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Campaign Videos That Work

Lesson 12 from: Launch a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Christopher Hawker

Campaign Videos That Work

Lesson 12 from: Launch a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Christopher Hawker

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Lesson Info

12. Campaign Videos That Work

Lesson Info

Campaign Videos That Work

I'm going to show you a few videos just so that we can look at them, and as we look at the videos, I want you to think about how the videos air working to engage the audience. So one thing you want to look for in a great crowd funding video is, why are you going to keep watching? So if people watch a video, they start to watch it, they can a skip it quickly, they don't need to continue to watch it, so you want to give him a reason to keep watching it and you want to understand, you know? So as you're looking at that, think about why am I going to keep watching what I keep watching and what are they doing in order to help engage you and get you excited about the products you're going start off with quickie, which we talked about earlier, we're just going to watch this whole video on one thing I'll say you'll notice a great crowd funding video is pretty short, so typically two to three minutes long, not longer than three minutes is the rule of thumb, though, like all rules of thumb, occa...

sionally people break them and there's no harm in that, but let's start with a quick he video bebe, who is our senior designer, just the product right away. Miss take some people make is they wait too long to introduce the product so you want to get him hooked as quickly as possible get a little reverent tone going on on immediately seeing some of the functions I'm chris hawker adventure the quickie and founder try to design an invention laboratory in columbus, ohio quickie was one of those inventions born out of necessity was constantly using my keys to open packages which didn't work very well and also using other items like credit cards and pennies prize scratch slice and unscrew things pocket knives and multi tools are balking cumbersome so I never wanted to carry one on me so I set out to make a simple infection compaq solution and what I arrived at was the idea for the quickie a simple multi tool of the size and shape of a brought the idea to my designers try to design together we turned the idea to an engineered reality sketching modeling three d printing the kind of different concepts until we found the perfect solution. Originally I was after something that could open boxes and letters more easily than a key, but then I realized that there was an opportunity for to do more way had a number to flathead screwdriver a no brainer and what self respecting designer wouldn't have added a bottle opener once we tested a few three d printed versions moved on heaven stainless steel mills prototypes and after a couple of generations we got our quickie handy little tool that opens everything but doors although tried it has brought dozens of products to market using traditional methods way wanted to give you all the opportunity to be innovators with us on this project wear excited to work on this fun little project with you if you like what you see please take a look at every words and bacchus thank you for your support so you can see in the video that you know we asked about like what's keeping you watching the video and so the fun part of the video is that as he's taking things out of the box what's next what's next and it's not just more of the same thing and it's not just showing you know it's got a bottle opener, you know, been ashore bottle opener, but it's woven into a story. And so one of things that you like to see in a great video is some sort of story arc that you did introduce to at the beginning of the video and that carries you through the whole rest of the video. So you're going to keep watching because you're curious to see how it ends and you're sort of in this one in particular we're building momentum towards the end is like the things get more and more interesting and more and more exciting there's a clear call the action where we engaged people kind of emotionally like, oh, we're just you know, in the truth is where small companies who are small company help us out and support us be a part of what we're creating it's not just like help us, but be a part of it, which is an important distinction like people are engaging in crowdfunding campaigns because they want to be a part of something and they want to like ride shock on creation, not watch someone else do something from afar, so including people in the conversation and then in treating them to support what we're up to asking them for their support, not just showing the product and then we'll support if they want to but saying, hey, look, if you like what we're doing than support what we're doing and it's got little humorous twist to it, but it's not outrightly jokey it's not too clever, says it's, trying to hit the right points. And I know that indiegogo used this particular video of the last couple of years is an educational video when they're showing backers how to create a good campaign video because it hits all those points so well, which this was our first video, so a certain amount of that was look for a lucky guess educated guess with, you know, some talented professionals but it worked out great and I think it was a huge part of the great success of the product because people watched the video over and over and so let's look at a couple more videos we're not going to watch the whole video this on these next few but just to get a flavor for some different approaches this next one is for the thing charger we saw the screen cover for it earlier in this product obviously did exceptionally well and I know that a huge driver of its success has been the video which continued to show a lot of values let's watch the opening lines of the fading charger what if you could unplug your messy old charges now and get a new charger for all your things? One that's almost invisible a thing charger which keeps your outlets free to use and comes with easy's change power tibbs that stock in seconds just for height in case of cases and stone so you're always ready to charge any phone any tablet any reader from any brand samson actual ok soni h t c l g the list goes on a thing charger which charges all your things without messi wise yet has two usb outlets underneath in case you ever need and what if you could now get two or three things charges together and charge all your things at once thing charging awesome new charger for all your things hi where amy and seymour segment inventors have a charger in charge was born of our own frustration did you move my charger mess in our lives caused by charging over there the devices we have these days more created the first prototype by hacking together some existing products in our basement you know that feeling when you know you're looking for something really special you just gotta have it wow I think that's really cool it is cool so you could see how at the beginning he was like building and building and building value showing like all the different ways could be used in all the different things and then there was kind of like an apple like but wait there's one more thing and you can scat stack these up so just creating more and more compelling value about the product in this sort of like air of mystery and also really landing how it's going to change your life and then bringing in like that creation story like oh this is amy in seymour it's people and at the end of the day every product is created by people and so it doesn't actually matter if you're a big bigger company or an individual artist you still you know can connect with people on an individual basis and even you know big companies are filled up with real human beings who are making their living based on the success of the products that they're developing so connecting with people authentically is like I'm a human being trying to do something and something you might try to do something so creating that authentic connection with people being sincere showing like some creation story and usually the creation stories air recreations you know, when he made his first prototype, he wasn't like a film you doing this just in case later on we want to make a crowdfunding video he didn't at that time realized he was going to crowd funding so you do some like, you know, creative recreations of the steps that took to get to where you're at so he did that and then of course he's brings in you know, we're seeing a person a testimonial, a video testimony of someone he's just showing the video to on an ipad, but one thing thing chargers done really, really well in their campaign and then in this video is using social proof to convince people to take action also, seymour is just a super enrolling guy like he's got he's got that great accent and he's very charming and he just seems like a guy you'd want to know so it's important to the success that like when you're in the video and I tried in the quickie video to also be engaging in charming as much as I could be it's like it's not just about what you're doing, you're not just delivering the message judge but you're trying to deliver it in a way that gets people excited and feel relatable to you so you know it's like we call being enrolling not just doing something not just delivering information but you're being in a way that people want to be a part of what you're up to your compelling and so this next one is way brought this up earlier is like things that exist thanks to crowd funding we didn't have anything to do with this campaign but just I just love what it represents in terms of causing things to come into being that in all likelihood never would have happened at least certainly not in the scale that it's happening on a counter crown on account of crowdfunding and here you get a very, very different feel from the videos let's watch a little of the flow beehive honey on tap directly from your beehive way have a bold alongside the honey bee in this in my own relationship way care for them day paul man across and of course make lots of delicious honey but getting the gold nectar has always been quite a task I just thought it was crazy to have to correct the hive opened for the hive apart stress out on the bass and spend all day in the ship just to get your honey I thought it must be a better way so dead knight got way we've done it now you can simply turn a town then pure fresh money flows right out of your delicious ready for you to weigh now it's amazing it's amazing it's honey on tap for those that don't know how this thing you know honey used to be a real labor of love you had to protect herself from stings fireplace market to sedate the base cracked the have open lift heavy boxes left the frame showing up to squash baby's brushed them off the combs or use a leaf blower transport the fames to a processing ship cut the wax capping off filled to the honey and clean up all the mess in the famous have to get back to the hives again now you don't need to do any of that ten attack sit back on what's the honey gloria it's pure unprocessed untouched delicious honey directly from the heart no miss no fuss, no expensive equipment and much more friendly for the base this is the first time in the world this is impossible there's nothing else like it it really is a revolution waken see into the hive we can see when the honeys ready on weaken take it away in such a gentle word what a wonderful thing float names of design with clear in so you can easily take the hive is healthy in the colonies junk you can watch all the girls heading nicked in the honey and see when it's ready and isolate individual combs allowing you to taste all the different flavors of the seasons. So the thing's amazing in one of similar in some ways too thing charger instead of husband and wife got a father and son it's very authentic like even more authentic like these people don't look like fancy business people they look like the farmers and they're not pretending to be anything other than they are that we don't actually know what's going on behind the scenes this could be a gigantic company who's creating beehives I don't think so, but the what we're seeing is like b you know, keepers creating revolutionary product that then illustrated in great detail like how challenging things have been and I think that value proposition of like look at all this ever eliminated and something so simple you never thought about keeping bees it was something that never even kurd occurred to is a possibility before you saw this video now you see this video you like? Well, maybe I could be a beekeeper, right? Like I thought, you know, I didn't actually end up back in the campaign but I might still buy one of these flows because you know, people know there's a problem with bees there's the the honeybees are having some issues whether hives are collapsing and they're dying in mass and now he could be part of the solution to this problem and get honey there's so many benefits to it, so a really compelling job of making their case for the value that they've created and clearly, like you can look at their campaign and it's a nice campaign, but like, I don't think the campaign is going to cause you to back it on its own without seeing that super compelling video and like, right at the beginning, they said that a beautiful scene where it's rotating around the hive as it's filling up and it's just right at the beginning, you're hooked like, where is this leading? So they've got right at the beginning there's a hook and you saw that with thing charger hook right at the beginning, and you saw that the quickie right at the beginning there's a hook or we're going to work starting a story so as you're contemplating your video and you're looking at other videos that just like with the campaigns want to look at the videos from campaigns that you're inspired by and you want to ask yourself what's the story arc where they going? And then as you think about your video, think about what's your story arc so you don't want to just tell the information about what it's going to do the features you don't even want to just tell the information about how it's going to change your life there's a saying from poetry years is like, show me, don't tell me so, like you get your show them and like a scenario that people can relate to, and video is an amazing tool for that and it's also very emotionally engaging, you also see kind of this authentic style I was talking about, like it doesn't look like a television commercial or an infomercial. It's got a super earthy feel, especially the flow hive there feel earthy, almost like documentary style and it's not too slick, but it's also very nicely produced that a low quality video is shot using very high quality equipment. I'm sure it was very nicely edited had nice effects going on, so they could have probably spent the same amount of money and gotten a much slicker look, but they were going for that authentic look that works so well in crowdfunding. Furthermore, it's very well considered, and we'll talk about this in a little bit, but like I know for a fact that every single syllable of the thing charger video was carefully calibrated and like the way he enunciated, you know, you know, just in case of cases, you know, like really clever turns of phrase, mento land important distinctions with you important, you know, facets of the value with you. The video is so important again, it's like one of these things, if you're not going to take the time to do the video right, if you're not willing to invest the money to make a video of the quality that will get the job done, you shouldn't even really bother doing the campaign a doll that doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money. There are a lot of people with good video equipment, there are a lot of people out there who know how to edit they're tools that you can get very inexpensively and teach yourself how to edit what's important is that you take the time to do it right, that you're well considered that you consider that story or because we did a campaign once that didn't do that great. It was for a running pack of the really nice product, and we start a great video in the video did a great job of telling the story of what the product id, but there was no story arc, and this is when we really made this realization because people would watch the video and wouldn't finish the video and we'll get into using youtube analytics a little later to test the effectiveness of your video and like, why aren't people watching the video like ten percent of the people are making it all the way through and then as we watched it over and over we're like, oh, we get it like basically there's no reason to keep watching you figured the product out in the first like twenty seconds of the video but there's no story or you're not seeing where it's heading you're not like curious about what's going to happen next and so then we started thinking about this is we're creating the videos like what's going to keep people watching their weight waiting for the next thing that's got to be a compelling reason to keep watching so let's watch one more video this one is where our carbon flyer and I have to start this one about halfway through two hundred forty feet away using either an android or apple smartphone, it allows for a two way communication with plain providing real time battery and connectivity steps our interactive app allows the pilot to control the plane's airspeed, altitude and steering using only one hand from the very beginning that carbon flyer was about carbon fiber the world's strongest lightest material a lot of products try to imply there carbon fiber by printing a carbon texture on material way are pushing the boundaries with this nearly unbreakable flying toy carbon flyer is perfect rc hobbyists, flight enthusiasts and gadget lovers everywhere and we need your help to get it off the ground we've already produced the molds for our common five planes and we have begun developing the smartphone application way need your backing from the tooling for the lightweight parliament components that make this plane fly thank you for your support and so the carbon fire is interesting because it's a whole different feel of a video it's going for less of the folksy or funny irreverent type of feeling more towards like because a cool thing you're gonna want its high energy a little high octane it scared towards people who want cool things and then he's got a real strong call to action at the end like we're saying you're back this campaign be a part of something cool so there's a few videos for you to think about as you're looking at your own campaign and thinking about how you want to create your video these air some I think good ones just like him is obvious seeming but go to the most successful campaigns watch them pick them apart see what's working and what's not wearing ask yourself what's in there and then when you look at your own campaign video and you're starting to map it, you want to be really brutally honest with yourself and not trick yourself like make sure you're clearly creating some sort of compelling reason for people to keep watching, so I want to talk about using youtube as well, so youtube has some awesome tools that allow you to put up a video and then dropped you can drive traffic, you just pay for traffic to get people to come to it and then you can see where people drop off so we're just doing a couple scenes here and hearing particularly concede the average view, duration and person average percentage reviewed and so we've got like the average seventy eight percent of people watch the whole video and you know, some people drop off sooner and some people make it through a whole video so like the quickie had like ninety five percent of people made it your whole video well, we looked at that one video we did for the running pack was like ten percent of people made it through the whole video, so if we kind of had this realization before we did that campaign, then we would have been much better we would have realized in advance that the video is not working so I don't have time to go into all the details of how to use youtube theirs. You know, in the software and there's other classes probably here in creative live just about how to use youtube in great detail so let them point you to those classes but basically the tool we use is you can do the thirty second pre roe videos so this you can run an ad where people will before they watched the video that they've clicked on, they'll see thirty seconds and you've all seen these videos after five seconds, you can click a thing mrs skipped ad. Well, what you want to do is create thirty second versions of your video, so you create your whole video, but you make maybe three or four different, slightly different versions, in particular different versions of the introduction, the party is going to hook him and get him to watch the rest of the video, and then you drive traffic to the four different versions of the video as pre roll ads, and then you see what percentage of people make it past five seconds like they don't immediately hit skip tio, skip the video, skip, add a soon as they get the opportunity, because if one hundred percent of the people or a large percent of the people are skipping your ad it's because they're not being interested and what they're seeing, you can use the same thing on yourself like as you're going through youtube in watching videos and you run across these ads notice which adds to you skip in, which adds, you decide to hang out and ask yourself why you know so well, I just watched the whole video about it caused me to stick around. Caused me to watch the whole video because no one's going to get your two year called action that they haven't made it past the first five seconds and then it will also give you, you know, deeper and deeper granular detail about like how many people drop off a ten seconds twenty seconds etcetera? How many people make it all the way through and they only pay for people who make it all the way through so there's actually some benefit to having ads that like people don't make it all the way through or they make it all the way through and then they convert if someone makes it all the way through and you pay for the ad impression but then they don't convert so that's a whole nother thing about how have they convert but initially anyway you want to test different iterations of your video and see which ones work and we like what we like to do now is well too like miniature versions of the videos before we shoot the full fledged video will say ok, what are three or four different angles that we could take with a video or story type arcs that we can create nor suit a lower quality, quicker version of the video that's not the full length of the first thirty seconds of the video that will lead to a landing page morgan's landing page is a little later but so this is like very testing or split testing so where some people are getting one version some people are getting another we'll see which one works the best and then will develop the full video based on feedback from data about which people are responding best who were not guessing anymore so before we're guessing now we can get data that actually proves too which which ones are working the best once we then have that data about which sort of angle seems to be most promising then we build out the full video but again now we've got like a two and a half three minute long video you can do slightly different edits of it there's different edits than all driving towards if you click on it to a landing page we're trying to get the email address you could start to determine how many people are making it through you know one minute or how many people are making all the way through to the end how many people are clicking and getting through to the end you have slightly different variations and you're seeing which one works the best now you don't have to do all this you could just guess and like on the quickie we just guessed but on our later campaigns and we're definitely like using more and more intelligence because also as time goes on people getting savvy er and savvy and there's more and more noise so in orderto you know, compete, you get to keep up in your game and so now that's what we're using and so you know, if if you're not up for it, you don't have to, but you can do some simple versions of this as well just buy testing them with your friends and family and seeing like which ones they like best, but if you just make one cut, then you're not giving you're guessing which one is the best and that's the one you're making you might make if you make three or four different cuts and they get feedback either through data on youtube or from your friends and family, then you're really giving yourself a much better advantage and hopefully avoiding a pitfall of video that doesn't work something about it just doesn't create the result. So super important in refining the video is so I talked earlier about wanting to make sure that you're taking the time to do it right, and part of what that means is like storyboarding it out like taking the time to write your script carefully to plan your scenes carefully it's not like you just show up with set and there's a guy with a camera like, ok, let's do this video, but you've taken the time to script it out if you're being, you know, the talking head, which is the you know, with a person like, hi, I'm chris hawker and the inventor of the quickie or that piece called talking head, you want to have your lines practiced, you don't necessarily have to have them memorized because you can use editing cutaways to, like, piece together, you know, if you lines if you're a little awkward and delivering them so you don't have to be perfect or having perfectly memorized, but if it's the first time you've done him, you're not going to have had a chance to, like, figure out how do I want to say this will kind of emphasis, though I want to use where my pausing et cetera. So you want to have some time you want to be familiar and comfortable with the lines want have read them aloud enough that they sound right. You don't want to show up, and then you start speaking the lines, you know what? I would never say this. This is, like, totally awkward. Now you're like, got the camera guy sitting there while you're trying to rewrite the script so there's a lot of value in taking the time. Prepare mapping out your shots. One thing that can happen is people like work on creating their video but they don't map out their shots and one of the shots that you want to make sure you include in the video is what we call it the meat and potatoes shots like just some nice clean shots of the products you get what you're looking at because sometimes you see a video and it's all in use it's all lifestyle shots but you never actually just get like here's the thing here's the thing and all of its glory showing off a sexually is possible you want to make sure you get those shots so you're mapping out okay we're gonna get this this this and this shot and we're going to get the shot of you using it and then we've got this story arc so we're getting all those scenes as well because even if you've got a story arc then you're gonna cut in those pictures of the details shots of the product so mapping it out in advance so that you're set up to win when you show up because a video shot it seems like it shouldn't be that if you've never done a video before you'd be surprised there's a lot of hurry up and wait it's a long day it can be quite exhausting and the more prepared you are the smoother it goes and the more fun it is instead of frustrating and exhausting so being prepared super important so who's going to do your video again this goes back to the agency versus free mansour type scenario so you can hire an agency and like to do a campaign video depending on who you're working with you could spend between five and fifteen thousand dollars on a nice looking campaign video so of the quality you saw there depending on who you're working with depending on the level of equipment the number of shots the complexity you might you know five to fifteen thousand dollars would be normal like you're looking at the quickie and the quick he was pretty simple shoot like it was a house and one camera guy not a lot going on the carbon flyer well it's a little thing flying around we had were outside shots inside shots multiple people with cameras trying to catch this little thing streaking across the sky was very challenging to shoot so we also want to get that next level of camera man who might you know have a better chance of catching great shots with it because of the nature of something zooming around at high speeds far away that small so clearly not all stories are created equal and if you're creating complicated stories and we need to get actors involved, these things can add up so you have a choice again and you want to be budget conscious as you're planning your video if your budgets very small, then you want to not plan and devise a super complicated video that's going to take a lot of resource is it doesn't mean it won't be as effective a lot of times if you're creative enough you could be super effective even with a low budget just by being you know, smart about it like quickie, so being thoughtful taking the time to prepare and then of course you can hire freelancers or get friends to help you with the video you can learn these things in your room next you won't have a clear message in the video just like with the campaigns it's not uncommon to watch a video and be confused about what the campaign is about typically if that's going on people don't make it through the whole video anyway they get just barely into it before they bail out because they don't have the patients they don't owe it to you frankly, people don't owe it to you to back your product. They don't owe it to you to watch your video or to take the mental energy to decipher what you're trying to say. If you're not being clear again because of confirmation bias, you might want to run this by people you don't know before you created just like make sure people are getting it they're picking up what you're laying down so that later on you're not dealing with a failed campaign and people like yeah but I didn't even know what your campaign was about you know I was a minute and a half into it before you even mentioned one time with the product was and I've seen that many times where people like you're a minute and a half in the video and they still haven't told you what the benefit of the product is you want to make sure you get to it quickly again I don't want to try too hard you don't want necessarily professional actors keep authentic if it looks a little rough that can actually be endearing and those people who are backing because they want to support you not just because they want the thing or more likely to back you up if you don't show up like two good if it's too perfect if it's too slick and produce they're like well they don't need my support now you still might get backers we're backing you because they love the product but you're eliminating that huge chunk of people who are backing products just because they like you or they're supporting you and then lastly make sure that your again we talked about earlier picking the tone for your campaign that's going on connect with everything make sure that the tone of the video lines of put the tone you've chosen for the campaign like if you have a serious campaign you know wanna silly video if you have a silly campaign, you know, on a serious but do you want these things to be consistent with the brand that you're generating as your, you know, launching the product and make sure everything's khun grew int and then if you've decided, for example, to go humorous to want to make sure it's successfully humorous or if you're trying to, you know, go after whatever it is, you want to make sure successful in that by testing it with people and making sure that it's achieving what you wanted to because you obviously you can trust your own judgement to a certain extent, but ultimately you really want the opportunity to see what other people who aren't connected to you think because they're not doing it to make you feel good, they're telling you what they honestly think they even still might be a little biased if you're asking them, but there's a tremendous amount of value and getting that feedback before you go live with it even before you go up on youtube just to avoid wasting your time and money now questions? Suzanne asked on the break, how much money should you spend on one of these tests on youtube, like how much money do you need to spend? Is that thousands of dollars? No is that tens of thousands? No, you're like fifty or one hundred bucks truly we'll get you enough data you know you can typically on youtube you can get you know, hundreds about a couple thousand views for fifty or a hundred bucks so that's enough to get some real data I mean maybe it's not a statistically significant is one hundred thousand views but it's a way more statistically significant than zero so fifty or a hundred bucks certainly enough that you're going to get some real data that gives you some you know, important insight into what's working what's not working with your video so there's five key elements to every crowdfunding video and the first is of course the product the product wants to be highlighted and in particular how it's going to change your life look at all these messy wires you know you're always losing your charger and you know think charger here it is it's going toe save the save the day so like highlighting the product in the best possible way the creator wants to be featured in a crowdfunding videos so because this is such a creator centric platform crowdfunding you want to make sure that the creator shows up not an actor not someone who's pretending to be the creator I've seen people try to do that and that doesn't work and if the creator doesn't show up usually that's got to be because they're really just not appealing but if someone's truly not appealing like it's they're gonna have you know people get to work on being engaging in a way that people want to support them and if they can't do that crowd funny might not be the right platform in general so you want to be engaging you want to be committed to want to be willing to risk and go out on a limb and ask people for support next the benefit you really want to focus on that before and after you know before the quickie you were struggling with her keys after the quickie you can do all these things before the flow hive you were going through this huge rigmarole that looks like it would take weeks to get your honey now it's just like you open a faucet and it's amazing so the before and after is key for people to get the value because a lot of times they may not immediately if you saw him the benefit but you don't tell me that before scene they may not remember it so you want to show him that before in order to make the after so much more valuable like in the carbon fire we didn't see in that segment there but traditional rc planes break when they crashed we show a bunch of airplanes breaking as we flew them against walls and then we saw the cover fire flying against the walls and not break king so before and after the super important not just the after and then lastly we're not last more than next is called action so make sure you're telling people to support your campaign like you could have a great thing and then at the end it doesn't say now back our campaign then it just shows up is an informational video so you want to say hey and then you want to be a little convincing when you're saying like hey look we're doing something great you want to be a part of this is going to be fun it's going to be awesome you get onboard joined the party boat not like back our campaign you know but like you're enticing them you're getting them excited about being a part of it and wanting to like see what you're up to they like you they like the product that you're excited about being in on the party and then lastly considering your target audience so this is also super important if you're creating a product like the carbon flyer that's going to appeal to, you know, gadget obsessed males is who was targeted going to make a very different product star in a very different video than if you're targeting a product that's going after dog owners who might be like a wide swath of the general population as opposed to people because our teacher teacher dogs you know him is probably not the right vibe so you want to consider her your audiences and this may seem fundamental or obvious but you see it done wrong often where people have a cool product but the marketing angle is wrong it's not targeting a clear audience or it's targeting the wrong audience because they weren't keeping this fresh to mind and they were you know they lost the forest for the trees like I'm going to create a video another like just creating the video not thinking about the overall brand message and relevance so one of the bonus pieces that you're going to get with the class that's from the r v p bonuses the video production checklist so when you're creating a video if you've never done it before there's certain things that you want to do in this checklist is just going to have all of the little steps that are required to make a video outline so if you're you know, getting ready to make the video you can look this over and like, oh, these are all the things the individual steps that I need to follow in order to get to the end and so it's not infinite in its detail it's just hating most the bullet points but you're going to need to do each one of these pieces to get to the end and so that's what it's there for is to help you make sure you're not missing anything and as you're planning you know all the steps you need to account for yeah, it's hard, tio well, I don't want to say it's hard to do right it's really easy to do wrong, and so I usually work with people are very tight budgets, so it's very hard, so sometimes they just put in a slide show with some music in the background and that's the only thing that they can do it. I want to encourage them to do exactly what you're saying. The story, eric, I come from a journalism background. So, um, that that's the compelling piece that keeps them watching, um, there's also an animation that you could do there's different there's different ways that schools doing the video itself. Um, that you can explore, um, hiring out. Hiring freelancer is great again. Those those websites up work and fiver could help you out. But I do try and get something this is worth investing in. Yeah, it's, it's the number one place worth investing in because without a great video, you're not going to get anywhere and it's not easy like it's, not like you can just shoot a great video without any training and without great equipment like the days of an iphone video getting the job done or kind of passed for me. Someone might be able to figure out to do with an iphone who's a professional but generally you need that professional quality look in order to get the professional quality results you know I think I have anything with practice it just gets you easier I felt making videos so I think sometimes you have to go to it orations and it does tend to get easier for trying to do it yourself, but the thing that I always get hung up on is likewise overs or the music and how can I incorporate those elements in my video and I be great if you could point out one or two resource is that people could go to yeah, so we use premium beats to find our background music like all those background songs on our videos came from premium beats where they have a great selection they're reasonably priced usually like thirty to fifty bucks. I think for the different songs and it's funny because like I've actually heard some of the songs on broadcast commercials like it's the same quality people are using for, you know, real life broadcast television commercials or table so you can get great quality music and music is really important music you could take a flat video and it brings that alive and it really is a huge part of what creates the vibe of the video you take the same video for the carbon a flyer you put classical music behind it and it's like, oh, you know, flight, you know it's like just a completely different field and the like sort of heavy driving music that we chose so yeah, music is super important and take and we have people spent hours and hours listening to clips I mean, you know, days but they might plan spent four or five hours listening to little clips looking for just the right sound that's going to create the video like so much in crowdfunding it's like being willing to put in the time not giving a short shrift like how it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it all matters and so getting that good is super important voice over as well high quality recording getting into a sound studio someone who's got a decent quality mike, you could do it yourself just a decent quality mike not your earbud mike, but a nice you know, blue snowball is good enough, probably for a lot of you know, people getting an editor who can do good sound editing and good color correction all these things have a lot of value and creating a nice looking professional video and practice doesn't make perfect I mean, the first time you're on you know, the other side of the camera and someone's filming you a lot of people, it frees up in the end but then like as you do it more and more you just it just becomes natural you're just like doing what you're doing there just happens to be a camera rolling the one thing I could say if you're on camera like cameras you know they say add ten pounds more importantly they take off like twenty percent of your energy so if you're going to be on kaymer, why is that? Well, we're used to watching tv actors in movie actors on camera and those people are actors you know their plan boy and you know, like they're doing like big gestures and smiling really big and if you were like just standing across from them and they were being his flamboyant and animated as they are on tv that you'd be like whoa, you've met some of those people probably, but when you're on camera because people are used to watching hyper animated people when they watch someone who's just acting normal they're standing there talking days you just show up flat so like, you know, when I'm going on camera like have like a little persona I'm like, ok, I'm gonna be on camera now so I mean chris awesome er instead of chris hawker and I'm just like just like me times one point one it was like slightly more animated slightly more energetic so that I don't show up flat and then I just saw it normal on the camera, like, I don't show up like, I'm being extreme, but internally I'm doing a little thing with myself smile, bigger b'more, animated gesture, bigger and it shows up normal and so that's, you know, a little coaching around also smile people like to see teeth, you know, they want to smile and, you know, be happy and be excited about what you're doing don't be flat, inboard sounding because people are gonna be enrolled there, not going excited about backing you if you don't seem excited about you and what you're up to. So you want to show up that way, and if at first you're uncomfortable practice. So this is it goes back to this thing where, like people don't want to put in the time to do research, they also want to put in the time to practice, but they're willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars and put in hundreds of hours they just want to do anything uncomfortable. So if you want to really take the time to do a good job, practice on your own in front of the mirror with your friend with an iphone before you come to shooting day so that when you're doing it it's, not the first time you've ever done it. And you feel a little more relaxed to feel more comfortable, and you can express yourself authentically you're not showing up stiff or, uh, you know, unnatural because you're not comfortable it's a little bit of coaching around being on camera, suzanne and I also wanted to add to the music part, consider your local musician community and also there's tons of musicians who are on kickstarter and you go go anyway, uh, if you come across any of them and you listen to them, consider supporting them in that way, saying, hey, I I could give you this much money. Do you have any backing tracks for my video? Um, you know, just just thought I would advocate for the in different independent musician, great, yeah, and then if they've got their own audience, they might drive people to your campaign, so music is really important. The video is super important and it's also fun, it's, exciting, it's like the thing that you're creating at the end, so it's worth putting the time and to do it right, it really is, so they're getting ready to create your video, then you really also want to make sure they, you know, they're taking the time to create that story arc and you know, doing the job right in order to get the maximum effect, so look at the videos, take the time to be analytical and come up with a plan for your own video. We're going to be super excited by what you create in the end because if you aren't in the video is not that no one else will be. It really just comes down to practice like the first time I stood in front of a camera, I froze up, it was horrible and then practice and practice and practiced, and at some point it stopped being quite so they're recognizing I'm great at it now, but I definitely more comfortable with it and it's a valuable skill, especially no matter what you're doing. If you're planning on creating stuff in the world, video is becoming an evermore important part of our lives because video cameras everywhere and so if you take the time to develop yourself, is comfortable in front of a camera it's going to be a skill that's, wildly transferrable anywhere you go if you're like, well, I'm comfortable in front of the camera I'm comfortable with video, then there's almost no place you could possibly work where that's not going to have some value like you could work in a pet store, and it could be valuable because we're going to do some youtube you know video is about taking care of your fish tank or your snake you know or any where you're at or there's you're working for the you know, the local bus authority and they need someone to go in front of the camera and sir like well, I'll do that because I'm comfortable so it's like there's just a huge amount of value and developing yourself is comfortable in that venue and as time goes on, it's only become more and more and more valuable as people become lazier and lazier about reading and just, you know more and more easy to watch a video and it's also great and it's not just that people are lazy, says video so much more compelling than reading you know, if a picture is worth a thousand words that he was worth a thousand pictures because you're able convey emotion is able to convey all the different levels of communication that aren't just in the words and you can do that more so obviously within a careful word choice but you convey so much around emotion through body language facial expression through just like your energy. Subtle variations in tone humor, etcetera solve much easier to communicate in video than it is in any other venues platforms so it's the super useful skill especially in crowdfunding it's the key to success and all the best campaigns have great videos I have not seen, ah, great campaign. That didn't also have a great video. So super central to your success there.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Patent 101 Videos
Campaign Page Examples
Campaign Page Wireframe
Launch Day Checklist
Campaign Video Checklist
Financial Calculator Spreadsheets

Ratings and Reviews

Dyan deNapoli
 

Really helpful class for anyone planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign! Christopher was a great presenter (very comfortable and relaxed), and he clearly knew the topic extremely well. His presentation was very thorough and well thought out. One thing I would've like to have seen is more questions taken from the virtual audience. There were quite a few on the thread, but the moderator only passed along a few of them to Christopher to answer. Another thing that would have been very helpful is advice about creating successful crowdfunding campaigns that are for projects or experiences or ideas, rather than for physical products (which this class was focused on). Maybe Christopher can do a short crowdfunding part II class?? But I still give this class an A+!

Elizabeth Best
 

This was very helpful. I feel like it answered so many of my questions. It made me realize what a huge commitment crowdfunding is! As an entrepreneur I can see how this video saves trident a lot of time on calls and emails explaining what needs to be done. Great idea! I am amazed at how much technology is involved and online or social media marketing. I better develop a stronger team with millennials who know how to make it happen. Thank you.

David McNichols
 

Chris goes into the depth required to own this material in a way that is both essential and inspiring. Although my best friend launched 10 out of 11 successful Kickstarter projects, I could not learn from him through osmosis all the amazing material Chris has covered here in detail! The patent research information alone makes it worth the price! I highly recommend this course.

Student Work

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