Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

I just completed a 30 day hardware Kickstarter last week and spent $22k on the video ($18k for main video, $4k for founder interview) and raised $57k, which is an outlier to this data. I can tell my campaign is not in the Video Budget / Amount Raised graph because it would stick out near the bottom right. So it seems to me that something's not right.

The product is compelling and I think it shows in the video. Much of the feedback I got for the video was positive. And there are a couple near competitors that have raised $1M+. My internal goal was to break $100k and that did not happen.

Did I make a mistake with this video or campaign? I hit all of the points: early product intro, upbeat mood, 2:23, image quality, founder presence, location scouting and voice talent, and outside help.

You can watch the video here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samuelclay/turn-touch-b...

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#5

Post by trendia » Wed, Mar 15, 2017, 6:31 PM UTC

conesus wrote: post #4

Ok, there's a chance I'll gain some valuable insight from posting this, which beats the cost of putting myself out there, so here goes... I just completed a 30 day hardware Kickstarter last week and spent $22k on the video ($18k for main video, $4k for founder interview) and raised $57k, which is an outlier to this data. I can tell my campaign is not in the Video Budget / Amount Raised graph because it would stick ou…

The video is very well done imo. However, it's only a small part of the overall marketing strategy.

What kind of marketing did you do? e.g. what kind of coverage did you seek / get?

What kind of market research did you do? e.g. did you do user studies and get feedback?

How did you determine the selling price? e.g. did you determine whether it was too low (if customers are price insensitive, then you can increase profit by increasing price) or too high (if customers are extremely price sensitive, then you have to accept lower unit margins to increase total profit)

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#6

Post by frgtpsswrdlame » Wed, Mar 15, 2017, 6:34 PM UTC

conesus wrote: post #4

Ok, there's a chance I'll gain some valuable insight from posting this, which beats the cost of putting myself out there, so here goes... I just completed a 30 day hardware Kickstarter last week and spent $22k on the video ($18k for main video, $4k for founder interview) and raised $57k, which is an outlier to this data. I can tell my campaign is not in the Video Budget / Amount Raised graph because it would stick ou…

Can you link to your successful near competitors?

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#7

Post by conesus » Wed, Mar 15, 2017, 6:42 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #6

conesus wrote: post #4

Ok, there's a chance I'll gain some valuable insight from posting this, which beats the cost of putting myself out there, so here goes... I just completed a 30 day hardware Kickstarter last week and spent $22k on the video ($18k for main video, $4k for founder interview) and raised $57k, which is an outlier to this data. I can tell my campaign is not in the Video Budget / Amount Raised graph because it would stick ou…

Can you link to your successful near competitors?

I only bring these campaigns up to make a point about market size. A four button wood remote won't compete as well against a handheld screen or a single button. But again this is only about establishing that there is a market for this type of device.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flic-the-wireless-smart-b...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/knocki/knocki-make-any-...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/901859853/sevenhugs-sma...

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#8

Post by conesus » Wed, Mar 15, 2017, 6:47 PM UTC

trendia wrote: post #5

conesus wrote: post #4

Ok, there's a chance I'll gain some valuable insight from posting this, which beats the cost of putting myself out there, so here goes... I just completed a 30 day hardware Kickstarter last week and spent $22k on the video ($18k for main video, $4k for founder interview) and raised $57k, which is an outlier to this data. I can tell my campaign is not in the Video Budget / Amount Raised graph because it would stick ou…

The video is very well done imo. However, it's only a small part of the overall marketing strategy. What kind of marketing did you do? e.g. what kind of coverage did you seek / get? What kind of market research did you do? e.g. did you do user studies and get feedback? How did you determine the selling price? e.g. did you determine whether it was too low (if customers are price insensitive, then you can increase prof…

I got a healthy amount of press coverage, as you can see in this graphic: https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/015/617/477/4373b04fd29a977...

I'm with you on pricing. It's hard to tell what would have worked better. I could possibly have raised the price to $99 from $59, but I didn't do the proper pre-campaign testing that would have confirmed if that was the right strategy.

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#9

Post by sadface » Wed, Mar 15, 2017, 6:51 PM UTC

Interesting information! I really like the analysis of video content, particularly the "founder presence" info. However, I think that the headline results that isolate video cost when looking at raise results is a bit of an odd way to do this analysis because it leaves out the rest of the marketing mix. I'm actually preparing a crowdfunding campaign myself (first time), and I'd think that the main levers for success would be, in no order of importance:

A: Pre-campaign support (solid email list, social media presence, etc), B: Video Quality, C: Rest of Page quality (ie: copy, visuals, etc), D: Paid advertising, E: Media Coverage, F: (Most important) Compelling product & pricepoint

Money Raised should be a function of a-f (and several other factors I'm sure I'm missing) so isolating any one of those variables on its own is not that useful. Presumably a campaign with a $100k budget for its video has also made significant investments elsewhere.

Something I'm still trying to figure out: assuming there is a limited budget, would one rather spend 20k on a video or 5k on the video + 15k more on Facebook ads? My thinking is that the 3M extra views (assuming $5 cpm) would be worth more than the marginal increase in video quality from $5k-$20k.

Granted, if there's a good ROI on online ads, the budget there should theoretically be "unlimited", but that's not always the case. Curious about other peoples thoughts here.

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#10

Post by its4tom » Wed, Mar 15, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

conesus wrote: post #4

Ok, there's a chance I'll gain some valuable insight from posting this, which beats the cost of putting myself out there, so here goes... I just completed a 30 day hardware Kickstarter last week and spent $22k on the video ($18k for main video, $4k for founder interview) and raised $57k, which is an outlier to this data. I can tell my campaign is not in the Video Budget / Amount Raised graph because it would stick ou…

I agree the video is well made. The quality is on par with what you'd expect for that budget. And it hits on all the recommendations we derived from the video benchmark data.

Can you tell us more about your campaign tactics, other than video? eg. How big of a mailing list did you have prior to launch? did you advertise? any PR?