Movie Maker  |  Written by Kelly Leow  |  Posted on Sept 9, 2013

This week on MovieMaker, crowdfunding authority John T. Trigonis, Category Marketing Manager of Film, Web and Video at Indiegogo, takes an instructional look at five success stories from his time at the popular funding platform.

The question scrolling down every filmmaker’s mind shouldn’t be how much money a campaign can raise on crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo, but rather what goes on behind the scenes to make a campaign a true blockbuster.

As an early success story myself, I can attest a single truth: it takes a lot of preparation, social (media) skills, campaign strategizing, and, of course, time to run a stellar campaign, and what comes out the experience is far more valuable than the money you earn. It’s the connections you make and the community you create that truly measure your success. As campaigners, we have an important job to do: To give our community something to come together and care about.

As Indiegogo’s manager of film, web and video, I see plenty of campaigns through the course of my day. The ones that focus on raising funds are oftentimes not as triumphant as those campaigns that rack focus to community engagement. Take these five winning Indiegogo campaigns and why they were so successful and memorable:

Iron Sky: The Coming Race –– Two words describe why this film campaign was such a marvelous success: Community engagement. Timo Vuorensola, the director and campaign owner, had built up a massive following from his original cult classic Iron Sky, a sci-fi comedy about moon Nazis and their imminent invasion of Earth. A Facebook following of over 183,000 is just one indicator of how much the Iron Sky team understands the value of consistent engagement with the audience.

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