C R O W D S A L A D

M A X I M I S E S U C C E S S O N C R O W D F U N D I N G : C A S E S T U D Y / E X P E R I E N C E S H A R I N G

C R O W D S A L A D

O V E R V I E W

APTOPurveyor of clever & modular concepts for elegant accessories

www.my-apto.com

THE INSTANT WALLET “3 in 1”, modular wallet

C R O W D S A L A D

SCHEDULE11. November 2014 - 11. December 2014 (30 days)

GOAL15 000€

RESULT 29 563€ (197%)

LINKBefore reading our experience sharing, we advise you to have a look at our campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2143715323/the-instant-wallet-the-unique-3-in-1-modular-walle

PLATFORM

O V E R V I E W

C R O W D S A L A D

3 S T E P S P R O C E S S

BEFORE

ScheduleGoal

RewardsVideo

Text / ImagesDelivery

Communication

DURING

FAQInteractionLanguageUpdates

Stretch GoalsCommunication

AFTER

DeliveryInteraction

Customer relationUpdates

C R O W D S A L A D

B E F O R E

SCHEDULE

VIDEO

TEXT/IMAGES

DELIVERY

COMMUNICATION

GOAL

REWARDS

• Maximise target reach trough seasonality:

Wallets remain typical gift-related objectsThat is why we decided to plan our campaign according to Christmas shopping time.We accelerated the prototyping phases to do so.

• 20, 30, 40 days?

According to KickStarter, 30 days is an optimum length.We chose 30 days in order to have a 2 weeks time period for delivery (earlybird rewards being delivered before Christmas).

C R O W D S A L A D

SCHEDULE

VIDEO

TEXT/IMAGES

DELIVERY

COMMUNICATION

GOAL

REWARDS

• Finding the balance

According to the chosen platform, a crowdfunding campaign can be a “all or nothing” story (e.g. our case on KickStarter), i.e. the money collected can only be earned if the goal is reached.

This is why the submitted goal needs to remain realistic, in order to maximise the chances to reach it.On the other hand, a very low goal is not encouraging backers to help the project, as the goal will certainly be quickly reached.

In the Instant Wallet case, our calculated goal was about 20,000€, but we submitted 15,000€ in order to reduce risks.

Some platform allow to keep the collected money even if the submit-ted goal isn’t reach (e.g. Indiegogo). Be careful of higher commis-sions and minimum orders that you will need to fulfi l (e.g. keeping money for 30 rewards ordered could be dangerous if your MOQ is of 200, as margin for 30 items will certainly not cover the production costs for the remaining 170).

B E F O R E

C R O W D S A L A D

B E F O R E

SCHEDULE

VIDEO

TEXT/IMAGES

DELIVERY

COMMUNICATION

GOAL

REWARDS

• Quality > Quantity

Rewards need to be clear, distinctive from one another and fi tting different budgets. Too many rewards can mix up the minds of your potential backers, as could rewards that are very similar.Only high-priced rewards could cut you off many backers liking your project, but willing to pledge only if rewarded for it.Only low-priced rewards will make the goal-reaching process longer, hence harder.

Apto set up 10 different rewards, from 25€ to 250€.

• Be Creative

Backers need added value, reinforcing their feeling of being a special part of your project.3 of our rewards were proposing different added values : 1) earlybird reward with super fast delivery (before Christmas)2) customized reward with initial engraved on the item3) cross-selling rewards including an Apto bag + wallet

C R O W D S A L A D

B E F O R E

SCHEDULE

VIDEO

TEXT/IMAGES

DELIVERY

COMMUNICATION

GOAL

REWARDS

• Why doing a video?

Video are the fastest and most playful way to explain your story and product/service.

A video allows to implement a lot of content in a shorter time scale.

• Less is more

Kickstarter offers statistics that showed us that more than 40% of viewers did not watch the video until the end, although our video was only 2/+ minutes long.

From this experience, we think that a crowdfunding video must be very straight to the point, putting the product/service in foreground to maximise the target reach.

However, do not forget to choose a strong, personal communica-tion vector (emotional, funny, didactic,...) that conveys the way you want people to think about your product/brand.

C R O W D S A L A D

B E F O R E

SCHEDULE

VIDEO

TEXT/IMAGES

DELIVERY

COMMUNICATION

GOAL

REWARDS

• Tell a story

Texts allow you to develop and tell everything you could not fi t within the video. In our case, we chose to write and show further explanations about the Instant Wallet concept, as well as telling about our style and inspi-rations, and fi nally presenting our team and the story of Apto.

• Pictures = Security

Crowdfunding platforms became somehow popular shopping platform where people look for new ideas. It means that they need to know exactly what they are going to pay for. 3D models or sketching are in our eyes not enough. Real prototypes and photos must be shown.In our case, we posted many pictures of our fi nal prototypes. However, we did not have one of the 3 colors (blue). Only few photoshopped pictures were available, and we received manycomments asking for more.

C R O W D S A L A D

B E F O R E

SCHEDULE

VIDEO

TEXT/IMAGES

DELIVERY

COMMUNICATION

GOAL

REWARDS

• A big detail

Platforms like KickStarter allow you to set up a delivery cost policy according to countries/geographic zones.

As it is time-costing and hard to estimate the costs for every countries, we decided to round up for France (our main market), EU and “Rest of the World”.

As high delivery costs can be a lowering the conversion rate for po-tential backers, we chose to offer a free delivery in France and reduce the price in the rest of the World (as we thought USA would be another strong market because of their affi nity to KickStarter). In order to do so, we integrated the losses in delivery costs within our Goal calculation.

C R O W D S A L A D

B E F O R E

SCHEDULE

VIDEO

TEXT/IMAGES

DELIVERY

COMMUNICATION

GOAL

REWARDS

• Maximise conversion by improving user experience

Crowdfunding remains new for many potential customers/backers (depending on the target segment). We tried to facilitate their task by using didactic information within our communication tools:

- Didactic newsletter to all our community- Landing Pop-up on our Website leading to newsletter inscription, then directly to the campaign- Blog articles with examples, explanations

• The leverage effect

Platforms like Kickstarter allow you to share the campaign link be-fore publishing it. It is a tool that we believe should be used to inform blogs, press and other media of your campaign, brand and product, and get as much leverage as possible for the beginning of your cam-paign. We could unfortunately not use this tool, as we had to publish our campaign directly after its validation.

C R O W D S A L A D

D U R I N G

FAQ

LANGUAGE

STRETCH GOALS

INTERACTION

UPDATES

• Listen to your backers!

We chose not to implement any FAQs at the beginning of our campaign, but instead wait for the backers to come up with their questions and build up the FAQs according to these.Thanks to this, we could come up with short FAQs answering the most pertinent questions.

COMMUNICATION

C R O W D S A L A D

D U R I N G

FAQ

LANGUAGE

STRETCH GOALS

INTERACTION

UPDATES

• How much should I speak with my backers?

From our experience, we’d say “as much as you can”.Fast and clear answers to questions give a better perception of your brand for backers, and secure them in their choice.Talking to those who cancelled their pledge to know the reasons might give you some useful insights, or even turn their opinion back to their original pledge.

• One “Thank You” = Happy Backer

We simply chose to write a personal “thank you” to every new backer. We do think that it is a simple way of giving a more “human” bond on a virtual platform.Also, we thought this bond could maybe convince some people not to cancel their pledge if they wanted to, as we “sealed” this pledge with a personal word.

COMMUNICATION

C R O W D S A L A D

D U R I N G

FAQ

LANGUAGE

STRETCH GOALS

INTERACTION

UPDATES

• International, but...

Our main geographical target market remains France.Thus, language might become a barrier lowering the conversion rate.

This is why we chose to upload links to fi les where we translated all texts form our campaign, and a navigation guide where the several steps of the pledging process were translated as well.

Finally, our video was made in English, with french subtitles.

COMMUNICATION

C R O W D S A L A D

D U R I N G

FAQ

LANGUAGE

STRETCH GOALS

INTERACTION

UPDATES

• Create Involvement

An effi cient word-of-mouth is still the best way to make your cam-paign successful. But in order to create it, you need to make your backers understand that they are the key element of your success. If they want their reward, they need the campaign to be successful, thus fi nding and encouraging new backers. That is why we sent several updates on a regular basis, as a remind-er for our existing backers to continue sharing the word.

• Keep your campaign interesting

We added up some informal rewards within our updates, in order to keep a certain level of motivation and curiosity.

For instance, we launched an update shortly before the 100th backer to announce that the 100th backer would get his/her wallet engraved with initials for free.

COMMUNICATION

C R O W D S A L A D

D U R I N G

FAQ

LANGUAGE

STRETCH GOALS

INTERACTION

UPDATES

• Keep your campaign interesting, part 2

Once your goal is reached, you might have the time to set up a stretch goal.

A stretch goal can be adding a new reward, offering more colors, lowering the price of a reward,...These goals are meant to maintain the pace of the campaign even after the goal is reached, where need for sharing, communication and pledging is not as strong.

We set up a 35,000€ stretch goal by sending a quick survey about new colors. The most successful colour would be then implement-ed once the goal reached.

Unfortunately, we implemented this goal too late (waited a week after the initial goal was reached, with only 1,5 week left), and it did not work out as we wished.

COMMUNICATION

C R O W D S A L A D

D U R I N G

FAQ

LANGUAGE

STRETCH GOALS

INTERACTION

UPDATES

COMMUNICATION

• Keep posting, show references

Communication should not only be done in the precampaign process, but kept on a regular basis throughout the time of the campaign.

In our case, we received a fi rst production batch 2 weeks after the campaign started, which allowed us to send samples to several blogs in order to make product testing. Our best experience was with the #1 men fashion blog in France, which brought us 25 direct sales within the 2 days after publishing their test.

On top of that, we implemented a section within the campaign repre-sented as a picture with every logos of blogs, press that talked about us.

Some references might have a positive infl uence on the backer’s decision to pledge (enhancing feelings of security), thusimproving conversion rate.

C R O W D S A L A D

A F T E R

DELIVERY

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

INTERACTION

UPDATES

• Survey, updates

One of the few differences between the pledging process on KickStarter and a normal payment process on e-commerce sites is that you don’t give your delivery address.Many people do not remember this fact after a month campaign, and might not answer the surveys neither read every update.

This means that it is important to regularly send reminders for answering surveys. We chose to send both updates and privatemessages on KickStarter, in order to accelerate the process.

C R O W D S A L A D

A F T E R

DELIVERY

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

INTERACTION

UPDATES

• I have the money, but Backers remain clients

Even after receiving the money from the campaign, think that many of your backers (or even all) still don’t have their rewards in the hands.

Also, they remain a strong communication vector for your brand in the future, as they commited to be one of your fi rst clients for a certain product/service.

Knowing that, we believe that keeping backers up-to-date with the pro-ject is very important, in order to keep a trustful relation and transform a one-time backer into a potential loyal customer.

Don’t forget neither to save your backers email addresses, which are automatically saved once they have pledged. It could turn out to be a good tool to enhance your communication.

C R O W D S A L A D

A F T E R

DELIVERY

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

INTERACTION

UPDATES

• Payment issues

One of the main post-campaign issues we faced was the fact that some backers could not pay for their reward, due to bank unau-thorization of transactions.

For those who could not solve this problem, we implemented a payment solution on our website in order to give an alternative to KickStarter and avoid loosing any pledge.

C R O W D S A L A D

A F T E R

DELIVERY

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

INTERACTION

UPDATES

• The Life after Crowdfunding: Optimize Conversion

A big mistake we made was to think that a campaign can beupdated even when it was fi nished.

Indeed, we wanted to implement a “Thank you” picture with a direct link to our website, where pre-orders where still available.Unfortunately we were not able to do so, and we assume that we lost a lot of potential conversions because of this mistake, as a KickStarter user needs to research for our website instead of only clicking on a link.

C R O W D S A L A D

G O O D L U C K !

www.my-apto.com