Constructing Your Marketing campaign — Kickstarter

On this collection, Kickstarter’s Movie crew solutions a number of the most typical questions requested by Movie creators inquisitive about operating a marketing campaign. On this part, they’ll sort out every thing it’s good to learn about creating your venture video, constructing rewards, setting your funding objective, and extra.

Browse our different guides on getting began, managing your stay marketing campaign, and post-campaign life.

A possible backer studying your venture description ought to be capable of stroll away understanding what you’re making, why you’re making it, what you want as a way to make it, and what they’ll get in return for supporting you. 

 If you’re telling your story, remember to deal with questions like: 

•  What’s your movie about? 
•  Who’s engaged on it? 
•  Why are you the best individual/folks to make it? 
• What’s pressing or related about this story at this second in time (in different phrases, why make this movie now)? 
• What stage of the filmmaking course of are you at, and what’s your anticipated timeline for finishing it? 
• What’s going to the Kickstarter funds assist pay for? 

For extra recommendations on crafting your venture web page, take a look at our checklist of Kickstarter Movie story prompts. 

Along with telling your story, remember to embody loads of pictures that illustrate what you’re making. Place a picture each two or three paragraphs as a way to make your web page simpler to learn. (Learn our ideas for choosing venture pictures right here.) Check out the venture pages for The Hen and Notes on an Look for an instance of fine, sturdy imagery. 

In case you don’t have nice pictures of your personal, be at liberty to embed movies of your previous work, create temper boards utilizing content material that’s free for public use (see under), and another materials that’s related to your venture. 

Do not use something that you do not have the rights to. The best method to keep away from copyright troubles is to create all of the content material your self or use content material that’s free for public use. 

Inventive Commons permits you to legally use “some rights reserved” music, films, pictures, and different content material free of charge. It’s also possible to discover free-to-use pictures by Google Search by filtering your outcomes with an Superior Search filter known as “utilization rights.” Discover out extra from the Google Assist Heart. 

Though movies aren’t required for Kickstarter tasks, we suggest that Movie creators at all times embody a video. Much like your venture description, your video ought to inform potential backers what you’re making and why it issues. 

 Some extra ideas to your venture video: 

• Preserve it brief—two minutes or much less. 
• Embrace temporary clips of your movie—even when they’re works in progress—and/or earlier work. 
• Be certain that your director seems in it, even when briefly, and even when it’s solely their voice.

Listed here are some extra tips on making a venture video from previous creators and our crew. 

The commonest Movie rewards embody issues like: 

Preserve these factors in thoughts as you craft your rewards: 

Providing entry to your movie is a good reward! However in the event you’re hoping to lock in a distribution deal (for instance, with a streaming website), we don’t suggest providing a digital obtain of your movie. As a substitute, supply backers digital entry or a digital streaming hyperlink so you have got a bit extra management over the place the completed movie finally ends up. 

Whereas producing bodily merchandise (for instance, T-shirts) to your backers is likely to be interesting, we suggest specializing in digital rewards for reward tiers of $50 and fewer. Because the manufacturing and postage prices will come out of the funds you increase on Kickstarter—to not point out the time drain of packaging and mailing merchandise—you’ll need to take into consideration significant rewards which you can ship to backers by way of e-mail. 

You’re required to place an estimated supply date on every reward tier, so remember to set life like supply expectations. Give your self a wholesome buffer to account for the time wanted to supply, bundle (if relevant), and ship your rewards.

Want a bit further inspiration? Listed here are some extra reward tier concepts. 

The typical quantity a Movie venture raises on Kickstarter hovers round $12,000, with the typical brief movie elevating $5,600.

Kickstarter makes use of an all-or-nothing funding mannequin, which means you must hit your funding objective by the tip of your marketing campaign to obtain the funds. In case you don’t attain your funding objective, your backers gained’t be charged and also you gained’t obtain any cash. Take into account that as soon as your marketing campaign begins, you may’t change the funding objective or the length of the marketing campaign.

You’ll want to determine a funding objective that’s each achievable—given your understanding of the assist you may count on out of your neighborhood and your capability to succeed in folks past it—and that can will let you get your movie to the subsequent stage. Filmmakers usually set a funding objective that can permit them to cowl the price of manufacturing or particular a part of post-production, like shade correction or sound combine. You may need to create a spreadsheet of dedicated or anticipated pledges out of your private community that can assist you calculate this sum.

We additionally suggest letting your backers know from the start what you’ll do with extra funds in the event you’re fortunate sufficient to surpass your funding objective. For instance: “With an additional $1,000 we are able to safe extra music licensing rights; with an extra $2,000 we are able to additionally rent a composer.”

Most tasks ought to set their campaigns to run between 14 and 35 days. (In case your venture objective is $25,000 or extra, we suggest the longer finish of that vary.)

Contemplate your finish date in addition to your begin date: Choose an finish date and time that finest permits you to amplify the ultimate days of your marketing campaign. You don’t need to finish your venture on a nationwide vacation or early within the morning when potential backers gained’t be on-line.

Crucial elements to contemplate when deciding in your launch date are when you should have probably the most time to spend working in your marketing campaign and when your viewers will almost definitely be on-line to assist your venture. 

If you understand you at all times have quite a bit happening through the holidays on the finish of the 12 months, for instance, it’d make extra sense to attend to run your venture within the new 12 months, when you may dedicate extra time to the marketing campaign. Likewise, if the vast majority of your family and friends go on trip in August, you may take into account operating a marketing campaign in September after they’re largely again on-line. We additionally recommend avoiding launching or ending your marketing campaign on or instantly round a nationwide vacation. 

When a venture stands out to our crew, we give it a “Initiatives We Love” badge and will characteristic it on our homepage, in newsletters, or on social media. Examine how we select tasks to characteristic right here.

Right here are some things we search for in Movie tasks particularly: 

• A fascinating venture video that introduces the movie you’re making and the crew and motivations behind it. Your venture video doesn’t must be a super-slick trailer, nevertheless it ought to visually talk your aesthetic as a filmmaker and provides your viewers confidence in your means to inform tales by video. 
• Considerate rewards that supply alternatives to have interaction along with your movie, your artistic course of, or your crew. Ideally, these rewards can even be priced appropriately. For instance, we see most digital hyperlinks to movies supplied at round $20 to $35, DVDs or Blu-rays round $50 to $100, and unique alternatives to have interaction with the creation of the movie—a set go to or an opportunity to be an additional, as an illustration—at a lot increased value factors. 
• Lovely, high-resolution pictures that assist inform your story. 
• A complete written description of the scope of your movie venture, what you’re elevating cash for, and what’s compelling or thrilling to you in regards to the movie you’re making.

To get a fair higher concept of the sorts of tasks we characteristic, join Kickstarter on Movie, our month-to-month e-newsletter.

Located throughout the Creator Dashboard, which supplies creators a chicken’s-eye view of the newest exercise on a stay or accomplished venture, customized referral tags are customized hyperlinks that show you how to monitor what number of backers and the way a lot cash is coming from a particular channel. Learn this information to utilizing them. 

Your shareable preview web page reveals what your venture will seem like when it’s stay, together with the title, video, description, and rewards. Share this web page with shut collaborators and trusted advisors for suggestions on every thing from copy to photographs to reward tiers.

Sure! The extra preparation you do earlier than launch, the higher positioned you’ll be whenever you go stay. Consider your marketing campaign promotion like a manufacturing schedule.

Listed here are some advisable steps to take earlier than you launch:

• Make a listing of your present supporters. Consider everybody you understand: folks you educated with and labored with; individuals who have supported you and who you have got supported; folks you have been in movie faculty and band camp and chess membership with. No connection is simply too distant. 
• Create a spreadsheet. Embrace emails, social media handles, and cellphone numbers to your contacts. Make a remark of how you understand every individual, as you might need to contact folks in batches. 
• Draft some emails. We’ve discovered e-mail to be the simplest method to get folks to again your venture. Write personalised notes every time attainable; make your message pleasant, trustworthy, and body it extra like an invite than an ask. Make it engaging—an opportunity to come back aboard an thrilling venture. If it feels uncomfortable to ask folks to contribute instantly, ask them to refer you to individuals who may very well be inquisitive about backing, or to share it with their networks. 

 You will discover extra promotion ideas in our Creator Handbook.

In case you’re inquisitive about securing press protection to your venture, you’ll have to do some homework. Analysis which writers and publications is likely to be most obsessed with your venture, and personalize your message to them.

Preserve your communications brief and candy, and don’t dedicate an excessive amount of time to pitching movie press. The vast majority of movie publications now view filmmakers utilizing Kickstarter as a reliable, however not essentially newsworthy, funding supply. Except you consider you have got a novel angle that movie press are prone to need to decide up, it will be higher to commit that point and a spotlight to pitching smaller retailers, native newspapers, and centered blogs, which normally have fairly devoted followers.

For extra ideas, take a look at this information to getting press protection to your artistic work by our Director of Communications.

Now that you simply’ve constructed your marketing campaign, it is time to launch! Learn our information to managing your marketing campaign.

Keep within the learn about all issues Movie on Kickstarter by subscribing to our e-newsletter.