It’s never been easier to make videos for free (or cheap) online and reach your target audience in the most direct and convenient way!
Creating and distributing videos thanks to the accessibility of social media has never been easier! Yes, some videoing and editing software can be costly, however, they can be incredibly effective at engaging your audience — you only need to look at Pozible’s successful campaigns! Crowdfunding campaigns with a video always outperform the campaigns without.
Learn how to get started with your own crowdfunding campaign via the Pozible Resource Centre now!
🎬 They can summarise complex ideas into a cohesive narrative in a short period of time.
🎬 Smartphones have made videos accessible on demand. This means you now have the ability to film all your content solely on your phone and upload it straight to your campaign. Too easy!
🎬 Social media platforms have quick links and tools, such as reels and live stories to make your videography experience that much easier. Especially for cross-communicating your chosen socials.
Facebook and YouTube are great for those informative and thorough videos. Where you can go the distance with your content and have that extra minute or two up your sleeve. Whereas, platforms such as Instagram are better suited to those witty, yet aesthetic videos in a minute or less.
TikTok is another almighty contender, and has been trending since those lockdown days and onwards. Combining a social platform devoted solely to- easy to use videos with trendy and educational content, TikTok is the perfect way to spread the word about your campaign in 60 seconds or less!
What kind of videos can I make?
Generally, your video needs to be one of two things — informative or funny. If you can do both, you’ve mastered the art of digital marketing!
Informative: This is where you explain the nitty-gritty of your campaign. Ideally, you want to explain it in a way that is easy to learn, yet still comprehensive. We aim for around the 2–5 minute range. Usually, informative videos can include a montage of photos, or an interview-style that states the who, what, when, where and how of your campaign.
Funny: Think of ‘funny’ as an extension of informative. You’ve already listed everything about your campaign, but how can you make it unique and different? By creating content that is trending and witty you can set yourself apart from the competition, whilst also engaging with your target audience’s interests. This can be achieved in the selection of photos or memes, or even through the editing pace and soundtrack.
Finders Distillery
Informative: Created on Youtube editor, the Finders Distillery campaign was successful due to their concise, yet visually stunning pitch video prior to the campaign’s official launch. The crew of Finders cleverly decided to create an interview-style video, that makes the viewer feel like they are directly asking the questions themselves. This overall built a sense of trust with their supporters, and as a result, raised a massive $22,506!
Bamboo Monkey
Informative: Here’s an example of a video we created for eco-friendly fashion brand Bamboo Monkey’s crowdfunding campaign using VideoScribe. There was a lot of backstory we needed to include to explain how this project came to be, and this format was key in getting people unfamiliar with the fashion process on board.
Funny: Technically this is both informative and funny, as it explains the business and how it works, and keeps you engaged with humour the whole way through. For any other video designed for Facebook, I would say it is way too long, but this video gets away with it because there is not a dull second included. For any videos you’re working on, however, shorter is usually better, and on Facebook at least, you have about three seconds to grab a user’s attention, so load your most enticing content at the start.
Do Penguins Scare Polar Bears?
Informative: Created on Vimeo, Do Penguins Scare Polar Bears? campaign was successful due to the aesthetic mirroring of her own educational photobook. This scrapbook/ slideshow style of editing makes the video simplistic and easy to understand, yet still engaging for her supporters. With the help of this video, Elaine managed to exceed her campaign goals, raising an impressive $11,150.
Brisket & Pickle BBQ — Mobile BBQ
Informative and Funny: Brisket & Pickle BBQ — Mobile BBQ is a great example of incorporating interesting and engaging video content across your social platforms. Tom focused on the informative aspects of Brisket & Pickle BBQ — Mobile BBQ predominately on the campaign’s landing page. However, Tom’s quick wit of employing the song ‘Hungary like a wolf’ by Duran Duran, via his Instagram stories and saved reels created a sense of humorous relevance to attract new and existing supporters.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CVmgbzOBMy1/
What you might notice about these videos is they follow the same structure:
1) Identify the problem
2) How the brand/project fixes this problem
While videos can be anything from behind the scenes access, to interviews, to entertainment, as an introductory video, this structure always works well.
The more personalised your campaign video is toward your supporters, the easier it is to target your content with paid marketing activities. Although it is important to share content with your pre-existing community, you should also aim to have some advertising budget to maximise your supporter outreach—it doesn’t have to be much, and in fact, can be anything from $1 per day (on Facebook).
Tiktok, Facebook and Instagram are the places where you can get extremely targeted content. Since we voluntarily share, comment and like so much information within these platforms. Hashtags and tags are also incredibly valuable. Aiming to drop hashtags within the first comments can also provide to be useful. As does posting a live reel or story and then saving it to your archives- informs your loyal community any updates of each of the stages of your campaign, but also attracts new interested supporters.
- YouTube Video Editor: Free, pretty simple to use and you can add annotations and transcripts to your videos making them more SEO friendly.
- Canva: Free access to basic templates and video editing tools to get you started- as well as more comprehensive video editing resources for just $13.74 per month.
- Common Craft: Common Craft uses paper cutouts moving around or whiteboards to tell your story. There is an annual fee to access their cutouts, starting at $49 per year.
- Sellamations: Doodle videos where a hand draws out your story with a marker in high-speed capture. Not the cheapest, starting at $297 per minute of footage.
- VideoScribe: Again whiteboard animation, this one starts at $12 a month.
- Animoto: Surprisingly professional and easy to use as long as you don’t want to do much more than a montage (works with photo, text and video). A free version lets you dip your toe in the water but you may want to upgrade to professional if you want to make more than one video longer than 30 seconds.