
Two minutes probably won’t be enough time to demonstrate the full value of your product, and pushing up near the four-minute mark risks your backers losing interest—it’s just hard to keep attention for that long.
You can also set that thumbnail image to represent your video before backers hit ‘Play.’
In this image, make sure to include the product itself, and if possible, also show a common use case or reaction to the product that provokes positive emotions.
As you continue down the content portion of your page, you’ll be asked to give your Campaign Story.
This story is another vital aspect of your campaign content—second only to the video.
Think of your story as a sales page.
Some things you should talk about:
- Various features of the product that sets it apart
- High-level benefits of the product
- Functionalities to get someone to logically believe in the product’s solution
Keep in mind that promises are great and super important, but you aren’t going to see conversions from backers unless you can logically convince them that the product actually works through functionality descriptions.
This story section also shouldn’t be exclusively text. Most successful campaigns use tons of gifs, images, and graphics to tell the story of their product in an engaging way that is pleasing to the eye.
If you’re looking for a deeper analysis of your campaign page, you should book a coaching call with me.
I’ve built out the content of tons of successfully funded pages before, and I’d love to help you out.
Perks
Okay—so your content (sales page) is all set. It’s time to set your perks.
Indiegogo perks are essentially rewards that your backers get for donating to your campaign.
These appear on the right-hand side of the page as potential backer scrolls through the content and give them options for how to support the campaign.
Indiegogo has a great forum that goes in-depth about perks that convert—so make sure to check that out.
Also, look at other campaigns and the reward tiers they are offering. Always seek to emulate things that have worked in the past, there is no need to reinvent the Indiegogo wheel.
Funding Type
You’ll be asked to select a funding type before you launch your Indiegogo campaign. There are two types of funding options:
All-or-nothing (Fixed) Funding: Like Kickstarter, fixed funding means you either hit your fundraising goal and keep all the money, or don’t hit your goal and pledges are returned to backers.
Flexible Funding: Keep what you raise even if you don’t hit your goal.
At first glance, flexible funding might feel like the obvious choice. But there are real dangers and risks to going that route, so before you make any definitive decisions, make sure you check out this article that describes what funding option is best for you.
Items, Team, and Extras
As you make your way through building your campaign, there are some other things you’ll want to fill out. Let’s run through them quickly, as these are pretty intuitive to explore on your own.
Items are what you offer to your backers when they claim their perks.
Different reward tiers should include different items. These can be accessories, bonus materials, insider access promotions, and more.
The Team section allows for you to introduce the people that are working on your project.
Assembling an awesome team is important not only to convey expertise to your backers but also to make your life easier.
You’re probably realizing that assembling a campaign like this is a lot of intensive work. To be blunt, it’s too much work for one person to do:
- An awesome video
- Copy that converts
- Manufacturing
- Order fulfillment
- And much more!
To learn how to cultivate an amazing squad, check out this video.
Extras include tools such as:
- Draft campaigns to share with your team
- Social sharing images
- Custom URLs
- Google Analytics
- Google and Facebook ad tracking
So make sure to check those out and understand them thoroughly. The most important part of the extras is Facebook ad tracking—it will allow you to target and retarget people interested in your campaign.
Conclusions
This comprehensive guide has taken you through all the major components that will go into launching an Indiegogo campaign.
Do you have a product that you’re ready to take to Indiegogo?
Hiring an expert to manage your campaign can put you way ahead of the pack.
I’ve worked on tons of successful campaigns across crowdfunding platforms, and I’d love to assist you with your Indiegogo project.
Book a coaching call with me to get started!
Let’s make your project as successful as it can possibly be.
