IndieGoGo 101

Hey Folks,

Here's "IndieGoGo 101" - the basic "How-Tos" of all things IndieGoGo.

• Production is the New Promotion: It's never to early to start building a fan, audience or customer base... even if the project is still an idea.  The more your share your vision the more people will sense your passion and want to be part of the action.

• Fundraising is the New Marketing: By engaging fans and enlisting their support, you're also building loyalty and a viral marketing army.  When someone has "bought-in" to an experience (even if it's just a few dollars); they will talk about about, defend, and evangelize  it to all their friends.  The buzz building that happens might even be more valuable than the actual dollars that they contributed. 
  
  
• People Like to Be Influencers: People love to brag about cool stuff they discovered first.  Let them brag about being a funder of your project to all their friends and colleagues at the water cooler.  That's great viral (and FREE) marketing like I mentioned above.  (Also read: Turning Your Viewers into Promoters) So give them a cool perk to brag about... which leads me to:
  
  
• Be creative with your VIP Perks: Every person has different assets to offer.  It can be a credit (film), a Free download or album (music), a signed copy of your book (writing), an invite to a launch party (venture), a person recipe (food), a private lesson (art), etc.  Don't limit your imagination, and ask your fans what they would want in return for a contribution if you're stumped.  Read Want Ideas for VIP Perks? Listen to Nine Inch Nail's Former Drummer.  Also, whether it's discount they get "if they buy now" or a signed limited edition version that won't be available later, give funders an incentive to contribute and "lock-in" a the perk now versus later. 
  
  
• Be Specific & Transparent with your Use of Funds.  The more specific the use of your raised funds the better as funders are more likely to take action when they know exactly where the money is going.  For example, you could raise $500 toward the general budget of your project or you could raise $500 to pay for the music rights of a song in your project.  Who will sound cooler at a cocktail party.  The gal who says "I purchased the music rights for XYZ film so they could premiere at ABC festival" or the guy who says "I gave some money to a film." Read: The Value of Specificity and Transparency in Fundraising for Art.

• Audience-Building is a Marathon... Not a Sprint.  Building your fan, funder and customer base happens one person at a time, one email at a time, one event at a time.  Always Always Always get an email address no matter if its the grocery store clerk who asks you what you do for a living, your former high school classmates you ran into at your reunion, or the conference attendee who asked you why you were at the conference.  Also read: Can I Get Your Email Please?
  
  
• Identify your Customers EARLY: Before you even begin development, identify which niche groups are your "low-hanging fruit" AND reachable fans, and right-size your project's budget accordingly.  It's OK to have a small audience.  It's not a bad thing if you make $100,000 selling your film direct to fans if your budget was $10,000.  It is a bad thing if your film's budget was $300,000.  It's also OK to have lots of niche audiences. If your book is about a group of teenagers climbing Mt Everest, your "low-hanging fruit" customers could be high school counselors (always looking for inspiring material to give to their students), mountain climbers and mountain climbing camps, REI shoppers, members of wilderness associations, outdoor-themed blog readers, etc.  So how do you reach those customers?  See the next few bullets... (Also read: Finding Audiences )
  
  
• Go to Influencers: Organizations and bloggers with members and readers who are already interested in the types of topics, themes, characters, stories, causes, issues, etc. your project addresses are great partners.  If your project is relevant to their goals and missions, you could help them bring interesting content to their followers.  Identify, reach out and ask them what they think of your project and what their needs are in bringing new content to their followers.  If they like what you're doing, perhaps they offer to promote your project.  If not, offer an acknowledgment in exchange for them endorsing your project to their members and followers.  Once again, there's no one right way.  The key is to recognize who are the influencers that your future fans and customers listen to/read, learn what their needs are and figure out a way to work with them.  Also read: How to Market to Bloggers 
  
  
• Go to Where Your Customers Are: go to the online and offline locations that your fans and customers frequent... whether it's a niche topic forum online, a blog, a convention, or event.  Location doesn't have to be a physical or geographic place. Meet the YouTube Filmmakers
  
  
• Raise Money in Rounds: Don't get caught up in trying to raise 100% of your project's budget all at once.  Build a track record of success in both fundraising and execution by breaking your funding goals into mini-goals aligned with milestones and tracking your progress along the way.  Execution builds fan loyalty and will help with future funding rounds.
  
  
• Hybrid Financing is the Future: Don't limit yourself just to crowdfunding, or just to debt, or just to angel investment or just to any type of money.  Piece your funds together through a variety of approaches as each has its own benefits. Also read: Execution Speaks Louder than Words 
  
  
• Embrace technology: use widgets, twitter, and all the other social media tools out there.  Don't be afraid to experiment and learn.  And don't wait to master everything to get started.  Trust that you'll figure it out as you go, and look to us to bring you many of those tools.  If you want something, just let us know.  We're building new functionality every day, and we decide what to build based on what our IndieGoGo members request.
  
  
• Keep your fans and funders entertained and engaged throughout the production: Check out 4EyedMonsters and their video blogs for a great example of filmmakers who kept their content on their fan hub fresh.  People may not be willing to pay for as much anymore, but the opportunity to be a patron or fund an important or cool project is an opportunity that is no longer possible only for the super-wealthy.  Now someone with $5 can put their money to work.  Let them!  Also read: The Importance of a Pitch Clip.

 
Lastly, no matter how creative and industrious you are with an fan-building campaign, you still need to make sure of 2 things:

• Your content is great and totally "you"
• Your Calls to Action are clear in every opportunity you have interacting with a potential fan (whether it be press, a YouTube video, at an event or with the person sitting next to you on the bus).... Sample Calls To Action include:
  1. Forward this email to 5 friends
  2. Pre-buy my work for $25, 
  3. Recommend a blogger who would like the film

Cheers,

GoGoDanae

Comments

[George Hernandez]

I am dictating a chat on cinema, and I direct a film project in Colombia, I would like to be in contact with producers to see if it can be organized a production in my country, I belong to the advice of departmental of cinema.
If there is somebody interested I would like him to contact me.
Sincerely,
George Hernandez