Hooke Lav is a wireless microphone that’s able to capture pro-grade sound without wires, dropouts, or hassle of any kind. With 8GB of internal storage, this Bluetooth lav is perfect for all sound recording applications. It connects to any device with the click of a button, making it incredibly easy to use. The slick, minimalist design makes Hooke Lav the perfect microphone to use for all your recording needs—with no setup necessary. We raised over $580,000 for them, and this case study for Hooke Lav will explain how!
Contents
Phase 1: TestBoom
Like the majority of our clients, we started Hooke Lav on our TestBoom program to test demand for the product before we committed to a full launch together. In TestBoom, we use a proprietary system and predictive model to determine how successful a launch will be with minimal upfront investment of time and money.
Messaging & Positioning
TestBoom begins with our Messaging & Positioning process. During this phase, we developed the initial ways we wanted to position Hooke Lav in the marketplace.
From this process, we came up with 2 to 4 angles to test in the market. There are many ways to communicate the value of a product. An angle can be thought of as one of those points of value that we want to lead with. Here’s what we came up with for Hooke Lav.
- The Smallest Wearable Bluetooth Mic
- Record Anything, Anywhere
- Pro-Grade Audio Quality
- The 4K of Sound
Next, we identified 2–4 audiences we wanted to test on Facebook
Think of an audience as a type of person — what are their interests, their age, their gender, etc.?
Here are a few audiences we came up with for Hooke Lav:
- YouTubers (vloggers)
- Journalists/Activists
- Podcasters
- Video Game Streamers
Test using our Reservation Funnel
Using the angles and the audiences, we’ll next want to program advertisements and send traffic down our Reservation Funnel, which is pictured below:
The ultimate goal of the reservation is get the user to put down a $1 deposit to reserve the product before you launch. Why? Because those that put down $1 to reserve the product before you launch are 30x more likely to buy.
You can learn more about what we call our Reservation Funnel by clicking here.
By putting down $1, users were able to reserve Hooke Lav at $69 (37% off the retail price of $110). After only $2,000 of ad spend, we knew we had a winner on our hands with Hooke Lav. Here are the stats:
- Ad spend: $2,000
- Leads: 1,789
- Reservations: 211
Using our predictive model, we had strong reason to believe that Hooke Lav was going to do extremely well. They passed the TestBoom program and moved into Phase 2: LaunchBoom.
Phase 2: LaunchBoom
Once a product reaches Phase 2 of the LaunchBoom system, we are committed to having a massive launch. There’s a lot of small details that go into the process of preparing the launch. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to focus on the most important details.
Scaling pre-campaign advertising
During TestBoom, we only used a $2,000 ad budget. For LaunchBoom, we increased the budget to $21,765 for the pre-campaign. We diversified the ad budget by targeting additional audiences and testing new ad creative. You can see the results in the screenshot below.
Here are the notable metrics:
- Ad Spend: $21,765
- Leads: 9,289
- Cost per Lead: $2.34
- Reservations: 1,260
- Cost per Reservation: $17.27
Getting our cost per lead so low let us know that we were targeting the correct audiences. The cost per reservation was also really great for a product selling at more than $100.
VIP Facebook Group
We call those that put down the $1 reservation deposit a “VIP.” One of the benefits of being a VIP is they are added to a private VIP Facebook group. The Facebook group allowed them to interact with the Hooke Audio team as well as the rest of the Hooke Lav VIPs. This is a great way for us to create an engaged community of people before we launch.
Having a “LaunchBoom”
With a pre-campaign email list built, we emailed the list when we launched to get funded extremely quickly. You can see in the graph below the spike of sales on Kickstarter over the first 48 hours.
On the first day, we raised $126,118. On the second day, we raised $47,115. In 48 hours, we were already at $173,233 in funding.
Keeping the campaign momentum going
I like to compare a strong LaunchBoom at the beginning of a campaign to building a strong foundation for the rest of the campaign to build on. The credibility gained by getting funded so quickly makes future visitors to the campaign more likely to convert. Here’s how we were able to capitalize on the strong start and keep momentum going.
Kickstarter Promotions
The Kickstarter team did a great job supporting the campaign with promotions. We were able to unlock many of the promotions because we had funded the project so much through email, Facebook, and PR. Here are some of the ways Kickstarter promoted the project:
- Email newsletters
- Homepage placement
- High placement in the category listing
Because of these promotions and visibility on the platform, Kickstarter directly contributed $211,269 to the project.
Indiegogo InDemand
Indiegogo has a great feature called Indiegogo InDemand which allows creators to continue to sell products on the platform after the campaign ends. Projects that launch on Kickstarter can transition to InDemand as well. This is how Hooke Audio is continuing to fund the project.
Through the campaign funding we raised $580,753 and through InDemand we’ve already raised an additional $9,992 (and we’re still funding!). InDemand is a great way for us to continue to scale on Indiegogo’s platform until the creator is ready to transition to ecommerce.
To wrap it up, here are some of the biggest takeaways from this case study for Hooke Lav:
- Hooke Lav used TestBoom to predict likelihood of success
- Built a pre-launch email list using our Reservation Funnel to identify people who are 30x more likely to buy
- Kept our cost per lead and cost per reservation low
- Used pre-launch email list to have a “LaunchBoom” and get funded extremely quickly
- Kickstarter promotions directly contributed $211,269 to the project
- Used Indiegogo InDemand to continue to drive sales after the campaign ended
Are you looking to launch a product soon? Apply to work with us so we can learn more about you and your new product!
