Why are my visitors not converting into pre-orders?
https://igg.me/at/goodwoodglobes
Why are my visitors not converting into pre-orders?
I've launched my globes as a crowdfunding campaign https://igg.me/at/goodwoodglobes and I've seen great conversion to pre-orders from my (very small) mailing list of dedicated followers.
I'm getting traffic from publicity in Canadian Geographic and retweets by people influential in the cartographic community.
But these visitors are not converting into pre-orders. Is there something wrong with my campaign page? Or is it simply a numbers game: should I expect low conversion rates in crowdfunding?
Any thoughts from the IH community much appreciated!
Hard for me to analyze your campaign page, exactly. I find myself wishing your video and page did a better job highlighting the final product and showing it off, especially in context. If I'm buying this as a decoration for my home, I want to see what it looks like in a home.
Should you expect low conversion rates? Probably. I wouldn't imagine that most people are in the market for this sort of thing. One of my podcast guests once talked about how the "secret" to driving users to a crowdfunding campaign is to identify users who've already contributed to past crowdfunding campaigns. That way they've already expressed interest in helping makers, they're familiar with the process, they've bought into the idea, and they've created accounts on the sites and entered their payment information. I believe he used Facebook ads to target these people.
Hey, Courtland, thanks so much for checking out my campaign page and for your considered reply! It's really helpful to have fresh eyes on this: sometimes you get too close to your own project to see it clearly!
You're completely right about seeing the final product in context. This is one of the core problems with my campaign: I need the crowdfunding to buy the carving machine to make my globes, but until I have the funding I won't have the machine so I don't have a finished globe to show. But I do have a finished 3D map, so I should show what that looks like in a home. I'll make it happen!
Thanks for your thoughts on conversion rates. The previous contributors "secret" is an awesome tip. I'll get going on that, too.
I really appreciate your comment, and your podcasts, which have been a huge motivation in my getting my side projects going. Thank you!
Why not pay a graphic designer or 3d graphics person to create a few renderings, maybe even in a video that show exactly how the finished product would look like?
If you swim in money, you could also create a Augmented Reality app that lets your visitors show the globe in their own environment - but I assume that is probably not the case (and the actual benefit of it is questionable of course).
Those are great ideas, thanks Sujan.
I admit that when I saw how Kickstarter penalizing photo-realistic renderings, I shied away from them, even though I went with Indiegogo in the end. Instead, I made some basic non-photo-realistic 3D graphics myself.
And I admit too that the swimming in money part of it is an issue! That's the contradiction at the heart of crowdfunding: if you're actually crowdfunding to raise money, you don't have the money to spend on such professional services!
Thanks for the suggestions! I will look into it further and see what I can do on my own, e.g. with Blender. Much appreciated.
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
Thanks, Russ. Yes, absolutely, my mailing list was super-primed. I guess it's just very difficult to predict what kinds of conversion rates to expect from different sources: it depends on so many factors. I'll keep plugging away at it! Thanks for the response!