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.

TCF had to position the campaign strategically because, as with most new technologies, there is a lot of skepticism, and Kara Pure was no different.

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.

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!

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

TCF approached this unique challenge with a strategic blend of storytelling and targeted marketing, crafting a narrative that highlighted the innovative aspects of the water-from-air dispenser and its practical applications in everyday life.

Understanding the Right Position

Regarding messaging, TCF decided to deviate slightly from clever wordplay and give people a straightforward statement while keeping things interesting. The phrase "Make Your Water From Air" was carried from the beginning to the end of the Kara Pure campaign. The decision was made to market the product with the main benefit as the core 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.

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

By deploying various pricing models on Prelaunch, the team tapped into a wealth of market insights, gauging potential customers' willingness to pay. This rigorous testing enabled them to accurately pinpoint a launch price that communicated the value and innovation of Kara Pure without deterring the 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.

Understanding the Right Audience

TCF used the insights from Prelaunch.com's survey results to construct detailed buyer personas. These personas were not generic, broad-stroke characters — they were 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, the team tailored 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 TCF team anticipated buyer objections by developing a dynamic retargeting strategy to address them head-on. The conversion funnel consisted of 3 major blocks:

• Start with WOW — The first step was to get people interested in and learning more about Kara Pure. 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.

Nurturing Leads to Success

Once the landing page was optimized and ready to attract traffic, the 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. The strategy for nurturing consisted of a three-email sequence tailored to each audience, designed to steer them towards backing the campaign. 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 deeper insights into the 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 the launch involved collecting phone numbers during the email sequence, enabling the team 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.

Live Lead Generation

In response to the iOS14 setbacks, TCF's advertising and copywriting teams conceived a groundbreaking strategy. Instead of halting lead generation with the commencement of the live crowdfunding campaign, the team kickstarted a new approach — continuing lead generation and nurturing throughout the campaign's duration. This strategy, referred to as "Live Lead Generation," granted deeper insights into leads, facilitated more accurate tracking and analytics, and expedited the learning process for the Facebook pixel.

Rather than surrendering traffic to Facebook's algorithm, the team chose to capture leads' emails via a dedicated landing page and continue to nurture potential backers with meticulously crafted email sequences, retaining full control over leads.

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 campaign perks. TCF designed a 3-month installment plan available only to Indiegogo backers, meaning 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.

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, TCF's 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.

Holiday Perks

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 semi-unknown days like World Water Day (March 22) — 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.

SMM Lives

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, the team would jump on a call with Cody on Instagram and Facebook, giving 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.

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, making up for the lack of samples journalists expect to receive before covering a product.

Getting Influencers to Film Videos Without a Product

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.