Air into Water: How TCF Helped Kara Pure Surpass the $1M

Water…From the Air? 

Innovations can be incredible, especially when they turn air into water.

Inspired by the biology of desert insects, Kara Pure created the world’s first and only water-from-air at-home water dispenser. When the founders, scientists, and innovators were done creating what seemed to be a miracle machine, they had to get people to understand what the product was and, more importantly, that it was real. 

The team at TCF approached this unique challenge with a strategic blend of storytelling and targeted marketing. Understanding the importance of conveying the groundbreaking nature of Kara Pure’s technology, we crafted a narrative highlighting the innovative aspects of the water-from-air dispenser and its practical applications in everyday life.  By effectively communicating how Kara Pure’s technology was not just a conceptual marvel but a tangible solution addressing the global water crisis, TCF played a crucial role in the campaign’s success, ultimately helping to secure over $1.3 million in funding on Indiegogo.

Check out how we did it.

Understanding the Right Position  

We had to position ourselves strategically because, as with most new technologies, there is a lot of skepticism, and Kara Pure was no different. In retrospect, the natural skepticism worked to our advantage because it led us to brainstorm some great ideas that ultimately resulted in some highly converting modes of funding. 

Regarding messaging, we decided to deviate slightly from clever wordplay and give the people a straightforward statement while keeping things interesting. We decided to carry the phrase “Make Your Water From Air” from the glorious beginning to the magnificent end of the Kara Pure campaign.

The decision was made to market the product with the main benefit as the pain purpose, Kara Pure gives you water from the air, and that was that. You get 2.5 gallons of water daily without having to do anything at all. We continued with that messaging throughout the campaign, and all that was left to do was take on the challenges that came with it. 

We didn’t have competitors, and neither was the price an issue. The concern most people had was the credibility of the product. Can a piece of technology really extract water from the air? The answer is yes. The hard part was getting people to understand how. Here’s how we did it. 

Honing in on the Perfect Price

The quest for Kara Pure’s ideal pricing strategy was a delicate balancing act that required a combination of market savvy, an understanding of consumer perception, and innovative forecasting techniques. Recognizing the pivotal role of pricing in the market’s acceptance of Kara Pure, the team embarked on a data-driven approach to unveil the most effective price point. 

Prelaunch, a platform distinguished for its powerful analytics in validating the product market fit through real customer feedback, became our strategic tool of choice.

By deploying various pricing models on Prelaunch, we tapped into a wealth of market insights, gauging potential customers’ willingness to pay. This rigorous testing enabled us to accurately pinpoint a launch price that communicated the value and innovation of Kara Pure without deterring our target market. The finalized launch price of $999, juxtaposed with an ambitious upper-limit price of $1,799, was a bold statement reflecting the product’s unique value proposition.

We raised this significant amount, all thanks to various tests during the prelaunch stage.  

This strategic alignment of pricing, buoyed by invaluable data on consumer buying behaviors and purchase intent, empowered the Kara Water and out team for further building the crowdfunding campaign pricing strategy.   

Understanding the Right Audience

Gripping the nuances of the target audience is paramount for any marketing campaign to succeed. This is especially true for disruptive technologies like Kara Pure.

We used the insights from Prelaunch.com’s survey results to construct detailed buyer personas. These personas were not generic, broad-stroke characters. Instead, they have meticulously developed profiles outlining potential customers’ specific characteristics, needs, and pain points. 

For instance, one persona might be a health-conscious parent living in a region with water scarcity, deeply concerned about the purity and mineral content of their drinking water. Another could be an environmentally aware individual eager to reduce their carbon footprint and reliance on bottled water. 

By pinpointing these unique personas, we tailored our messaging to address each group’s distinct desires and concerns. 

This nuanced understanding underpinned the development of highly targeted and resonant marketing campaigns, focusing on the benefits of alkaline and clean water that Kara Pure could offer. The strategy led to high-conversion advertising campaigns and helped amass a sizeable database of leads genuinely interested in the product. 

There can be no denying that it’s hard to sell a high-ticket product like Kara Pure through digital advertising… but what if the product you’re selling is something new and innovative? You’re asking people to shell out hard-earned cash for something they might not believe is real!

The TCF team anticipated these objections by developing a dynamic retargeting strategy to address them head-on. The conversion funnel consisted of 3 major blocks with their sub-strategies: 

• Start with WOW

The first step was to get people interested in and learning more about Kara Pure. To do that, the ads introduced the ‘magic’ of making water from air, explained the benefits of alkaline water, and showed how Kara Pure could improve users’ health. 

• Build Credibility

After visiting the page (and not buying), visitors were presented with ads highlighting the campaign’s extensive media coverage, interviews with the creator, and UGC content generated from various beta tests. 

• End with an Irresistible Offer

While the ads were designed to get people interested in the product and build trust, the final ad was designed to get them to take action and buy. This ad also included a secret offer for those who bought immediately. 

Thanks to this strategy, the team raised over $350,000 through advertising alone!

Nurturing Leads to Success

Once our landing page was optimized and ready to attract traffic, our next critical step was to build a converting funnel specifically for leads and VIP audiences keen to lock in the lowest price with a special reservation. Our strategy for nurturing consisted of a three-email sequence tailored to each audience, designed to delicately steer them towards the commitment of backing our campaign. A foundational principle in crowdfunding marketing is the indispensable need for a robust lead management and nurturing strategy. Such a strategy is paramount to transform tepid visitors into fervent backers ready to support your campaign on launch day. While a typical approach might involve an 8-email sequence gently guiding the lead from mere interest to eager anticipation, the compressed timeline of Kara Pure’s lead generation phase – a mere 3 weeks – necessitated a condensed yet emotionally resonant messaging strategy.

This intensified strategy comprised 2 emails during the pre-launch build-up and 3 immediate pre-launch emails, each serving a distinct purpose:

• The Welcome Email: This crucial first connection confirms that leads have successfully locked in the best offer and directs them to secure their reservation further.
• The Story Email: Designed to bolster credibility and spark desire, this email shares the creator’s narrative, highlights common challenges the subscriber shares, and how Kara Pure presents the ultimate solution. It also solicits feedback through a survey, providing us deeper insights into our audience.
• The Launch Sequence: A trio of emails that amplifies anticipation for the imminent launch, ensuring leads know precisely what actions to take once the campaign goes live.

A novel strategy that significantly bolstered our launch involved collecting phone numbers during the email sequence, enabling us to alert subscribers to a special offer available only in the first 12 hours post-launch via SMS. This tactic not only heightened urgency but significantly uplifted conversion rates.

Against all odds and common assumptions that only 2-5% of leads convert for high-ticket items, our campaign witnessed an astounding kickoff, converting 27 leads within the initial hours and surpassing our funding goal with $30,000 raised. By the campaign’s close, our relentless email marketing efforts had converted 60 leads, raising an impressive $99,385, far exceeding standard expectations for crowdfunding endeavors.

This accomplishment underlines the potent impact of well-executed email marketing within a crowdfunding campaign, illustrating that with meticulous planning and personalized nurturing sequences, achieving a significant return on investment is not just possible but probable.

Knowing When (and When Not) to Halt Lead Generation

In crowdfunding, initiating the lead generation process before the official launch is essential. However, the real challenge arises when the campaign goes live and efforts shift toward drawing visitors to the campaign page. The question then becomes, what approach should you take when your product transcends being a mere impulse purchase and requires prospects to warm up to the idea of investing?

While our initial plan at TCF meticulously outlined steps for managing and nurturing leads, we remained agile, ready to adapt our strategy based on market trends to enhance lead generation and optimize our return on investment.

Compounded by Kara Pure’s premium price point, we couldn’t ignore the profound setbacks brought on by the iOS14 updates. These updates severely hindered our ability to track user behavior and target our ads effectively, leading to a noticeable dip in revenues.

In response, TCF’s advertising and copywriting teams conceived a groundbreaking strategy. Instead of halting lead generation with the commencement of the live crowdfunding campaign, we kickstarted a new approach—continuing lead generation and nurturing throughout the campaign’s duration. This strategy, which we referred to as “Live Lead Generation,” granted us deeper insights into our leads, facilitated more accurate tracking and analytics, and expedited the learning process for our Facebook pixel.

Rather than surrendering our traffic to Facebook’s algorithm, we chose to capture leads’ emails via a dedicated landing page and continue to nurture potential backers with meticulously crafted email sequences.

This innovative approach meant we retained full control over our leads.

Typically, products priced within the $250-500 range see conversion rates hovering around 1-3%. Ascend to the $1,000 mark, and the conversion rates often plummet to below 0.5%. However, thanks to the ingenuity of our Live Lead Generation tactic, we witnessed one of the highest conversion rates across the entire campaign, exceeding 5%!

The Special & Secret Sauces

Unlike typical crowdfunding campaigns, Kara Pure was a high-ticket product. This meant that TCF’s team had to get even more creative with the campaign perks. They needed to offer something special, exclusive, and accessible so that anyone who wanted this unique machine that makes water from the air could have it. One of the answers was the installment plan.

Installment plans may be available on Amazon and other eCommerce platforms but not on Indiegogo or crowdfunding in general. They’re hard to manage and put additional financial and legal pressures on the crowdfunding platforms. But without them, backers are left without easy financing options for expensive items. 

After all, how many people can just decide to spend $1,000+ on a crowdfunded water dispenser in one go? Especially if it won’t even deliver for nearly a year!

So TCF designed a 3-month installment plan that was available only to Indiegogo backers. This meant anyone could get Kara Pure for as little as $299 monthly. And though the final amount paid for the product was higher, the convenience of installments was a big selling point. Thanks to this creative financing solution, the team brought in an additional $200,000 during the InDemand stage. 

As futuristic as this sounds, the installment plan was not a new concept for TCF’s experts—they were the first crowdfunding agency to introduce an installment option for high-ticket products a few years back and have successfully executed it from campaign to campaign. 

Turning Refunds into Refund-ade

The team also had a secret perk strategy targeted at backers who refunded their pledges. After hearing each backer’s complaints and challenges, the TCF sales specialist offered the backers a unique and personalized offer. 

As a result, they were able to convince a significant number of backers to reconsider their decision and ultimately pledge their support once again by ensuring that all backers feel valued and appreciated. 

This had the added bonus of providing the creative team with insights into typical buyers’ objections, which led to major edits on the page that addressed buyers’ objections before they’d even realized them.

There’s a Holiday for That… and a Secret Perk, too!

There’s no denying that we all love a good deal. Whether we find a discounted item at our favorite store or snag a buy-one-get-one-free offer, getting a great deal always feels like winning. 

As the Kara Pure campaign ran during the holiday season, the team had to get extra creative with their perks and ensure they stood out from all the other deals. On each holiday — from Christmas and New Year, Valentine’s Day and even small semi-unknown days like World Water Day (March 22, if you didn’t know!) — page visitors were greeted with a burning deal limited to that very day. 

The time-limited perks created a much-needed sense of urgency and helped increase the conversion rate significantly. As an added bonus, they were also a great way to keep the Kara Pure campaign top of mind and ensure that people didn’t forget about it during all the holiday craziness!

Managing all these rewards manually can be daunting for campaigners. Luckily, there are platforms like Perkfection that make reward management a breeze!

Building Credibility

Building credibility in a crowded and often skeptical market is no small feat, particularly for high-ticket items that present groundbreaking technologies, such as Kara Pure’s pioneering “water-from-air” system. The skepticism tends to scale with the novelty and price of the product—doubly so for items like Kara Pure, which doesn’t just claim to innovate but to redefine what’s possible within its industry. The TCF marketing team tackled this challenge head-on by leveraging the power of social interaction and transparency through social media platforms. 

SMM Lives Matter 

Social media is a powerful tool for reaching new audiences and growing your campaign. But what if no one believes you?

It’s a problem with most crowdfunding campaigns, but it’s even more so with high-ticket items and advanced scientific products that seem unbelievable (“water from the air, what?!”). So, how did the marketing team solve this? 

For the Kara Pure campaign, TCF’s marketing team decided to use social media to enhance the Kara Water company’s credibility by running live meetings with Cody, the Founder of Kara Pure.

Twice a week, they would jump on a call with Cody on Instagram and Facebook and give him space to introduce the product, show how it works, answer any questions people had, and get to know the audience interested in his product.

This strategy was a great way to build credibility and show them that Kara Water is a company they can trust. It also helped Cody build a direct relationship with his community, getting to know his customers and the people he was helping, and receiving actionable feedback to keep improving it. In fact, over 6 months later, Cody is still adding improvements based on comments that his early backers made!

In today’s world, it’s all about getting noticed. Whether it’s through social media, influencer marketing, or public relations, the name of the game is visibility and awareness. Brand awareness is important for any business but especially critical for crowdfunding campaigns. 

And it’s not just about the traffic it brings to the campaign… seeing that top-tier media outlet write an article about it, or everyone’s top influencer film a reel about it, is a stamp of approval that gives wacky crowdfunding inventions much-needed authoritative credibility.

PR: 200+ Media Mentions

The TCF experts took a more complex approach to PR than most crowdfunding campaigns. Rather than sending out a standard pitch and press release, they tailored each pitch to the publication, highlighting Kara Pure’s unique story angles, such as innovation, health-boosting, futuristic design, and sustainability. 

For each direction, the team tailored outreach funnels composed of pitch-and-follow-up sequences, press releases, and a visual press kit. For some, that meant a highly technical release focusing on Kara Pure’s technology. Others took a much more creative direction, comparing Kara Pure with the first water dispenser created in 1500 BC and used by Egyptian Pharaohs!

In addition to this diversification, TCF’s PR team organized live interviews and podcasts with Kara Pure’s creator. This made up for the lack of samples (or prototypes) journalists expect to receive before covering a product.

The combined efforts of the whole team resulted in over 200+ instances of earned media coverage in some of the industry’s most prestigious media outlets, including Wired, Trend Hunter, Geeky-Gadgets, KnowTechie, El Español, T3, Uncrate, Yanko Design, and My Modern Met.

Getting Influencers to Film Videos Without a Product

There’s no question that influencer marketing is a powerful tool for crowdfunding campaigns, as it allows you to tap into new audiences and create valuable content simultaneously. But what if you are a Kara Pure campaign with a niche product that doesn’t fall into any specific category, and on top of that, you have no samples to send?

The TCF team worked with various influencers—from interior design to sustainable living—to create tailored content in-house for their audiences. This included crafting custom posts and videos and developing creative ways to showcase Kara Pure’s features in their style. 

As a result, they generated a ton of valuable content and got visibility in influencer channels such as World of Engineering’s tweets, posts on P.roduct, and GiGadgets, and were featured in the YouTube videos of Adam J Story and Mossy Bottom.

Summary and Key Takeaways

The Kara Pure campaign showcases a remarkable example of successful crowdfunding, leveraging strategic marketing tactics to overcome skepticism and build brand credibility for a groundbreaking product. Through meticulous planning and execution, the campaign highlighted the importance of:

• Rewards and Engagement: Innovative use of rewards kept the audience engaged and helped maintain the campaign’s visibility during critical periods.
• Utilization of Platforms: Platforms like Perkfection simplified the complex task of reward management, allowing the team to focus on other critical aspects of the campaign.
• Social Media and Transparency: Regular live sessions with the founder on social media platforms played a crucial role in building trust and credibility. They demonstrated the product’s validity and allowed the founder to connect directly with potential backers.
• Public Relations and Media Strategy: Tailoring pitches to highlight unique story angles resulted in over 200 instances of earned media coverage across prestigious outlets, significantly enhancing the campaign’s visibility and credibility.
• Influencer Marketing Without Product Samples: The creative collaboration with influencers across various niches demonstrated the product’s unique value proposition, generating valuable content and visibility.

Overall, the Kara Pure campaign’s approach underlines the significance of trust-building and strategic communication in crowdfunding success. It is an inspiring model for future campaigns, delivering invaluable lessons on engaging potential backers, leveraging digital platforms, and executing a holistic marketing strategy to bring innovative products to market.