How to launch a crowd funded product

Hello.
Jess Seilheimer | @jaeselle
Chief Strategy Officer; MWW
Advisor; Birdi (former lead Strategy & Marketing)
How to Launch a Product on a Crowdfunding Platform | Planningness 2014 | Jess Seilheimer | @jaeselle 2

More than just "merchandising” a cool idea
-using the community to validate or commercialize a product

Same strategic approach to product dev,
different customer mindset
Commercial product
Identify customer problems
Uncover an unmet need
Ideate around solving that need
Differentiate how your product
meets the need (vs. competitors)
Emotionally and rationally driven
Longer consideration/buying cycle
Crowdfunded product
Connecting with your community
and audience
Emotionally driven
Being first, urgency behind a
30-day movement
PRIDE: Showing/sharing support

We all want to be part of
something meaningful
Empower
people to fund
what matters
to them

How to break through all the noise
(and vaporware)?
You need a well-defined strategy and marketing/pr plan to achieve a
desired level of awareness and conversion of campaign backers to
financially support your product (so you can bring it to market).

GREAT marketing
execution will
help your campaign
1. Provides real-time validation, feedback
(free market research) from your target
customers
2. Gain earned media for (and FROM) your
target customers & increase your reach
3. Pre-sell a product
4. Attract major investors
5. Attract major retailers and distributors
Poor/no marketing
will kill your campaign*
1. 60% of projects fail
2. Average raise is only 10K
*Due to no pre-launch awareness or
marketing
Indiegogo Field Guide: landing.indiegogo.com/iggfieldguide/

CROWDFUNDING TRENDS
CROWDFUNDING 101
MARKETING PLAYBOOK
CASE STUDY: BIRDI
BREAKOUTS

Crowdfunding landscape
Rewards-based Equity-based
(ie: “the business case” for your social networks)
• Caps exist for companies (e.g., can only raise up to
$1 million in 12 months)
• investors (e.g., majority will be limited to five
percent of their income or net worth),

TRENDS
RISE OF THE DIY ENTREPRENEUR
USING YOUR NETWORK FOR INITIAL VALIDATION
NEW PLATFORMS FOR NICHE INDUSTRIES
SYNDICATE EQUITY FUNDS
DO IT ALL: COMMERCIAL OPPS SERVICES
1
2
3
4
5

Top funded industries
ARTISTS FILM MAKERS TECHNOLOGISTS

Maturing point of views
270,000+ jobs
Praise the utility and
future of crowd
funding Expect a
sea of
fraud
65m into the economy
Crowdsourcing is quickly evolving into an industry itself. In fact, crowdfunding is predicted to create at least 270,000 jobs and inject $65 billion into the economy by
2014’s end.

Successful campaigns
MISFIT SHINE
Goal: 100K
Raised: $846,675
PEBBLE WATCH
Goal: 100K
Raised: $10,266,845
SCANADU
Goal: 100K
Raised: $1,662,187
VERONICA MARS MOVIE
Goal: 2M
Raised: $5,702,153
CANARY
Goal: 100K
Raised: $1,961,663
THE MICRO
Goal: 50K
Raised: $3,401,361

Influential people to follow
Slava Rubin
@gogoslava
Founder, Indiegogo
Perry Chen
@perrychen
Founder, Kickstarter
Kate Drane
@Katedrane
Hardware lead,
Indiegogo
Clay Hebert
@clayhebert
crowdfundinghacks.com/
#Crowdfunding
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/22/top-30-crowdfunding-thought-leaders/

CROWDFUNDING TRENDS
CROWDFUNDING 101
MARKETING PLAYBOOK
CASE STUDY: BIRDI
BREAKOUTS

Campaigns with a team raise 339%
more than campaigns that run solo
Build out your team
Indiegogo lab: http://slidesha.re/1uwj2wu

Higher Goal ≠ More Money
People want to give to
succe$$ful projects
87% of campaigns that hit their goal exceed it.
Indiegogo Field Guide: landing.indiegogo.com/iggfieldguide/

30-45 days. TOPS

Campaigns with a pitch video
raise 370% more compared to
ones without.
1:27

CROWDFUNDING TRENDS
CROWDFUNDING 101
MARKETING PLAYBOOK
CASE STUDY: BIRDI
BREAKOUTS

Successful marketing = successful crowdfunding

Crowdfunding playbook
STRATEGY/PL
ANNING
customer,
marketing
platform
CREATE/BUILD
iterative, refine
as needed
LAUNCH
become
discoverable,
sharable and
memorable
MEASURE
what’s working/
what’s not
(4-5%
conversion rate)

Research // plan
RESEARCH/PLA
N
customer,
marketing
platform
CREATE/BUILD
iterative, refine
as needed
LAUNCH
become
discoverable,
sharable and
memorable
MEASURE
what’s working/
what’s not
(4-5%
conversion rate)
1. Start 6 months in advance of launch
2. Research similar crowdfunding projects
3. Who is your target audience? (customers, VCs, investors)
4. Perks & pricing (discounts!)
5. Hire creative team (save up!)
6. Determine budget for creative assets, social media & PR
7. Create a marketing mix/plan of how you will drive
awareness and conversion of your campaign efforts
Social marketing is not free!
You need budget:
1. build an audience
2. drive engagement and sharing
through multiple types of tactics
and content marketing
(I could write a book on the
approach to social marketing but
will spare you)

Research // plan // MARKETING PRE LAUNCH
Create an inner circle
Friends, family, colleagues, past supporters
(plan to raise 30% of funds from this group)
**Build your social media presence**
identify followers & influencers, create assets, share
relevant content, create thought leadership, post teasers!

Create // Build
RESEARCH/PLA
N
customer need
CREATE/BUILD
iterative, refine
as needed
LAUNCH
become
discoverable,
sharable and
memorable
MEASURE
what’s working/
what’s not
(4-5%
conversion rate)
Creative:
• Create 2 videos with 2 endings
• Problem you are solving- what product
is- what it does features/benefits and
why it’s important to the end user. No
longer than 1:30-2 minutes.
• Craft your messaging/RTBs
• Layout real estate on page
• Visual is better! Infographics win
• Show your product
• The more you tell, the more you sell
Social:
• create assets & editorial calendar
(can’t stress this enough to plan in advance)
Press/Media Kit:
• Craft (flexible) press release & media
kit. Short & sweet, include video and
visuals. (Yes you still l need a press
release to keep your messaging tight.
This is a must.
Perks: motivate funding for
• Passion
• Pride
• Participation/sharable
On Average, campaigns with perks raise
143% more than campaigns without perks

Create // Build // PERKS
*Must do*
 Do the math on perk pricing
(logistical time counts)
 Know how you’ll fulfill at 10 and
10,000 units
 Research international shipping
What are Perks?
Good or product
• A physical object
• Swag
• Your product
Make contributors
feel valued
• Show off participation
• T-shirts
• SWAG
• Creative involvement
Experience
• Event
• Recognition
• Volunteer
• Participation
Digital Good
• A song
• Subscription to newsletter
• Exclusive insight into project’s progress
In-kind
• Dinner with a celebrity or influential individual
• Special skill
• Access to exclusive places

Launch
RESEARCH/PLA
N
customer need
CREATE/BUILD
iterative, refine
as needed
LAUNCH
become
discoverable,
sharable and
memorable
MEASURE
what’s working/
what’s not
(4-5%
conversion rate)
Marketing and Promotion
Email
• Email brings in 20% more funding than any
other source
Social Media
• Social marketing is paramount. Strategy:
build following and then convert
• 25% of a campaign’s funds raised should
come from social media
Press/Bloggers
• Identify influential journalist beats, interests and
craft personalized pitches (no mass pitches!) for
relevant websites, blogs
Mid-campaign deals
Offer specials and 1-off memorable campaigns
Indiegogo Page Updates
Campaigns with updates raise 286% more funds

Measure
RESEARCH/PLA
N
customer need
CREATE/BUILD
iterative, refine
as needed
LAUNCH
become
discoverable,
sharable and
memorable
MEASURE
what’s working/
what’s not
(4-5%
conversion rate)
Finishing Strong
• Update frequently until deadline
After deadline
• Thank your contributors
• Follow up about fulfillment
• Continue to use your campaign for
marketing
• Don’t stop communicating via social
Analytics
• Measure against KPIs and benchmarks
Cost per acquisition analysis
• Thank your contributors
• Follow up about fulfillment
• Continue to use your campaign for
marketing
• Don’t stop communicating via social

Timeline
Product strategy, Messaging, Creative assets
Identify personal list of friends, family, network, press
Finalize press releases, alert journalist
Send out Embargoed press
releases, remind campaign
champions
Launch End
-3M -1M -2w -1w
Send thanks you
Send updates Send final
1d 2w
Pre-campaign Launch Post-launch
1w 2w 4w
updates
4m
Release new perk, content
Release another new perk,
content
Release end of campaign
special, perk
2m
Ship
product

CROWDFUNDING TRENDS
CROWDFUNDING 101
MARKETING PLAYBOOK
CASE STUDY: BIRDI
BREAKOUTS

Scheduled launch date 10-17-13
Hello
Senses air quality: smoke, CO,
heat, pollutants, humidity
$0 funding/awareness
NEST Protect Launch date 10/8/13
Senses smoke, CO, heat, light and
motion
80M in funding/High awareness

You have to
start (again)…
Revised launch date:
December 10th

Challenge
Launch hardware startup, Birdi: Smart Air Monitor. Validate consumer/category interest of
connected devices/IOT in the emerging smarthome vertical. Develop launch campaign via Indiegogo
with a 50K goal. Drive consumer (early tech adopters/moms) and VC awareness.
Solution
Create marketing and communication strategy to launch Birdi. Positioning, value proposition,
branding, creative assets, messaging and product story. Execute across owned, paid and earned
media channels (website, Indiegogo, social marketing, paid social media and PR). 2 paid media
campaigns; holiday and end of campaign 5 day sprint.
Results
144% funded on Indiegogo. Product validation & category experts positioned Birdi as a main
competitor to Nest Protect, an 800M funded company recently acquired by Google by 3.2M.
- Identified by Business Insider as “Top 13 Startups to Watch in 2014”
- Events: CES Keynote with AT&T (1-8-14) and NYTM demo (2-4-14)
- Partnering with The San Francisco Mayor’s office and are part of their Entrepreneur in
Residence Program
- Closed 700K seed round July 2014
Owned:
 35% social referral to Indiegogo
 27% social conversions
Paid:
• Total media spend: $3867
• CAC: $8 // ROI: 18x
• 37% total sales conversions
• Targeted 5-day end of campaign
end sprint- 19% of total campaign
funds
Earned:
 759,461 social mentions, shares, engagement
 59 media impressions
(ie: NYTimes, Wired, Forbes, TechCrunch, Fast
Company, VentureBeat, GigaOM, CBS News,
Business Insider, Digital Trends etc)

Marketing Objective
Our marketing plan
Awareness 1st, conversion 2nd

Marketing channels
OWNED PAID EARNED
PR
Live events
GetBirdi.com

Paid media strategy
39
Throughout the
campaign, Google
Analytics showed
Facebook, Twitter to be
the highest refers and
garnered the most
engagement of all
traffic to Indiegogo.
Opportunity to target
people’s interest, likes
and friends of Birdi
Followers
Throughout the
campaign, Google
Analytics showed
Facebook, Twitter to be
the highest refers and
garnered the most
engagement of all
traffic to Indiegogo.
Opportunity for
keyword and hashtag
targeting
Google organic and
direct referrals were
high
Opportunity to target
“smartmoms” at mass
scale
Opportunity to disrupt
NEST and privacy search
queries
Why did we pick these platforms?

Performance
Measuring success

Attribution model
% conversion
email
facebook
pr
twitter
website
Google search
30%
11%
13%
7%
15% 24%

Coverage: 59 original posts

44
Final 6 days: $14,742
Optimized conversion

Friends, family Final push
& press
45
$72,198
144% funded
Holidays/Ne
w Years

CROWDFUNDING TRENDS
CROWDFUNDING 101
MARKETING PLAYBOOK
CASE STUDY: BIRDI
BREAKOUTS

Time to make stuff

Brief groups
• Groups briefed on mock product specs, launch
objectives, target audience & budget
• Teams given playbook & deliverable guidance
Group Exercise
 Create top-line marketing/launch plan
(owned, paid, earned)
Group Presentations
• Each group has 5 minutes to present their
product launch plan and budget allocation
5 mins
30 mins
30 mins

PRESENTATION OUTLINE
1. Product overview, target audience and budget
2. What crowdfunding platform would you use?
3. Perks- what are they
4. Activation plan: channels and marketing activities
• Owned
• Paid
• Earned
5. Media/PR plan

I believe in sharing what we learn with
others and hope you found this insightful.
Questions? Tweet @jaeselle

THANK YOU.
Jess Seilheimer
@jaeselle
jaeselle.com

References
 Indiegogo Field Guide: http://landing.indiegogo.com/iggfieldguide/
 Indiegogo lab: http://slidesha.re/1uwj2wu
 Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/yec/2014/05/27/three-crowdfunding-trends-entrepreneurs-shouldnt-ignore/
 Geekwire: http://www.geekwire.com/2014/future-crowdfunding-3-important-trends-watch/
 Entrepreneur: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232301
 All images sourced via Getty

How to launch a crowd funded product

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