sustainability Archives

How Crowd-Funding Helped Me Get My Eco Message Out There

19th October 2015 By Ian Winterton Leave a Comment

Cath Hassell understands the power of crowd-funding – and how it can give an idea its wings.

She raised £6,000 to get her children’s book, The Mysterious Case of the Sinking Flamingo, which teaches primary school children about sustainable water, off the ground. Here’s what she learned along the way…

cath-hassell

When it comes to crowd-funding, it’s often the outrageously successful campaigns that grab the headlines. 3D gaming goggles or smart watches that smash their targets in days – and go on to raise millions. But what’s the story when it comes to projects that are more modest? How does it work for you if you’ve got an environmental message that you’re serious about sharing – but don’t have the resources to do it?

Cath Hassell is the person to ask. She runs a small environmental consultancy called ech2o, which does a lot of work with schools inspiring children to get serious about the environment. Cath turned to crowd-funding to finance the final stages of a book she’d been working on about the importance of using water sustainably.

Decisive Push

The idea for the book had been brewing for some time. But it was her experience in school that finally gave her the decisive push to get things properly off the ground.

“With ech2o, we do a lot of work with school children and a lot of water workshops,” said Cath. “We always had stuff to use with Key Stage 2 level kids – aged seven to eleven – but we realised we never had anything for primary-aged kids of five or six.

“My background’s in plumbing and I found that if a really young child ever asked me something about water, I’d get excited and start reeling off loads of facts. But then I’d see their little faces go blank. I knew I needed something to focus my message when I was working with these younger kids.”

Moment of Epiphany

And so, Frankie the Flamingo, the main character in her book, was born. While it’s true the idea had been conceived some time before, it was this moment of epiphany that helped Cath finally put the feathers on Frankie.

The book’s plot is great. Frankie, an inquisitive flamingo, thinks she’s sinking and sets off to do some detective work to find out why. On the way she learns all about water, drains and sewers – and the best ways to save water.

The idea to give Frankie her wings through crowd-funding actually came quite late. The book was already written and partly designed before Cath turned to crowd-funding website Kickstarter to get the book finished and published.

Frankie the Flamingo

A Robust Product

“I’d already read Frankie to 832 kids before we even did the Kickstarter campaign,” said Cath. “So I knew kids were engaged with it and I knew we had a product that kids really liked. Knowing it was a robust product gave me the confidence to go out and ask people to put some money behind it.”

After choosing the Kickstarter platform to host her campaign, Cath got the ball rolling. The site asks members to set up a page featuring a written summary of the campaign, the amount they want to raise, details of rewards they offer and a video to market their project. After that, you get a maximum of 60 days to raise your total. If you come up short, you get nothing.

To prevent projects from failing, Kickstarter recommends you host an initial launch party to get your nearest and dearest contributing first. After that, it’s down to you to persuade your professional and personal contacts – as well as strangers – to back your passion and help you get your message out there.

Money, Money, Money

“Deciding how much money to go for was difficult,” explains Cath. “I asked for £3,000, but in hindsight I should have asked for more, as we hadn’t factored in various costs that would be involved, like paying the website their percentage and paying for rewards and postage.”

In the end though, Cath’s decision didn’t prove costly as supporters backed her to the tune of £6,000, doubling her intended target and bringing Frankie to life.

She puts her success down to some creative thinking on the rewards she offered – as well as effectively building a buzz on social media.

“In terms of rewards, I knew we had to offer more than just the finished books,” said Cath. “So we had a good think and also offered people the chance to donate books to a school of their choice, or for me to go into a chosen school to read the book to children. We also gave away some of the original illustrations, as well as prints. This broad range of rewards worked really well.

Frankie 2

Twitter Chatter

“I also think we used Twitter really well, which proved a great way of generating interest in the project. We’d found several corporate sponsors before we started the crowd-funding campaign, so I used them as a starting point for our Twitter posts.

“So I’d start with a Tweet that said ‘@ (then the username of the business) is already supporting the Frankie the Flamingo Kickstarter campaign – and now you can do it too!’

“The sponsors would then retweet it, which meant their followers would hear about it. We did that throughout the campaign, always highlighting people that had donated, and they then retweeted, which built a really nice buzz. And because we also had great pictures from the illustrator, we also tweeted those. So we did use Twitter a lot and I think we used it well.”

Overall, Cath admits she found the experience both exhilarating and, at times, slightly dispiriting.

Totally Addictive

“It’s really addictive,” she said. “During the whole thing, you’re getting alerts on your phone telling you somebody has donated and how much they’ve pledged. When it was over, I really missed that.

“One thing I found difficult was when someone I knew really well didn’t put money in. That sort of rejection I found really hard. On the other side of that, you find people you don’t even know giving you £200. You think ‘oh my god, that’s so nice’. It feels like real validation of what you’re doing.

“But you need to be prepared for your emotions to go all over the place.”

Frankie 3

Here’s a selection of Cath’s best advice for anyone embarking on a crowd-funding journey:

1. Have your project as complete as possible before you kick off your campaign

Once you’ve raised your money you feel a huge amount of responsibility to your supporters and you really want to fulfil your obligations. I noticed with a lot of projects on the site, particularly children’s books, that people had written them, but they hadn’t tested them with loads of kids. So I think it’s important to show it’s more than just an idea – you need to be able to show your idea is real and robust.

2. Be realistic about the amount you’re asking for

If you ask for £3,000, you need to remember that even if you raise the full amount, you won’t receive all of it. The site takes a percentage and you may also need to pay for extra rewards for your supporters and the cost of sending items out to people. Factor all of those costs into your decision about how much to ask for.

Frankie 4

3. Research the tax implications of crowd-funding before you start

I’m quite good at maths, but was shocked how dumb I was at doing the maths for Kickstarter. I decided to do it through my business, ech2o. As a company, we charge VAT. So we now have the issue of whether we’ll have to pay the VAT on our Kickstarter money. I think it might have been better if I’d just gone for it personally. For now, it looks like we’ll spend it all, but then we’ll still have to pay tax on that income. HMRC has clocked on to all the crowd funding money floating around, so my tip would be to research tax properly and really get your head around it.

4. Think creatively about the rewards you’re going to offer

Having chosen £3,000, we then had to think about the rewards we’d offer people in return for their donations. If we’d just gone ‘one book for this amount and 10 for that amount’, it’d be boring. So we decided to mix and match. Our range went from £10 for one copy of the book up to £500 for a corporate sponsor where you got your logo featured in the book. In between, we had rewards where we’d donate books to schools of your choice. Or I’d go into a school of your choice to read the book. We also offered original illustrations, as well as prints. It worked really well and all our rewards were chosen.

Frankie 1

5. You don’t have to have a really wide network on social media – but it helps

When I started tweeting, I only had 270 contacts on Twitter. But my contacts were great at retweeting my posts, which meant we ended up creating a good buzz. If you have a really good Twitter and Facebook page, it will definitely help you have a successful campaign.

6. Make your crowd-funding web page fun

Everything around Frankie the Flamingo is fun, so our Kickstarter page reflected that. So if you’ve got a fun product, make your crowd-funding page fun as well. We also included nice pictures of children reading the book, which was pretty powerful. So if you have interesting photography use it. It’s also important to make a good video. Ben, from Regen Media, kindly produced our video for us to support our project. I think having a professional video really helped our campaign.

You can find out more about Cath’s work with sustainable water at www.ech2o.co.uk.

Free Your Mind – An Essential Tip for Better Business

21st September 2015 By Ian Winterton Leave a Comment

Potton’s Self Build Academy® gives away hard-earned knowledge and expertise to self-build enthusiasts – for free. Marketing manager Fae Perkins explains how an innovative, free-thinking approach can benefit your business, and its customers

Fae

For most of us, protecting our possessions comes naturally. If a stranger in the street asked to borrow your iPad or drive your car, you’d politely – or maybe not politely – tell them no. But there’s a growing trend for businesses to dish out valuable knowledge and expertise for nothing.

It’s an innovative way of marketing yourself – and one that self-build experts Potton are particularly passionate about.

It’s Potton’s business to design bespoke homes for self builders. It’s a challenging arena to be in, with the UK lagging behind the rest of Europe in its number of self builders. It’s in Potton’s interest to sell the self-build process to more and more people and dispel the myths that shows like Grand Designs often purvey – that it’s an option only for the elite, or an emotional rollercoaster that you have to be brave to ride.

Information and Inspiration

Potton had this objective in mind when they set up their Self Build Academy®. It was created to offer education, information and inspiration to aspiring self builders across the UK. It brought together a unique range of workshops, events and seminars, each providing potential self builders with the knowledge and confidence to pursue their dream. And they decided to run a large number of them for free.

On the surface, it might sound like bad business to give away your time and knowledge for no fee. But according to Potton’s marketing manager Fae Perkins, it’s a reliable way of building long-lasting relationships with a committed community of self-build enthusiasts.

“The objectives of the academy are to increase enquiry levels, position Potton as a one-stop shop for self builders, deliver consistent and valuable content, and offer support through education at each stage of a customer’s project,” said Fae.

Building Trust

“The way we see it is that by offering complimentary information and education we are building trust with our potential customer base. It would be pretty unlikely that many people would work with us through the academy, then decide to self build with another company they know little about. If they did, we’d have done a poor job through our courses, in reality!

“It goes back to the old ‘know, like and trust’ theory. We aim to impart our knowledge in the hope of encouraging people to pursue self build and ensuring they do it right with Potton.”

The Self Build Academy® contains four core workshops and seminars, each targeted at different stages of the build process. Together, they guide self builders all the way through the process of building their dream home and help them develop the skills needed to successfully complete their project.

On top of that, Potton hosts networking events and pop-up shows to allow people to meet like-minded self builders and visit live sites across the UK. More than 1,000 people came through the academy last year and Fae thinks numbers in 2015 will far exceed this.

Photo: Chadwicks

Finding Land and Moving Forward

“What the academy does well is aid customers in moving from one milestone to the next,” she says. “For those who would love to self build but have not found a plot, we educate them in how to do it successfully, allowing them to find land and move forward.

“For those who have placed their frame order, but are perhaps apprehensive about moving forward, we offer a seminar on preparing for frame delivery, where they also meet their dedicated Potton contracts manager, who can answer any questions and give them the confidence to progress. The academy acts as a general comforting catalyst for those going through the self-build process.”

Photo: Chadwicks

As we touched on before, it also gives Potton the opportunity to present an honest image of self building, which rarely squares up with the image of high drama and emotion that, let’s be honest, we love to see on TV, but really don’t want to experience ourselves.

Sexed-Up Disaster Stories

“TV shows love to ‘sex-up’ self build by portraying disaster stories, diminished budgets or nightmare project management,” says Fae. “It creates viewer excitement, so they’re less likely to show a flawless build. In reality, yes, things do go wrong, but nothing that can’t be fixed. We have lots of top tips on the Self Build Academy® website – one explains the importance of planning and making decisions at the early stage, to avoid costly amendments on site.”

Potton’s free spirit has brought lots of benefits to the business, including building greater trust in the brand and creating new business leads.

“People generally trust brands that are transparent and give value for money, and we achieve both through the academy,” says Fae. “We want to portray to our future customers that we are experts in our field, so we have no problem standing in front of a room full of people and covering topics such as energy efficiency, scaffolding requirements or why you should opt for timber frame as a structure.”

Bring Your Dream to Life

“We’re also fortunate to have four, soon to be five, fully furnished show homes at our Self Build Show Centre in St Neots. This is a real asset to our brand and allows people to visit the properties and imagine what it would be like to live in one. I think when you’re investing such a large amount of money, the biggest purchase of your life, it’s definitely important to see, feel and experience the end product.

“The academy also does a good job at bringing new people to Potton’s door. Prospects feel comfortable in the academy space as it’s not a sales one. It’s hard for us to accurately measure the results, but we know it’s working hard for the business.”

Innovative Marketing Solution

Overall, Fae feels offering free training is a sound marketing solution in today’s multi-media marketplace.

“We welcome all self builders to the academy, not just those building with Potton, so it may put our brand in front of someone who hadn’t heard of us,” she says. “If they then decide to build with us, or come to us for their next build then the academy has done its job.

“The academy has definitely forced us into creating much more worthy content. We still have a way to go, but have populated the academy website with blogs, top tips and resources. I think it has also played a part in strengthening our place in the self-build market, enhancing our position as market leaders and experts. We are fortunate to have a staff team with a vast amount of experience and knowledge, and we are capitalising on this and sharing it.”

“People generally trust brands that are transparent and give value for money, and we achieve both through the academy.”

If you’d like further information on the courses and events offered through the Self Build Academy, visit www.selfbuildacademy.co.uk

10 Lessons I’ve Learned in my First Year as a Blogger

13th July 2015 By Ian Winterton Leave a Comment

Architect Elrond Burrell launched his lively, plain English blog on Passivhaus last year. So what has he learned from a year in the blogosphere?

Elrond Burrell is passionate about designing buildings that are affordable, comfortable and healthy to live in – and which have the minimum impact on the environment. It’s a passion he puts into practice at the firm where he works, Architype. They’re one of the UK’s leading Passivhaus and sustainable architecture companies.

He’s long been an active and outspoken participant on social media, interacting and commenting regularly on matters of environmental and sustainable design. It was this evident passion that saw his peers prompt Elrond to start his own Passivhaus blog.

“Because I was active on social media anyway, establishing relationships with others in the industry, I found myself commenting on Passivhaus and sustainable building a lot,” he said.

“A couple of people said to me that it was unusual to have someone who was so knowledgeable and outspoken about Passivhaus and suggested I do something for myself. That was what really prompted me to think about blogging.”

Conflict Resolution

Elrond loves to write. In fact, he goes as far as saying that if he had an alternative career, it would be as a writer. But if you think that made starting a blog any easier, you’d be wrong.

“There was a lot of deliberation when I started thinking about writing the blog,” he said. “It took me a long time before I published anything.

“My main concerns were about what I could and couldn’t write about in a personal capacity. The blog is a personal project, so I have to be careful not to write specifically about Architype, clients or projects I’m working on.

“That conflict between work and personal opinions was a tricky line to tread – and there are still some grey areas. It took a few months of thinking about that before I got the guts up to publish.”

Avalanche of Ideas

Elrond’s second concern was what to write about. So he embarked on the ambitious task of scheduling ideas – one blog every two weeks – for the entire year. Each one would be based on questions or challenges he encountered around Passivhaus and would provide a few key answers.

“What always interests me is when you work with clients you hear the misconceptions and misunderstandings people have about adopting Passivhaus. So these were a great starting point.”

With the planning in place, Elrond stepped into a brave new world of blogging. And here are 10 key lessons he’s learned:

Tone down your perfectionism

It always takes much longer to write than I anticipate. I’ve had to learn to tone down my perfectionist streak. Early on, I was drafting something, then editing it, then worrying whether I should have done it in a different way. What I’ve learned is that at some point, you say ‘it’s done, it’s good enough’ and you hit publish.

Your schedule is sacrosanct

I decided early on to publish a post every two weeks. And having a schedule for this was important for two reasons. Firstly, it meant I did it – otherwise it was too easy to put it off. Secondly, reliable, regular posting helps people get engaged because they know something is coming. The most important thing is to keep going. Regularity is as important as the quality of your work.

Collaboration is key

Working with other people is beneficial in terms of generating different quality of content. I’ve done two interview-type posts with a structural engineer and builder. I use their comments to reinforce my message, help flesh out my own ideas and get a good synergy between their words and mine.

Controversial titles are good for traffic

I wrote a piece called, 10 Things I Hate About Passivhaus. It was kind of tongue in cheek and based around the film 10 Things I Hate About You. In that film, through hating each other, two characters eventually fall in love. The blog was similar. It said that in order to adopt Passivhaus, you need to get to know it first and change your mind about a few things. It caused a massive stir, with triple the normal traffic. But I’d be cautious about being too attention-grabbing. I’d rather get people who want to get involved in the subject rather than those just looking at the blog because of a controversial headline.

Be clear on your ideas

I find it easier – and I write better – if I spend time getting a clear idea of what I want to say before I start writing. I’m also a fan of writing in small chunks and then checking they all fit together at the end. So I’ll tackle the intro, make sure I’m happy with that, then each key point, and then the summary. Then I’ll give it a final proofread to check it flows well.

Short is sweet

It’s really important to write shorter sentences. With technical subjects, it’s easy to have a long, in-depth style. But actually, in terms of getting people to read what you’ve written – and feel it’s fast paced and easy to understand – it’s better to write punchier sentences.

Define your target readers

At the beginning, I tried to establish who my target readers were, which helps me to keep my posts relevant and engaging. I established that my readers would be either self builders, architects or design professionals looking for information on Passivhaus, or corporate clients keen to find out more. I’m also trying to provide resources that take Passivhaus back to basics to see what response I get. I want it to be an evergreen resource for people new to Passivhaus, to try and extend the blog’s reach.

Book reviews boost traffic

I had the idea of reviewing Passivhaus books quite early on, where I’d take out the key points and get people to think about them. So I wrote to authors who had published an English language book on Passivhaus and asked for a review copy. It’s been great on a number of levels. You establish a relationship with the author, who’s an influencer in the sector, you get a free copy of a book you’re interested in, and you bring a new audience to your site.

Ideas flow once you’re up and running

I found that once I got going, I was overflowing with content ideas, so I’ve barely referred back to my original list. It’s important to make a note of good ideas when you get them – or you’ll forget them later! I’ve got so many things to write about now, that I can’t possibly fit them all in. I’ve also learned to borrow ideas from other disciplines. Lots of Passivhaus writing is quite insular, but I want to push the boundaries of understanding Passivhaus and get it out to a wider audience.

Fresh ideas grow your audience

I recently added a pop-up to the blog, which displays when it looks like you might be leaving the site. It gives people an easy opportunity to subscribe and has increased my number of subscribers considerably. I’m also using MailChimp to send a newsletter out when each post gets published. While the mail used to just be a summary of the blog and a link to it, I now write a few paragraphs of original content that share my thoughts on various conversations I’ve had or my thoughts on projects I’m working on. I refer to it as ‘insider information’ – although I don’t share any specific details – and it is an experiment to see if it entices more people to subscribe and feel privileged as a subscriber.

You can read and subscribe to Elrond’s blog at elrondburrell.com