I recently created this video for my sometimes colleague and partner in crime Lorna Sixsmith for her crowdfunding project ‘How To Marry An Irish Farmer’.
By making a good quality video she hopes to improve her chances of getting the funding she needs to publish the book. I had some very strong ideas of what I thought she should create and some of them have worked quite well. We’ll have to wait and see if she gets the money but in the mean time here’s my thoughts on what creates a compelling crowdfunding video.
1. Be entertaining
If someone decides to click the play button on your video you owe them entertainment. Don’t just create a crowdfunding or any video just for the sake of it. Make sure you have a purpose and are shooting something that will keep your audience engaged enough to watch it through to the end. Plan the video ahead of time and write yourself a short script and shooting schedule. This way you can ensure you will get all the shots you want on the day of the shoot.
2. Keep it short
The first thing that someone looks at before they click the play button is how long a video is. The Irish Farmerette one is a little longer than I would want, we were aiming for three minutes as they are not too long but give you enough time to tell your story. If you can make them shorter all the better People have to entirely sacrifice a slice of their time and attention span to watch a video and the shorter it is the better the chance you have of getting them to hit play.
3. Keep the shots moving
Try not to leave one shot on screen for too long. In order to keep an audience’s attention you need to cut every five to ten seconds so shoot lots of inserts that you can edit in. It’s always better to have too much material than too little.
4. Use graphics to illustrate key points
Another way to keep the action moving and to hold the attention of your audience is to add graphics into the mix, it also helps you hammer home key points. If someone is reading as well as hearing what you are saying it is more likely to make an impact. So take some key points from your video and illustrate them with text or graphs.
5. Tell people what’s in it for them
Remember you should have a goal from your video. In this case it was to get people to invest in the book. Make sure you are telling people what is in it for them as well as what you do. I got Lorna to include some anecdotes from her book so that her audience would understand the tone of the book, we also illustrated some of the rewards for investing.
I tried to incorporate all these points into our video. You can view it above and see if you agree. If you want to help fund Lorna’s book you can make your pledge on the Fund It website, here’s the link.
At Spiderworking.com we can help you create your own crowdfunding video. Or we can produce one for you. If you want to know more get in touch.
