Almost all businesses are looking for investors at one point or another - and there are a wide variety of reasons for doing so. Whether your business has just been established and you need financing to get started, if you are looking to expand into new markets and new regions, if you are looking to finance a new project. Whatever the reason, the first step will be to find people who are willing to invest in your business and ideas.
Finding the right investors:
There are several steps you can take to find investors. Before you decide to turn to foreigners, investment companies or crowd funding options, you should check what connections you have that can help. The intention is not necessarily personal relationships (the decision whether to include close friends, associates, family members, etc. requires honest and in-depth thinking), it is definitely recommended to take into account people in the professional world who know you, who may share similar ideas, goals, interests, etc. Your chances of getting financing from these people are higher than from outsiders, and you may be able to create investment conditions favorable to both parties. If your contacts are not enough to fund the project, you should consider external sources. The best advice in this regard, however, would be to reach out to your contacts to see if they can help connect you with potential investors. First, people are more likely to trust those with whom they have a real connection (even if it is minimal). Second, these people share, for the most part, your professional interests.
Another recommended option, although the chances of success are not high, is to look for "angel" investors. Angel.co is a great place to look for an angel investor. It is a kind of social network designed to connect investors and companies - and it is a potential for thousands of connections. You can build a customized profile that highlights the strengths of the business or business idea, and use the site to make connections and hopefully find interested parties and schedule meetings with them. It is impossible to refer to funding without mentioning crowdfunding. In recent years, crowdfunding has entered the investment arena and has become a viable option through which serious sums of money can be raised. (Just consider these amazing figures: in the US, 17.2 billion dollars were raised in the last year - in over six million projects, this amount is 33.7% greater than the previous year). In addition, it is estimated that crowdfunding will grow to a market of 300 billion dollars by 2030 - quite an impressive achievement for a method that seemed little more than a joke just a few years ago. The crowdfunding sites are divided into the following categories (listed by popularity):
● Reward based crowdfunding: People give to your company in exchange for a reward, which is usually determined in the system depending on how much they choose to give. Kickstarter is the most popular example of reward-based crowdfunding.
● Equity-based crowdfunding: This form of crowdfunding is actually based on traditional investment: you sell shares in your company. The finance club is a good example.
● Lending based crowdfunding (also known as debt-based crowdfunding) - Lending based crowdfunding: consists of tiny (or not so tiny) loans offered by the financiers. In the end you are expected to return the money you receive. InvestNextDoor is a prominent example of this type of crowdfunding.
● Donation based crowdfunding - Donation based crowdfunding: As you can guess, this crowdfunding model focuses on donations that do not need to be returned in any way. For this reason, this model is usually most effective if your business or organization has altruistic social motives.
Introducing the product (pitch) with the help of a marketing video for a business that will not be forgotten
No matter how you choose to raise investors, at some point you will be required to present your product (make a pitch). The type of pitch and its content will vary according to the target audience (an appeal to friends will be different from an appeal to professional bodies, which will also be different from a pitch in mass recruitment). At the same time, the basic question remains the same: how to present the potential that your business and ideas offer? We at Cowboy Productions believe that although visual marketing is possible in many ways, some of which can be done independently such as PowerPoint presentations or printing marketing materials, today's market is characterized by intense competition, frequent snapshots of advertising effectiveness and a real need for transparency, and therefore the "old" methods are losing of their relevance, mainly because they no longer make an impression. To really stand out, it's important to offer something special, memorable and truly informative. We believe that a promotional video for business is the answer. What is the real value that a marketing video for a business offers and why is it important? There are several ways to show the true value of video, you can show the fact that video works on multiple senses and thus attracts attention better than any other media format, you can point out that there is a higher probability that video will connect emotionally with its audiences, you can also look ahead and point out that video Expected to make up 82% of all Internet traffic by 2022. Instead, we chose to quote Dr. James McVeigh from Forrester Market Research: "A moment of video is worth 1.8 million words."
How did McVeigh come to this conclusion? This concept is based on the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. To extend this old axiom to video, McVeigh simply multiplied 1000 by 30 (since there are 30 frames in the average second of film) and then multiplied the resulting 30,000 by the 60 seconds in the minute. The result? 1.8 million words.
This is not a scientific figure but an anecdote, how it well illustrates the power of a marketing video for a business: after all, the video is the best way to provide your audience with a lot of information in a short time and all while maintaining a commitment to the product and company values.
If you believe in your business, and want to leverage the recruitment of investors by building a high-quality and professional investor pitch video, Cowboy Productions can help you turn your dreams into reality. Contact us today for more information about our innovative video and animation services.