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Source: http://www.makerparadise.com/471000-by-making-it-children-safer-in-cars-by-mifold/
August 22, 2015 by businessfuture Leave a Comment
What is the product’s main benefit?
Most advanced, compact, and portable child safety seat. 10x smaller than a regular booster seat but just as safe. The grab and go booster seat.
Already backed by 6,000+ people. How did he do it?
Learn the specific steps that Jon Somroy used to design the MiFold and create his successful crowdfunding campaign below.
Tip 1. Inspired by your own family and people you care about
Jon was carpooling his 3 children with other kids to school, and he only had booster seats for his own children. When his kids carpooled with other families, those families also had only booster seats for their own children.
He saw that regular bulky booster seats were practical for them carry around. Jon went about trying to find a better way to make his kids (and everyone else’s) more safe.
Jon decided that it he wanted to create a booster seat that is so small and light that kids can just take it with them!
Tip 2. Getting feedback on early prototypes
Some people try to perfect their idea by themselves before they show it to anyone else. They might be afraid people will laugh at them, especially when the early version of an idea might not look very polished. If you have this tendency pay attention to this next part.
Jon took his earliest prototypes to try at a crash test and safety facility. He wanted to validate that his booster seat was really going to work.
When I went in, they thought I might be joking. But then we tested it over and over, and it really worked well in the safety tests.
Tip 3. Know what matters most to your target buyers
The MiFold is a child safety innovation. Jon is a parent of 4 children, and he had to make sure that he carefully tested the safety of the seat as his highest priority before moving onto anything else.
Some other folks might have started with design, or cost, but for Jon’s MiFold he needed to know at the very start that the safety was proven.
Tip 4. Convenience is part of your product
Let’s be honest. People are much more likely to use a safety device if it is readily available.
Jon thought about his own kids. They would something very light and small so that they could conveniently carry it in their backpacks to school or when they went to visit their relatives.
Tip 5. Describing the problem properly – as the first step in Engagement Marketing
If you are new to marketing you could be making a common mistake, which I call “shotgun marketing.” In a nutshell, this is where you try to get your customer to decide to buy your product on the very first interaction. It usually doesn’t work.
A very different approach is building a relationship with the customer step-by-step. I call this approach “engagement marketing” because you are willing to invest time to build engagement.
The first step to build engagement is to let customers know you care and understand their problem very specifically. In this interview Jon explains the problem that his customers face, that their children often go unprotected in taxi’s or when carpooling with other families because it’s impractical for your children to carry around large and bulky booster seats.
Anyone with kids, can immediately relate this to their own experience. Within about 10 seconds, they can understand that Jon really knows their own problem and that he has described the problem very specifically and clearly.
Describing the problem very specifically in a way that your buyers can relate is the first step to Engagement.
Tip 6. Build excitement over time
Marketing is not just about presenting your benefits and moving on to the sale. It’s about human emotions, and one of the most powerful emotions is curiosity. A company that provides a great example of this is Apple that often has a lot of mystery behind the upcoming product releases.
What that mystery does is build anticipation and media coverage. It creates desire for knowing more about the product, which is a completely different emotion from feeling like someone is pushing information updates to you.
MiFold successfully used this approach by dripping hints at their upcoming product release. Specific examples include providing slightly pixilated images that would make people curios what the final product would be. That’s a innovative and smart approach.
Tip 7. Deep discounts for early birds.
The second most powerful emotion for buyers behind curiosity is fear of missing out. People hate to lose out on a deal and end up paying more for the same thing. Don’t you?
MiFold really used this approach to drive their email list sign-ups. They offered the best rewards to those who signed-up to their email list, and when the campaign went live – those on the list had the best chance to grab one of the limited early bird specials.
That’s a great reward for people who want to support you out of the gate!
Stay tuned for another article about this campaign soon.
KEY STATISTICS:
Pledged: $480,829
Backers: 6,441
LINKS:
MiFold on Indiegogo
MiFold website
SOURCE: HTTP://WWW.MAKERPARADISE.COM/471000-BY-MAKING-IT-CHILDREN-SAFER-IN-CARS-BY-MIFO
