Your crowdfunding video is the most important marketing element on your entire campaign page.
It’s the first thing that people are going to see when they visit your project on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
You can have the best product in the world, but if your video sucks, you’re going to fail to successfully raise funds.
I know this isn’t easy to hear… especially when you’ve spent so much time perfecting your product.
In an ideal world, appearances shouldn’t matter. People should judge your product logically based on it’s merits, features, and quality.
But, we live on planet earth.
On this planet, people buy with EMOTIONS, not logic. You need their ATTENTION before they’ll listen to what you have to say.
To help you out, I’ve put together a few tips for making an effective crowdfunding pitch video (without breaking the bank).
These are tried and true practices that work. If you read every word of this article and implement these tips, you’ll raise far more money with crowdfunding!
1. Music = Emotion
If you want to cause someone to “feel something” or “feel some way,” the easiest way is to get them to listen to music!
Sad music makes us feel sad. Happy music makes us feel happy. EDM music makes us want to dance or crank out some work.
Music will physiologically change how people feel when watching your video. You can use this powerful tool to influence how people feel about YOUR product.
A simple way to improve the quality of your pitch video is to:
- Include background music
- Use music to transition thoughts
- Have music “underline” the message of a scene
This easy-to-implement tip will result in a higher conversion rate. More people will come away feeling emotions towards your project.
You can search for free music online. You can also use the music collection below that one of my readers put together.
2. Show How They’d Use Your Product…
All too often, a video will focus on the features, specs, and technical details of a product. It will feature the amazing design and high quality materials.
While this is good for some types of products, most products require a different angle.
Rather than concentrating all your time on the product, show how people can USE the product in their daily life.
- Where would they use the product?
- Would they use it when going to work in a busy city?
- What about the “type of person” who uses this product?
- Are they a fitness enthusiast, a hipster, or a environmentally conscious millennial?
By having actors in your video, you’ll make it easier for people to imagine how this product fits into their life. They can easily visualize the benefits they’ll instantly get once they own this product.
3. An Easy Way to Prevent Boredom
Do you want to know a secret for maintaining attention?
The human brain is hardwired to pay attention to changing stimuli.
This means that if you see movement out of the corner of your eye, you’re likely to look to see what it is.
Something NEW is entering the frame. It could be a sabertooth tiger. Remember, the brain is quite primitive.
When you’re in the middle of a busy social environment, you’re probably struggling to keep up with all of the conversations. Your eyes are darting from face to face, trying to read body language or facial expressions. Things are changing FAST. It requires your attention.
On the flip side, in a slow and boring classroom environment, there is only one person talking and he or she is lecturing. There isn’t much change happening. You’ll quickly become BORED. Your mind will wander.
If you want to prevent boredom, make sure that you’re constantly changing the frame throughout your video. I’m talking:
- Multiple angles
- Different perspectives
- Zooming in/out
- B-roll footage
- and more.
This will keep people’s attention because they don’t want to miss anything. They want to find out what happens next.
4. Story = Empathy and Attention
Have you ever felt something towards a movie character?
I’m not talking about romantic feelings… though maybe you have.
I’m talking about any type of feeling at all. That could include:
- Fear
- “Liking”
- Hatred
- Annoyance
Stories are magical because they allow us to emphasize with characters that are not real. They cause us to feel emotions about a situation, despite not being in that situation ourselves.
Have you ever seen a YouTube video of a puppy barking at a television screen?
You think “Silly puppy, it’s not real! It’s just the TV.”
But… at the same time… you’ll feel 100% real genuine emotions from sitting in a movie theater.
You’ll feel fear, happiness, and anger, just like that little puppy. The only difference is, you’re less likely to outwardly show it.
Even though you recognize these feelings are the result of watching a story unfold, you still feel them and they influence your REAL behavior in the world.
You can use a story in your crowdfunding pitch video to evoke emotions and lower skepticism towards the team trying to raise money.
The other cool thing about storytelling is that it commands far more attention than dry information.
Why?
First, think of this scenario…
You’re locked in a room and forced to watch a 2 hour long informational video that teaches you how to do something.
The information is good, but the speaker is monotone.
How much would that suck?
How hard would it be to pay attention?
We’d quickly get bored and it would be difficult to pay attention for that long. Right?
Most of us would pull out hair out. We’d feel a sense of relief when we were finally allowed to leave the room.
Well… let me offer you a different scenario.
Let’s say you’re locked in the same room, but instead of watching a lecture, you’re asked to watch an action-packed movie or a thriller.
It’s still two hours long, but before you know it, the time is up! You leave that room thinking, “Wow! That was a great movie!”
The duration of the video was THE SAME in both of these examples, so why is it easy to pay attention to one, and not the other?
The answer: story.
Story evokes emotions and whenever you feel emotions, you’re not bored. Therefore, it’s easy to keep watching. It’s easy to keep paying attention.
5. A Word on Duration…
At the end of the day, duration is arbitrary when it comes to crowdfunding pitch videos. A good rule of thumb is to keep it under 3 minutes.
However, I’ve seen campaigns that raise funds that go beyond this length. Some are SUPER long.
The only thing that matters is the attention/boredom scale. You want to end the pitch on a high note and to have zero “lulls” through the video.
This is because people are most likely to take action at an emotional peak, when they’re feeling intensely towards a product or a person.
By trying to keep it under 3 minutes, you’ll be forced to make every frame count.
6. What Kind of Gear Should You Get?
If you plan to outsource your video, great!
However, if you want to film your own, I have a few tips when it comes to filming and editing gear.
Now a days, most smartphone cameras are pretty good. You can actually shoot a very high quality video with one of these.
The one thing you will want to make sure is that you have GOOD AUDIO. Great audio quality will make the difference between seeming amateur and professional.
If you want to seriously improve your camera game, then I’d look into getting a Cannon EOS 70D. This is what I use for my YouTube videos.
This bad boy has amazing video quality, great auto-focus technology, and it will last you a long time to come.
It’s definitely an investment, but I’ve already made back my investment on this camera and would 100% buy it again.
Along with having good audio and a great camera, the quality of your video will be significantly impacted by your lighting.
If possible, use natural lighting. If you can’t, then you can always purchase a low-cost lighting set.
Lastly, I use iMovie to edit all my videos, but you can also look into software like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premier.
7. It’s All Education + Sales
To a certain degree, you will be educating your backers about the product that you’re looking to raise money for with crowdfunding.
Don’t make the mistake of stopping here.
Of course, every product is different, but one repeated mistake that I see creators making is that they shy away from the sale.
This is a persuasion game.
You can have thousands of people visiting your campaign page. You can feel popular. But, it doesn’t mean anything unless people are actually backing your project.
Remember to have a call to action in your video. Ask them to join you on this mission to get your product in the hands of everyone.
If you fail to do this, then you’ll hurt your conversion rates.
You don’t have to be pushy or “salesy” but you do need to be comfortable with promoting, marketing, and selling the value of supporting the crowdfunding campaign.
