Article
How TCF Raised Over $1M on Indiegogo for a Sci-Fi Air-to-Water Generator
Guest article written by Indiegogo Expert: The Crowdfunding Formula
You’ve created the next big thing in your industry — a product so innovative and revolutionary that it has the potential to change the future as we know it. But how do you get your product off the ground and in front of people around the world? For New York-based company Kara Water, the answer was simple: crowdfunding.
The company teamed with TCF (aka. The Crowdfunding Formula) to launch their first air-to-water generator, Kara Pure, on Indiegogo. In the end, they raised over $1.1 million with the help of more than 1,170 backers!
Featuring innovative air-to-water technology, Kara Pure transforms regular everyday air in your home into 9.2+ pH antioxidant-alkaline water. And at 2.5 gallons (~10 liters) of water per day, it can solve an entire home’s drinking water needs.
Finding the Goldilocks Price
To measure the market’s interest in Kara Pure and identify their pricing strategy, the Kara Water team validated their product-market fit on Prelaunch.com. The platform uses real customers’ purchase intent, buying behaviors, and dozens of other metrics to credibly predict the future revenue of products before creators spend any time or resources on their development.
Using Email to Bake Cold Leads (and Make ‘em Hot)
Many campaigns opt for an 8-email launch sequence that guides the lead from “interested” to “can’t wait to buy.” But with Kara Pure’s short 3-week lead generation, TCF was forced to condense its messaging and turn the emotion-gear up to 11 in order to reach their customers.
And while high-ticket products launching on crowdfunding struggle to convert even a single lead, the team at Kara Water was surprised when TCF managed to convert not 1, not 2, but 27 leads in the first few hours after the launch, raising $30,000 and blasting past the initial funding goal. By the end of the campaign, the marketing team from TCF had sent subscribers over 130 emails. And even though the price of Kara Pure by the end was over $1,700, the high-conversion email sequences converted 60 leads and raised $99,385.
That’s not a typo! $100,000 is a commendable total raise for a campaign — achieved by less than 2% of campaigns out there — and Kara Pure managed to raise that via email marketing alone. And how much did this cost Kara Water? Less than $200 on email marketing!
Indiegogo Supports its Creators with Some Extra Promotions
Backer communities provide essential support, and newsletters help to spread the word about new creations and bring extra conversions to your project. And none are better than the crowdfunding giant itself — Indiegogo!
The platform’s newsletter goes out to millions of subscribers each week and helps crowdfunding projects get in front of a larger audience. Indiegogo’s newsletter brought in a further 158 sales. And by leveraging the power of newsletter marketing on Indiegogo, Kara Pure was able to bring in an extra $188,689.
There’s a Holiday for that… and a Secret Perk too!
As the Kara Pure campaign ran during the holiday season, the team had to get extra creative with their perks and make sure that they stood out from all the other deals. On each holiday — from Christmas and New Year, Valentine’s Day and even small semi-unknown days like World Water Day (March 22, if you didn’t know!) — page visitors were greeted with a burning deal limited to that very day.
The time-limited perks created a much-needed sense of urgency and helped increase the conversion rate significantly. And as an added bonus, it was also a great way to keep the Kara Pure campaign top of mind and ensure that people didn’t forget about the campaign during all the holiday craziness!
Managing all these rewards manually can be daunting for campaigners. Luckily, there are platforms like Perkfection that make reward management a breeze!
How Do You Get the World to Speak About You?
In today’s world, it’s all about getting noticed. Whether it’s through social media, influencer marketing, or public relations, the name of the game is visibility and awareness. Brand awareness is important for any business, but it’s especially critical for crowdfunding campaigns.
And it’s not just about the traffic it brings to the campaign… seeing that top-tier media outlet write an article about it, or everyone’s top influencer film a reel about it, is a stamp of approval that gives wacky crowdfunding inventions much-needed authoritative credibility.
The TCF experts took a more complex approach to PR with Kara Pure than most crowdfunding campaigns. Rather than sending out a standard pitch and press release, they tailored each pitch to the publication — highlighting Kara Pure’s unique story angles, such as innovation, health-boosting, futuristic design, and sustainability, to name a few.
Another extremely impactful newsletter in the Kara Pure campaign was Tech I Want. With nearly 100,000 highly-engaged super-backers, this newsletter brought the Kara Pure campaign an influx of interested visitors and funds.
The combined efforts of the whole team resulted in over 200 instances of earned media coverage in some of the most prestigious media outlets in the industry, including Wired, Trend Hunter, Geeky-Gadgets, KnowTechie, El Español, T3, Uncrate, Yanko Design, and My Modern Met.
Effective B2C Sales for High-Ticket Products
When you’re selling a high-ticket item, the customer’s experience should be the top priority. After all, they are going to invest a lot of money in your product, and you want to make sure they trust you. That meant providing answers at all stages.
TCF’s marketing team created a customer support group that was available 24/7 to answer any questions people had. After a couple of days, they’d identified the top questions and had a list of answers ready to send the moment any question was asked.
It also helps to be involved as the campaign creator. And in Kara Pure’s case, Cody was always available to answer questions and help his audience understand the product better. In fact, whenever the creator is available and able to provide support to customers, it goes a long way in building trust and credibility.
The Sum is Greater than its Parts
Just as with Kara Pure itself — a complex product that combines lots of innovative tech — all these pieces moved in unison to turn the Kara Pure campaign into an ultimate crowdfunding success.
The Kara Pure campaign ended up raising $725,468 on Indiegogo with the help of 613 backers in under 2 months. It continued on the platform’s InDemand mode, raising over $1,160,000 with the help of over 1,175 backers. And this isn’t even counting the installments that backers paid outside of the Indiegogo platform!
While the campaign’s creator has his strengths and developed an amazing product, no one can be expected to do everything by themselves. That’s especially true when it comes to successful crowdfunding marketing. And even though it’s hard to reach out to others for help with your “baby,” it’s this expertise that can be the difference between a million-dollar campaign and a big fat $0.
Whether you’re selling a low-ticket item or an expensive product with a niche audience, working with a professional team of marketers like TCF can play a huge part in a campaign’s success.
Learn more about The Crowdfunding Formula on the Indiegogo Experts Directory here.
