Why is a team important?
Did you know that crowdfunding campaigns run by a team raise over 3 times as much as campaigns run by an individual? No matter what idea you want to fund, big or small, working with a team gives you the opportunity to multiply your network, divide and conquer tasks, focus on your areas of expertise and make your campaign the strongest it can be.
Who should be on my team?
Your teammates can be friends, family members, colleagues – anyone that you trust to help make your vision become a reality. Once you have your teammates established, you can invite them to be team members on your campaign page.
In addition to your core campaign team, you’ll also want to think about who you can invite to help you with things like your pitch video, product shots, infographics and any other assets that will help make your campaign page more robust and engaging. Of course, you can always opt to DIY these things, but you might consider outsourcing to a professional contractor to help ease the workload. Select a photographer and videographer to use for product shots and your pitch video. You can also DIY infographics and other engaging graphics, or select a designer to create them for you.
How can I invite people to my team?
We’ve made it easy to invite people to join your team! Follow these simple steps to send them an email invitation:
- Login to your Indiegogo account (of the campaigner) and visit your Campaign Editor
- Click on the 'Team' tab, and scroll down to the 'Campaign Team' section
- Enter the email addresses of the team members you'd like to add in the 'New Team Member Email' field
- If the 'Grant this team member full editing rights on the campaign' box is checked, once they join the team this team member will be able to see your full campaign Dashboard, and see ALL of your Campaign Editor. They will be able to edit any part of your Campaign Editor that the campaigner has the ability to edit- including the financial information.
- Team members who are not selected to be editors will not be able to see the Comments section, Updates section, Dashboard, or the Campaign Editor.
- Please be sure to assign full editing rights with care!
- Click 'Send Invitation' to send an email invitation to your new team member.
Please make sure that your team members set up Indiegogo accounts before you send out your invites, because the invite can only be accepted by people with Indiegogo accounts. Once your new team member accepts the invitation, they will show up as a team member on your campaign page. Also note that you will only be able to send 10 invitations per 24 hours.
What should my team do?
Your team will help you divide and conquer the work in preparing and running your campaign! There are many things to be worked on, so think strategically and delegate the work. A few examples would be:
- Have your best writer develop your campaign’s story, as well as creating compelling content for emails to your network and backers.
- Be sure they work closely with someone who can create visual content, such as pictures and infographics. Together this will help make the most captivating campaign story possible, and will help create engaging emails.
- Have people dedicated to developing and executing your marketing plan, press outreach planning, building your email list, and establishing or increasing your social media presence as well as doing your social posts before, during, and after your campaign.
- They should be working well before the campaign to engage with your audience and be building that sense of community around your project, and be ready to take action on the plan for the campaign promotion and engagement once the campaign is live.
- Be sure to think about community management with your backers! Have someone responsible for responding to comments posted to your campaign page, and direct messages sent through your campaign.
- Consider creating and updating an FAQ section on your campaign for the most frequently asked questions, so backers can find their own answers!
- There are so many other roles and unique possible combinations that you may have: your company’s CEO, engineers, developers, volunteers, etc. Think about who needs to be on your project and what each of their jobs will be!
In addition to helping you with the work to be done on actually creating and running your campaign, having more people on your team will allow you to reach a wider immediate network from which you can build your larger audience.
- Have each team member be responsible for personally reaching out to their contacts both through email and social media. Make it easy for them by developing email templates and ideas for social media posts for them to follow. Be sure to encourage them to personalize emails to their relationship with the recipient of the email and show their own enthusiasm for the project.
How should I talk about my team on the campaign?
Your Team should be featured in your campaign’s pitch video, as well as in a “Team" section of your campaign story.
Your Video
Be sure to include the campaign owner in your video, and make sure you speak in the video. Adding other team members is a great addition and really helps potential backers not only understand there are real people working on this project, but also allows them to more personally connect with the people they see in the video! Connect personally with your audience, while speaking to your project.
JIBO is a great example of a personally compelling pitch video that wonderfully showcases their product, while including a personal element from the owner of the campaign! Their entire video is a great example of a well executed video for crowdfunding a hardware device, but skip to 2:34 if you’d like to see the campaigner’s message in the video.
Your Story
Listing your team members on your campaign shows contributors who is behind the campaign, allowing them to have more visibility into your project and more information when evaluating your campaign.
- Include photos of your team members- It’s important to show who the team-members are. Be sure to include first and last names, along with pictures of the team. Make it personal, and if you can correlate the images to your campaign, even better...
- For example, if you are an art or comic campaign consider having an artistic rendering of each of the team members, rather than an actual photo.
- Include a sentence or two about their relevant background and experience. The team section helps build trust with backers who are just getting to know you.
The Canary campaign did a great job of including their team in their story. The “Meet the Canary Team” section shows their team, their backgrounds, and experience. The personal touch of adding twitter handles is a great idea as it shows you and your team are engaged, approachable, committed, and open to questions (as long as you really do answer all those tweets and mentions!).
There are so many ways having a team can improve your campaign, expand your audience and network, and increase engagement with your backers. When it comes to teams and crowdfunding, the adage "many hands make light work" rings true!