how important is the video for a kickstarter?

Just how many people look at the video for the kickstarter?  How important is it?

Kickstarter will give you stats on the number of views in the dashboard.

My guess is that 80% of the people that look at the kickstarter, look at the video before looking at anything else.  And if the video is weak, they start to think that the product is weak or that they might not get their product.  

When building my last three kickstarters, I didn't even start to make the kickstarter page until the video was done.

A while ago I did some research on Kickstarter campaigns, looking at what worked and what didn't for people. When I looked at the failures, there were two main factors that I noticed:

1) They were using the Kickstarter in a way that I don't think it was meant for. (eg. help me buy a farm! I'll give you thanks in return and not much else...)

2) There was no video. Or a really really bad one.

Thanks for the replies.

The video is the biggest stumbling block for me.  I have lots of footage of the process, but how to combine it into a video?  How to combine the video with the narration?  Is there any chance, there's an easy tutorial for this?  Or is it better to seek out someone with epic video skills?

Erica had a video for her first kickstarter that was super awful.  So she came over here for about three days and we worked on it.   The first two days were spent polishing.   At the end of the second day I had an idea and just wrote a script.   And then I recorded the script.   And then Erica made a bunch of drawings to fit the script and ...  



And then erica added stuff to the end of that.  I think I would have polished that video a lot more, but the video they put up was a hundred times better than her first video.

The moral of the story is to make a shitty video, then make something better, then torture yourself with trying to improve it for 30 hours.  

As some of you may or may not know about me, I'm what's known as a "SuperBacker" on Kickstarter - because I've backed 132 projects on Kickstarter (Paul's latest is 132) and over 50 on IndieGoGo. That provides my bona fides, of a sort, in that there HAS TO BE either a sweet, polished, humorous video or some highly detailed graphics and info breaking down the project and candy for the various levels. The best ones have both of those factors.

I think one of the other factors for me is that how the product either compares price wise to other things on the market - or that "Gee Whiz!" factor.

wow, that's a great video.

The thing that makes me most nervous is the narration.  Is it absolutely necessary to narrate your own?  

r ranson wrote:wow, that's a great video.

The thing that makes me most nervous is the narration.  Is it absolutely necessary to narrate your own?  

No, you can certainly hire that out.

I don't have any experience personally, but I have a friend who hired naration inexpensively through Fivrr with good results.

what about music?  some videos have background music.
Is there free music out there that we can use?

This resource list may prove useful

(Some listed resources may be defunct)

r ranson wrote:Is it absolutely necessary to narrate your own?  

I feel it's necessary for me to say here that I have ALWAYS been impressed by your voice, R. The first time I heard it, I was like, "Who's that person with the intelligent, cultured voice? It's such a lovely voice!"

So, just so you know, you have a beautiful voice that I think would be perfect for a video, if that is within your comfort zone.

I just read the book "Kickstarter Launch Formula:  The Crowdfunding Handbook for Startups, Filmmakers, and Independent Creators." I thought it had some pretty good nuggets of information in it and is worth a read for anyone who wants to launch a crowdfunding campaign.

Two relevant quotes from the book:

"By Indiegogo’s estimates, projects with a video can raise 115% more than projects that do not have a video."

and

"projects with a video are 85% more likely to achieve their funding goal."

That is good info, Shawn. I was looking at Kickstarter's Stats page today, and it shows that a bit over 32% of projects reach their funding goal. So a video and a realistic funding goal are two key steps, setting up your rewards to give value while giving the project more cash is another one I do believe.

Check out the video on this kickstarter campaign: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Action Figure, via @Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fctry/ruth-bader-ginsburg-action-figure

No narration or really much filming. Not easy to make well but it is another style of video that I see these days.

There is a site called lumens5 that converts blog posts into this type of video. Makes it easy to share on social media sites.

Just another style/option to consider.