Let me know if you found this interview to be helpful and be sure to check out SunSprite's Wearable, Solar-Powered Light Tracker on their website: http://www.sunsprite.com/
How did you go about marketing and promoting the crowdfunding campaign?
We did 3 main things to promote our campaign:
1. Had our initial "crowd" ready to go as soon as we launched, mostly made up of friends, family, and passionate supporters.
2. We contracted with a PR firm, Fleishman Hillard, to help get SunSprite in front of leading tech bloggers for stories and reviews.
3. We ran a lot of Facebook ads to test messaging and to drive traffic to our site.
Did you use any service providers or websites you found to be helpful (or not helpful)?
We found our PR firm very helpful in getting us in front of tech bloggers and helping our brand visibility. Facebook and Google AdWords are tremendously powerful platforms for testing messaging in a quantitative way.
What did you learn about raising money online from this Indiegogo? Are you glad you went with Indiegogo as opposed to Kickstarter?
We learned a lot about who our customer is, which is slightly different from who we expected. There's nothing more helpful than having a group of early adopters who are eager to engage with you.
We have been pleased with Indiegogo. We found the community quite welcoming, and their tech/social team was outstanding (Kate, Ben, Ashley).
Where did the majority of your pledges come from? (Indiegogo, external, friends, previous customers, etc).
Most came from Indiegogo and the Indiegogo newsletter. Another large portion came from people who read about us online.
What do you wish you knew beforehand? Any thoughts on reward fulfillment or post-kickstarter?
Everyone told us how much work it is to run a successful campaign, so I thought we were prepared, but even then there's always 5 more things you could be doing.
We're going to have a fun weekend doing fulfillment on our own
