What am I doing wrong here?

[Nate North]

As some of you know, I've recently started a Kickstarter campaign to offer Red Epic stock footage for only $1 a clip. But for some reason, we are getting extremely poor traction.

We've made a solid video, followed tons of people on twitter, set up a facebook page and pushed it, written letters to bloggers and sites that would have interest, offered free product for just a retweet or mention, given a 2/1 cupon, announced it on the boards twice, sent it out to all our collective mailing lists, talked to people in person, made phone calls, gotten the word out to several podcasts, and more.

We're edging towards $250. We spent over a grand on the video alone. So we're offering the best deal ever seen, for a product that benefits millions of people, and we're doing terrible.

What exactly Am I doing so wrong? I'm looking at kickstarter pages for hippies that want to build a box kite, and they've got 6 grand in pledges in the same time. Who does that help?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/156967912/the-1-ultra-hd-footage-library

What is so terribly wrong with this? This thing is a huge effort, and a community service, but I get the impression that I'd be getting further with a 6 song EP singing about cats through autotune. Why?

 

[Blade_Jones]

The only photos that you can make decent money off of are current shots of celebs. Be a paparazzi.

 

[DeJager]

It's likely that some do. Most of those involved will pledge their own money to the goal as any other filmmaker would put money away for their projects.

But if they believe that by purely creating alternate accounts and pledging to make it "appear" as though people are interested is going to cause any such interest. It won't.

Kickstarter isn't fickle. There's over 35k members. It's copius amount of work before and during that makes for a successful campaign.

"Fail to prepare, prepare to fail"

You have to be careful about pledging money to your own account. Amazon WILL catch it when they are processing orders and they WILL immediately stop any transactions from occurring. You won't see any of the money.

Nate - If I can remember correctly... your stock footage library won't be ready for quite some time, correct? It's well known that people are more likely to do something if they are rewarded immediately. Being rewarded is one thing but the immediacy of the reward is a very strong factor that plays into behavior. If the reward is given too far after the act/behavior then people are less likely to repeat that behavior, which is why people are more likely to pledge on projects that are close to being finished and/or only take a short while to complete.

I disagree with the statement that having pledges wont create more interest. People WANT to think they are helping in some way, however they want to know that they will get rewarded in the end and that the project will actually happen. If the project already has traction and looks like it will reach its goal then people are more likely to pledge. I know I've only pledged when I know that a goal will be reached for certain projects. Obviously the project has to be interesting but it definitely helps when a project seems to have "other people backing it" because it makes it seem like it's not such a long shot.

Simply put... psychological factors play heavily into pledging... just like they do with donations/charity.

Or it could be that this economy is sooooooo shitty right now.

 

[Papertwinproductions]

You have to be careful about pledging money to your own account. Amazon WILL catch it when they are processing orders and they WILL immediately stop any transactions from occurring. You won't see any of the money.

Not necessarily true. "Producers" or members who are involved (and stated so in the "crew") on both Kickstarter and Indiegogo can pledge to their own campaigns. I'm not quite sure about WeFund, or Sponduly.

Check the first pledges on the"Funders" list, and you'll often see the face of the Producers involved in that project. It is only the CREATOR of the campaign that cannot pledge.

Or, alternatively, alot of close friends take on"unofficial" Producers roles, and place their pledges that come from the crew.

Is it correct to do so?

Well, Crowdfunding is supposed to be the point that you can go no further financially. That's how it started. That's how it remains.

But often, the pledges from the crew members comes from things like Fundraisers and events (receiving cash donations) which is then transferred and pledged. This is a regular occurence.

 

[ussinners]

Not to long ago I had a campaign for Leading Lady. I'm not a promoter so I linked it at a few sites. That was it.

If you just go to kickstarter and browse the selections, it's hard to find anything. I couldn't find my own campaign when I went looking.

You need to consistently pound the net (daily if not hourly) with requests for pledges. Get it to as many friends, family whoever that can help distribute the news.

But, if you don't keep the word out, it gets lost quickly. Then no one will find it to pledge, even if they'd be interested.

 

[trueindie]

Nate, I think you got some good advice here from people like Kholi, who've already been successful at raising funds on Kickstarter. I can't add to that knowledge. But I still feel this urge to contribute, in the event that it may even slightly help you

- I saw your video when you posted it and I really liked it. I thought in my head "Good luck to this guy. I hope he raises his fund."

- I don't remember visiting kickstarter after seeing the video. I completely forgot about it until this thread.

- Maybe it's because I am a wannabe filmmaker, and don't really have much need for stock footage, as I usually shoot low budget stuff that I can get myself

- BUT,.... BUT,... I HAVE used stock footage before. I worked on a commercial for an accounting firm here in Toronto, where I paid Artbeats $560 some odd dollars for a 20 second clip. About a year ago I was seriously pursuing a freelance ad maker career. But I gave it up as the pay was never really that good and they always had someone who would do things cheaper.

But I thought, "hey maybe if I do make commercials again, I'll use Nate's company instead of Artbeats." But that was the end of my thought process. Whatever you did, and it all looked extremely nice, it didn't make me want to pay.

So now I'm thinking, why not? And, what could Nate have done to make me, someone who has paid for stock footage before, donate at least 25 to 50 bucks?

1. I looked at your video again. I think you can draw out $25 or $50 out of someone like me. If your campaign said, "you get 50 clips for 50 bucks, no time limit" If I can exercise my 50 clip credit anytime, depending on when I needed it, even if it is five years down the line, I probably would be thinking more about your kickstarter campaign.

2. Screw the t-shirt man. You're going to spend way too much on this form of advertising. Give me (I mean the pledger) more stuff that won't cost you anything extra but will make me (the pledger) feel good, like 25 bonus clips. The "marginal cost" to you is zero, as the footage is already on file. But it will make me (the pledger) feel like I'm getting even more than I deserve.

3. I can't compete with corporations who regularly use stock footage who can afford to make $3000 donations. So make me feel like you and I are the same. Make me feel like you're trying to help me. Tell me a story about how this is your dream, to help out filmmakers like me. Tell me a story about how you make a living by doing commercials, so you can pursue your filmmaking dreams, and that you want other filmmakers to be able to achieve that same goal. This company you started is your effort to make your library available to the little guy so s/he too can make commercials, s/he too can pay his/her rent and pursue filmmaking at the same time.

This is all I've got at the moment Nate. It's late. I've been working on, funny thing, a commercial , all day, and I want to hit the bed. But everything I've said above is to try to give you anything that might help. I strongly believe you're doing something good and I truly hope you succeed. People like me need people like you to succeed.

Good luck!!
Aveek

ps. I was looking for 5kstock.com and got redirected to Kickstarter. You need to have a website the pledger can go to to find out more about this. I have a small blog, that only gets between 30 to 50 hits a day. But I would be more than happy to put up an ad with a link to your site. I'd be more than happy to write an article describing your project and anything else you want me too.

 

[Synia]

Too much talking, not enough doing, I say all of us who thinks it's a good idea create an account and give him $20. If everyone who posted on this thread gives Nate $20 it should at least double the amount he's got now.

 

[Nate North]

- BUT,.... BUT,... I HAVE used stock footage before. I worked on a commercial for an accounting firm here in Toronto, where I paid Artbeats $560 some odd dollars for a 20 second clip. About a year ago I was seriously pursuing a freelance ad maker career. But I gave it up as the pay was never really that good and they always had someone who would do things cheaper.

But I thought, "hey maybe if I do make commercials again, I'll use Nate's company instead of Artbeats." But that was the end of my thought process. Whatever you did, and it all looked extremely nice, it didn't make me want to pay.

So now I'm thinking, why not? And, what could Nate have done to make me, someone who has paid for stock footage before, donate at least 25 to 50 bucks?

1. I looked at your video again. I think you can draw out $25 or $50 out of someone like me. If your campaign said, "you get 50 clips for 50 bucks, no time limit" If I can exercise my 50 clip credit anytime, depending on when I needed it, even if it is five years down the line, I probably would be thinking more about your kickstarter campaign.

Thanks Trueindie, I really do appreciate all the help I've gotten here. Out of all the places I've gone to ask for help with this, indietalk is the only place I've actually gotten any.

I'm definitely scratching my head now though. My prior theory was that I just wasn't reaching anyone that knew how or why to effectively use stock. You say here that you are my exact target customer. You have been forced to pay nearly 600 bucks for a few clips to create a short commercial, and yet find yourself disinclined to back a service that would have reduced that cost to 5 bucks or less. (not complaining, just puzzled)

I think if someone who fully understands the advantages still isn't interested, I'm sunk. A lot of people here ask how to get into professional production from a small financial start. Stock footage is it. It's how you get $1000 dollar a day jobs to make 30 second commercials. (well, there's more to it than that)

People seem to be responding that they couldn't use stock in independent films, well, that's just not true. But even if it was, this is a tool to help you work and raise money to buy the better equipment that will improve your films. That's what I use it for, to quickly handle small projects that fund my film work.

IE, I had a commercial request come in last week where the client wanted everything to be pirate themed. With Stock footage, I filled the order with just 3 100 dollar clips, ($3, at my prices) and made enough money to profit from it. Even if I had a camera (20 days and counting down), there's no way I could do it for that

This is a way for people without extensive resources to start putting out commercial product, and start making money to get their setup. To address some comments above, that's why I call it a community service, because it lowers the bar for entry into professional work at the lowest cost imaginable. It's a rare thing these days for a company to reduce their own profit margins in order to allow less fortunate filmmakers an opportunity. That's just my perception though.

Thanks to DeJaeger for pointing out that this could be a "rewards not fast enough" thing. Possibly that's true, but nothing I can do to make it faster. Good product takes dev time.

 

[directorik]

I think if someone who fully understands the advantages still isn't interested, I'm sunk.

I don't think you're sunk - I think you have targeted the wrong people.

What this seems to be is a commercial venture - a business. In general
investors put money into a business in order to earn a profit along with
the business owner. It is rare that the potential consumers invest in a
business in order to get a product for less.

People seem to be responding that they couldn't use stock in independent films, well, that's just not true. But even if it was, this is a tool to help you work and raise money to buy the better equipment that will improve your films. That's what I use it for, to quickly handle small projects that fund my film work.

In this case what you are doing wrong is not expressing this in your campaign.
You need to help us independent filmmakers understand how using stock
footage (preferably provided by you) will improve our movies. Commercial
work - I agree. Music videos - I can see that. Promotional videos - maybe.
Narrative - not so much. So your market is primarily for independent filmmakers
who are making commercials, music videos and promos. Not a small market by
any means.

This is a way for people without extensive resources to start putting out commercial product, and start making money to get their setup. To address some comments above, that's why I call it a community service, because it lowers the bar for entry into professional work at the lowest cost imaginable. It's a rare thing these days for a company to reduce their own profit margins in order to allow less fortunate filmmakers an opportunity. That's just my perception though.

This is not on your Kickstarter page. Maybe it should be.

Even this I do not see as a community service - I see this as excellent business.
Better product for less money. When I see batteries for $4.00 a pack and $3.25
a pack I do not think the later company is doing a community service - I see
them doing good business. When I shop on line I look for a place that offers free
(or cheap) shipping - again I do not think they are doing a service to the community
but taking a hit to get my business. Semantics perhaps, but I know that's MY gut
feeling. Maybe others are reading it that way.

I am not your market. I make narrative movies and have never needed stock footage.
But that doesn't mean I do not fully understand the need for good stock footage. I
suspect having potential consumers invest in your business just isn't realistic.

 

[trueindie]

Nate, you're not sunk. And I'm not saying this just to uselessly pat your back. You've got stuff people need. Most filmmakers are poor. The only reason I spent almost 600 was because I was getting paid for it. But right now, I'm not getting paid. So something has to motivate me to want to spend $50 bucks. You just have to figure out a balance on how to attract me.

Until I get jobs on a regular basis, I won't appreciate the savings your footage means for me, so I'm not a customer at this moment.

If I were you, I'd break up the customers into two groups
- people who will buy your products after you are up and running, (and you can charge them whatever suits you at that time)
-and people who you need right now to finance development. You should promise this group a lot. If I can get going based on your footage for 50 bucks and I start getting clients, I won't care about paying you any more. If I get clients, I really WILL use your services and pay you whatever you want. Because then the cost will be paid for. Just because I get 50 clips for 50 bucks now for five years, does not mean that I will not be a customer. Once clients are there, one will quickly run through 50 clips. Also, if I have 50 clips for cheap, I might actually decide to use them in my own productions, with or without clients. I'm pretty sure I'll run out of 50 clips pretty quick if I got into the habit of using stock footage. (The following is a fabrication-I've used a lot of software in college. I learned to use them. And then at some point I paid for a lot of them. Some of these software companies would never have had me as a customer if I hadn't been able to learn to use their software cheaply in the first place)

Also another idea. Make a demo reel with your stock footage and show indie filmmakers how they can spruce up their reels with your footage. Show them why they need the footage.

I hope I'm helping. You've obviously spent a lot of resources on this and we all need cheaper products when we're starting out, so we need you, whether we know it or not. But you may still have to bite the bullet in the beginning. You just have to give stuff away and habituate me (and everybody else) into using your footage as a second nature. It is expensive for you, I understand. But the marginal cost is still zero. In the long run, everybody will be using your footage, and then you will get paid.

At least that's my thought process on it.

 

[JoshL]

I've been thinking about this. The presentation looks absolutely amazing; you did a great job with it. The only thing that I can think of is there isn't enough focus on why the indie producer/kickstarter user would want to use stock (though you do mention that your footage would be great for kickstarter videos). As others have said, those with more experience "get it" already. Even though that might seem like telling people that pens are good for writing on paper, that's the only thing I could think of that might help donations.

Putting it in my terms (and how I looked at it), I'm not a drummer, but I've taken pride in not using drum loops in anything I do. I sequence and program everything by hand, and I've gotten pretty good at it over the years. While it has been good for me, in terms of skill development and makes the music more "mine", it definitely means that I don't have sketches and demos ready as fast as I could. In film, speed is very important, so I recognized the benefits to having some loop libraries at hand. The more I think about it, it's pretty arrogant to assume that anything I could program could manage to be better than a well recorded kit played by a top tier professional drummer (for traditional drum sounds anyway).

Not that you need a complete "uses of stock footage for dummies" guide, but the indie film world, like music, lives and breathes a DIY ethic. If people had a better understanding of how it can apply to them, I think you'll get the interest that you deserve (again, the footage looks amazing).

Just my entirely uneducated 2 cents!

 

[Dreadylocks]

I think there are some good points here. Your pitch needs to tell me exactly how I can use the footage to make money, or how it will help me further my career.

Marketing 101: Create a need.
Also remember: features vs. benefits. Right now you're selling the features more than the benefits. It should be both but with more emphasis on the benefits.

my .02

 

[Kholi]

I think there are some good points here. Your pitch needs to tell me exactly how I can use the footage to make money, or how it will help me further my career.

Marketing 101: Create a need.
Also remember: features vs. benefits. Right now you're selling the features more than the benefits. It should be both but with more emphasis on the benefits.

my .02

I'm going to beat on that horse corpse with Dready! It's fun, and sounds kind of gross.

Good salesman never has to sell on price. If someone can't afford something it won't matter what the price reflects, and even if you lower it they'll be disinterested regardless at that point.

Someone who can afford what you're selling doesn't care about the price tag, they care about what it can do for them.

Always... always sell on benefits.

 

[Nate North]

Good feedback guys, I'm going to go ahead and implement some of these suggestions on the page right now.

Still a bit concerned about people making it to the page. They don't show me hit statistics, but I'm guessing that so far if I'd gotten 100% response, I'd still be in bad shape because no one is seeing the listing. I'm out there actively promoting every day, and still have only gotten one question on Kickstarter after a week. I'd run an adwords campaign, but I'm flat broke.

Thanks for the kind words about me not being sunk, I'd like to believe that.

 

[Nate North]

Totally new pitch

Ok, so after listening carefully to all of your comments, I've revised my pitch completely, with a couple new hooks, and the price and business slants minimized. Can anyone comment on this new approach?

Better?

Dramatically worse?

Unfocused?

Perfect?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/156967912/the-1-ultra-hd-footage-library

 

[trueindie]

Ok, so after listening carefully to all of your comments, I've revised my pitch completely, with a couple new hooks, and the price and business slants minimized. Can anyone comment on this new approach?

Better?

Dramatically worse?

Unfocused?

Perfect?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/156967912/the-1-ultra-hd-footage-library

I'm not sure I could tell what the changes were. If you made changes to the text, this is the first time I read the complete text. I only looked at the video before for information.

I think your problem is exactly what dejeager said. "I don't know what I'm paying for. If I'm an early adopter, what do I get for it?? I don't know. Everything is still going to be cheap once this guy forms his company. So why should I pay anything now?"

You need to show me what I'm paying for. If you cannot, then you need to offer me something extraordinary for me to invest blindly in your future. You have to make me feel like my future is linked with it somehow.

You're dealing with people with extremely limited funds who've grown up with free tutorials on the internet and pirated movies and books and music. It's going to be hard to make these people pay unless you can make them feel that they just cannot do without it.

I used to subscribe to artbeats when they were giving away a free clip a week. I used to save those clips. But I never used them in anything. So I had all these free clips that I never used. How're you supposed to make me pay for clips that I haven't even seen?

Don't know what else to tell you Nate. You just have to do some sort of paradigm shift in your thinking. Whatever it is you were thinking, has not worked, no matter what people have told you. Now you just have to drop whatever it is you were thinking and start thinking new. Abandoning the project is not an option. So if you have to give things away in the beginning, you have to give things away. Holding it for future gain may kill that future.

best,
aveek

 

[Nate North]

I'm not sure I could tell what the changes were. If you made changes to the text, this is the first time I read the complete text. I only looked at the video before for information.

I think your problem is exactly what dejeager said. "I don't know what I'm paying for. If I'm an early adopter, what do I get for it?? I don't know. Everything is still going to be cheap once this guy forms his company. So why should I pay anything now?"

You need to show me what I'm paying for. If you cannot, then you need to offer me something extraordinary for me to invest blindly in your future. You have to make me feel like my future is linked with it somehow.

You're dealing with people with extremely limited funds who've grown up with free tutorials on the internet and pirated movies and books and music. It's going to be hard to make these people pay unless you can make them feel that they just cannot do without it.

I used to subscribe to artbeats when they were giving away a free clip a week. I used to save those clips. But I never used them in anything. So I had all these free clips that I never used. How're you supposed to make me pay for clips that I haven't even seen?

Don't know what else to tell you Nate. You just have to do some sort of paradigm shift in your thinking. Whatever it is you were thinking, has not worked, no matter what people have told you. Now you just have to drop whatever it is you were thinking and start thinking new. Abandoning the project is not an option. So if you have to give things away in the beginning, you have to give things away. Holding it for future gain may kill that future.

best,
aveek

The reason to preorder is that the clips are 10-20 times as cheap via the kickstarter campaign.

Depending on what you're doing, you may not be able to live without stock footage. I suspect many television documentarists would be out of a job without stock footage around. It's great to show people your camera work, but you have to look at the big picture, which is that there is a huge upsurge in competent cameramen, and your real value to others as a filmmaker is in completed works. If you only have the budget for 30 minutes of footage, you can buy stock, produce a 1 hour documentary, and sell it to HBO for 2 million. That's looking at the big picture. I just saw this HBO documentary the other week, and it was like 80% stock footage of ariel shots following a nondescript car.

About the paradigm shift. 2 days ago I decided it was time to change tactics, so I'm going to adwords now if I can put together a few hundred bucks. So, good call.

Clips you haven't seen: Sort of a cart and horse issue for us, we need the money to shoot the footage to show the customer to get the money to shoot the footage. The other answer is that you have seen some of the clips, in the video. Many of those shots are taken by me or Josh.

 

[Phil_UK]

Well, i didn't read the thread, but I tweeted this out, and I got followers like Philip Bloom, Nino Leitner, Sebastian Wiegaernter and many more like that!

Can't guarantee anything but worth a shot!

 

[benUndine]

I'm not a filmmaker, but a Flash web designer - this can benefit a crapload of web designers. You'd be shocked at how many people/businesses (I'm talking dentist's offices, photography websites, salon & spa sites, travel websites, etc.) ask for little things like this on their sites, and places like iStockPhoto can be depressingly expensive if you want any video larger than 300px. I think what you're doing is a great idea and is most certainly a public service.

Have you been going after the web designer market?

The biggest reason this would benefit us so much is because we really don't have equipment like this. We have computers with Flash and Photoshop, not Epic Reds.