The campaign write-up step involves creating the campaign’s landing page. With all the pre-work you have done to this point, designing and writing up the campaign should take you no more than 1 week in most cases. When it comes to the actual elements of your page design, the best campaigns have the following eight elements as part of their campaign write-up:
Title – The best title is “project name: tagline.” For example, “Pogo: Your Personal Robot.”
Video – The title should be followed by a short video. According to Kickstarter, campaigns with a video are 15% more likely to get funded than campaigns without a video. If you use a video, you should be featured in it someplace since the campaign is selling you. Because of its importance in converting visitors into donors, you may want to consider hiring a professional to help you do your video. The followinfg are a few campaign video examples to get your juices flowing:
Pitch – The video is followed by a pitch message that is about 2 paragraphs in length. The pitch should not take any more than 30 seconds to read. Most visitors will only get to this point so be sure to make your pitch relateable. Put yourself in the cause’s shoes. The copy you write must create a sense of urgency to encourage the backer to pledge now. The pitch should create a “wow tell me more” moment in the reader so they continue reading. Finally, the pitch should include a request for a pledge as well as a request to become part of your social sharing team.
Image – Follow the pitch with an image. Like with the video, you may want to hire a professional photographer that is skilled in capturing emotions. Short of coming up with an original photo, you can use stock photo sites. I like sites such as Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay that contain free photos that you might be able to use for your campaign. If you use stock photos make you When it comes to using stock images and vidoes for your campaign write-up make sure you can the images without violating copyright laws. I also like to use Google Advanced Image Search tool. To avoid copyright issues, use “usage rights” to filter images you can use and make sure you understand the various creative commons rules.
Full Description – Follow the image with the full description. Too many campaigns include lots of text which is boring. When it comes to appealing to the senses of backers, use images, videos, and even audio in your descriptions to keep your visitors engaged. Audio is a great way to capture testimonials and make your appeal for their support. Once created, the pictures, video, and audio can be used and reused throughout your campaign in emails, blog, and social media. In the description, make your visitors understand that backing your campaign is about being part of something bigger than themselves. If you are doing an equity financing campaign, a strong draw to get them to be investors is to stress the fact that they can be part of the business before it is publicly available. In the description, include links to websites or blogs. Include social share buttons so they can promote your campaign to their circles.
Budget – Include an itemized budget at a high level to prove you have thought things through.
Time – Include a timeline for the campaign. Be sure to include all your pre-launch activities and schedule for rewards. When it comes to your timeline and schedules, it is best to add additional time here. It is always better to under-promise and over-deliver than to over-promise and under-deliver.
Team – Include a thumbnail image and brief bio of all key team members.
When you have created your first draft of the campaign, wait a day or two and revise the copy. Then, when the day arrives, submit your campaign page to the platform for review.
Another lesson Drew Johnson shared with me about his TechWares campaign on KickStarter.com was the importance of launch at a specific date and time, He said, “Be sure to know how the campaign start time is established”. Drew made the assumption that he would submit his campaign, get approval, and then be given the opportunity to pick a precise launch date and time. What happened was he submitted his campaign for approval 2-days prior to his ideal launch day and time because he had assumed that it could take as much as 48 hours to get a campaign approved according to the platform’s submissions directions. To his horror, the campaign went live nearly two days earlier than he planned, throwing his entire launch schedule into chaos.
Have you included at least the eight key elements in your campaign write-up?
