10 Ways to Promote Your Crowdfunding Campaign and Build Your Crowd
You have been working on your crowdfunding campaign for months. You created your prototype, shot a film, written your pitch, and designed your website. Finally, the campaign goes live, and your friends and family back you immediately. But after a fast start, how do you continue the momentum and attract more backers to your campaign?
Here are ten ways to boost and promote your crowdfunding campaign.
Websites to Promote
There are hundreds of different sites across the internet that you can use to host and promote your crowdfunding campaign, making it compulsory but also difficult to choose which is the best for your specific campaign. When it comes to choosing a Crowdfunding platform, select a site that relates to your project and the type of person you are targeting. For example, launching a new tech product with a global audience - choose Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Raising funding for a local cause in the UK choose Crowdfunder, or for a global cause choose, Go Fund Me.
For additional reach and building awareness about your campaign, approach review and news sites to gain additional coverage and support.
| Platforms: | Promotion: |
| Kickstarter | Product Hunt |
| Indiegogo | Kicktraq |
| Crowdfunder | Gadget Flow |
| Go Fund Me | Geeky Gadgets |
| Fundly | Kickbooster |
| Crowdcube | Backerclub |
| Seeders | Backerland |
| Fundable |
Create a website or landing page
In order to build trust with backers, it's important to have a digital footprint online. The first place to start is with a website or landing page. To keep things quick and easy, populate your site with the same messaging and imagery/videos, which you use for your campaign page (on the crowdfunding platform). Be sure to add relevant keywords to your site, to help with SEO and people finding you via Internet search engines. Your only expense will be choosing a hosting package from a web host provider.
You need a strong social media strategy
This, of course, is a time-consuming task. But your social media plan determines whether your crowdfunding campaign will work or die. Many campaign owners believe their campaign will be found by people searching on a crowdfunding platform, but this rarely happens unless you are featured in a platform’s newsletter. You will need to find backers and attract them to your campaign. A well-planned marketing campaign is the best way to do this.
Build a team who can share your posts across their social media channels and build up more exposure for your campaign. Talk to people on Facebook and Twitter directly. And don’t worry about making the campaign go ‘viral’, just concentrate on what you and your team can manage. Be cooperative with your audience, and keep on updating your social content each day.
Use "Phrases,"
The Georgia Tech analysts took nine million sentences from 45,000 Kickstarter campaigns and found some of the most widely used sentences from fully-funded campaigns against more ineffective campaigns. Many successful campaigns used compelling sentences, as you possibly would expect. The following are some of the common phrases used: 'positive karma,' 'got you,' 'given a chance,' 'future is,' and, of course, 'cats.' Phrases that didn’t work so well, "Hope to have," "need one," "we have more.” A rule of thumb to follow is to be ‘personal and friendly’ and not ‘salesy’.
Keep it alive! Update regularly
Projects that post at least three updates to backers during their campaign raise 239 percent more funds than those who don't post updates, according to Indiegogo. Evidence suggests the more updates you give, the more funds you collect. Post updates related to your project every couple of days or at least once a week. Also, thank your contributors, tell them news about your product, share your milestones, and tell them if there is any change. Keep the audience involved and encourage them to tell their friends and contacts about the campaign as well.
Grow your email list
Your email list is probably the most important marketing strategy your crowdfunding campaign has. As the famous quotes state “the money is in the list”. It's not by coincidence that projects that have built a successful email list, full of leads who are interested in your offer, generate more donations to your cause. So focus on building an email list full of quality leads before launching your campaign by using a landing page with email capture. Launch an email nurturing campaign to your list of contact during your pre-launch phase and throughout the ‘live ‘ campaign enticing your list to back you.
Join relevant forums
You want to increase awareness about your crowdfunding campaign as soon as possible. Go ahead and join as many online communities related to your topic as you can! Do this months in advance of launching your campaign so you have time to build up relationships in the forums and become a known contributor.
There are also widely popular web platforms for crowdfunding projects. These interactive forums are great for discovering marketing initiatives, engaging with future fans, gaining tips, welcoming new team members, and more.
Use press
The use of media channels that your target audience use can be a perfect way to build awareness of your campaign and create trust with supporters. Creating a press release for your crowdfunding project and syndicating it across major news platform’s will be a critical part of the campaign's start, as it helps to spread the story about your cause and why you are seeking funding. Release additional press releases as and when you have more news to promote e.g. hitting your funding goal or various milestones.
Host live events
Do you know that a live event can be a perfect way to build interest in your project, as you can meet potential supporters face to face? Live events allow you to link to potential and current supporters quickly and directly. You can tell your story in your own words and connect on a personal level. Explaining what your idea entails and inspire them with personal experiences. You can answer questions and provide feedback and get a feel for the appreciation people have for your campaign.
A live event could be hosted locally to where you are based or online for example with a Facebook Live stream.
Video marketing for your campaign
Along with your main campaign video, additional videos are a great way to promote your campaign across social channels and build trust. Think about what additional content people will want to see in order to help them make a decision to back your campaign. For example testimonial videos, behind the scenes videos, product demo videos, meet the team videos are just some of the quick and easy ways to add validity to your project.
For help and advice with campaign marketing and Crowdfunding Videos London reach out to us here at Wow Your Crowd, we’d love to help you launch your big idea.
Express Your Story With the Help of the Kickstarter Campaign Page
One of the biggest questions when you launching your campaign, is “how should I design my campaign page and what should I include? Hopefully, after reading this blog post, you will be better positioned to answer this question.
When creating a project campaign page, its best to think from your customer/backers perspective. What do they need to know, like and understand in order to support your project?
Imagine having a conversation with a person about your project:
- What would you say to them?
- What could they ask you?
- Most importantly, what would you say and show in order to convince them that backing your project is the right thing to do?
What is your Project’s campaign page?
Your project/campaign page is located on the crowdfunding platform of choice e.g. Kickstarter. Your page gives you the opportunity to tell people your story, idea, and plan. It covers the aspect of who you are, what you plan to do, and why you are doing it. Even if your project is simple and straightforward, you still need a campaign page that shares the right information with your audience and compels them to support you.
Some basic questions to answer and include on your page are:
Who are you?
In this part, you can present yourself, your team, and the overall big idea / aim for your project.
What are you doing - Explain your offer, idea or cause?
The greater the details, the better. Photos, sketches, demos, prototypes, and videos will bring your project to life, and help your audience understand your idea of what you want to achieve.
From where did this project come and Why?
Explain to people why you are doing what you are doing, why you care and show what you have achieved so far. Sharing the history of the project allows people to appreciate the work you have done and will help to build trust with you.
What is your plan?
In this section, you can layout a simple plan or video of what an audience should expect from you.
List Rewards and your funding target
Develop some great rewards which people will love to receive in return for supporting your campaign. Show a breakdown of what is included. In a donation or equity campaign, you may want to show how the funds raised will be used.
What do You need To make an Excellent Project Page?
You can express many of your ideas on the project page with words, but there is more to a successful project campaign page than text. The best campaigns keep text to a minimum and use Images and videos to engage viewers into your story. Here are a few elements which can make your project page a success.
Choose a perfect picture for your project page.
Remember, the thumbnail image that represents your campaign is the first aspect of your project people will see. In order to make an excellent first impression select an image that tells the story of your project. If you are launching a product - show your product in action, if you are raising funding for a cause or equity raise you may want to show lifestyle images of your those who will benefit or your business.
Create a fascinating video
This is the perfect way to present yourself and showcase to people what you are working on. Your video should be professional looking and right on point. A poorly made video can really effect the way people perceive your offer, business or cause. You don't have to be a crowdfunding expert to know that a convincing video is a key to your campaign's success.
Use headings and subtitles
Most people don’t want to read long sections of text, thats why using headings and subtitles instead can work better as they allow people to scan a page and help them to understand quickly and clearly what the key message points are (regardless of their language and level of listening).
Get innovative
Other ways to bring your project page to life is to Include gifs, graphics, and photos. Try to keep those media items below 5 MB. So they can be conveniently shared online and don’t slow down the project page’s loading speed.
Finally,
To add all the above elements to your project page, you can also get the help of Wow Your Crowd. Our crowdfunding marketing services are here to help you launch a successful campaign and generate awareness and traffic you need to build your crowd.
We will help develop your crowdfunding campaign, from developing your story to visualising it, with project page design, and provide Kickstarter Video Production. If you want your campaign page to be successful, you need to invoke emotions within your target audience and impress them with excellent visuals and clever copywriting.
Pro Tip: Make sure that your product page clearly illustrates the dilemma and casts your product as the best solution.
Common Myths About Crowdfunding Marketing Campaigns
Crowdfunding is a kind of social fundraising. It’s the new way to raise money, by leveraging your personal network to support your cause or campaign. Along with your network, you can use an online crowdfunding platform to raise the money you need to fund your personal or business venture.
Crowdfunding is an excellent option for startups, product creators, and developers to launch their ideas, collect funds and have a platform to build a community for their big idea.
When starting any crowdfunding campaign, you may need to keep these points in mind; you must be mindful of several misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding crowdfunding to prevent any issues that could have a negative effect on your project.
Crowdfunding Myths
Here are some important crowdfunding myths:
Innovative ideas are not crucial to the success
Wrong! The most innovative ideas have the best chance of succeeding and raising the funding they seek. Along with being innovative the best ideas need a good plan and strategy to bring it to life, which requires adequate time and attention to implement successfully. First, find out which groups of individuals are likely to support your campaign and then work out a marketing strategy on how to share your campaign with them to gain their backing.
The real work starts when your campaign starts
I will urge you to initiate your campaign at least two months before the official launch date. This is the time required to construct an effective plan, including a mailing list, and to develop a strong backer community around your project. These are the two crucial factors needed for your campaign's success. It would help if you used this time to study, prepare ahead, collect a good team, identify positions, and arrange all the assets before the start of the project. Planning well in advance will set you to campaign up for success.
The concept that people are waiting for your idea and project launch is misleading. Although crowdfunding begins with close friends and relatives, it hardly finishes with them. Many of us are also aware of the importance of news and social media promotions for business promotion.
To get the desired support you need for your campaign, you must start using other networks to inspire people to spread the word to their networks to gain mass awareness. With the right effort behind the campaign along with a well-advertised promotion, you will give your campaign a greater chance of success.
A Significant following on Social media DOESN’T assure success
Do you know that one of the reasons for your campaign failure is to post completely about it in advance?
Although social media is a key factor in crowdfunding success, you need to be aware of the fact that the majority of the donations will come from people you know already, such as your friends, relatives, or e-mail subscribers.
Keep in mind that undoubtedly Facebook numbers are important! Quite a few people will already have over 10k or more followers on their Facebook and Instagram, which they believe will be enough to help raise the funds they require. Unfortunately, this isn’t completely correct. Its best to work out the figures. How many pledges do you need of a certain amount to reach your funding target? Once you know this number times it by 20, (which = 5%). This is the ideal amount of people you need to reach out to and convince to back your campaign.
For example: For a 5 % conversion expectancy:
100 pledges x £100 fee = £10,000 funding target.
20 x 100 pledges = 2000 people
Facebook & Instagram are a great way to reach more people and build up your crowd. Review the number of followers you already have and then decide how many more people you need to reach.
Many campaigns set up a marketing funnel to capture leads for their campaign. The marketing funnel can include Facebook ads, press releases, email marketing and other marketing strategies.
If you haven’t got a social following or email list, it makes sense to start building one as soon as possible. Ideally 6 or even 12 months before you launch! You want people to know who you are and what you stand for. If you don’t have that kind of time then use the time you have to the maximum.
The crowdfunding campaign is only for startups
Many people think that crowdfunding is predominately for entrepreneurs and start-ups to raise significant capital to support their innovative ideas. This isn’t correct and is a misunderstanding. Crowdfunding is for everyone, entrepreneurs, start-ups, individuals and established businesses. Recently many big brands have started to use crowdfunding as a way to test their new innovations, rather than launching them direct to the commercial market.
Finally,
Implementing a Crowdfunding Marketing campaign is a great way to build awareness, build a community of followers and overcome any financial obstacles you may have with raising capital with conventional methods such as banks, schemes, investors, and other financial institutions. Any entrepreneur or business with an advanced concept can use crowdfunding to raise money quickly and easily without giving away large amounts of equity in their business or spending large sums of personal money.
Crowdfunding 101 - What You Need To Know
In this article, we’ll explain the ins and outs of crowdfunding and what you need to know before you set up your first campaign. There are various types of crowdfunding and each type has particular methods that work better for that area of crowdfunding. However all types of crowdfunding generally follow a similar core process, which we will outline for you, so you can implement and kickstart your campaign successfully.
What is crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is raising a set amount of funding for a particular project. The funding is made up of small amounts of money from the ‘crowd’ - a large group of people, who share an interest in your project.
What types of crowdfunding are there?
Rewards - generally ‘pre-selling’ an innovative product or creative project.
Equity - raising investment in return for equity in your business.
Donation - raising funding for charity and social causes through donations.
Where does crowdfunding take place?
Most crowdfunding projects take place on the internet and are launched on a specific crowdfunding platform, which specialises in your chosen area of crowdfunding.
For example, if you are launching a campaign to pre-sell your innovative E-bike invention you would choose Kickstarter or Indiegogo, who are the leading platforms for ‘Rewards’ campaigns.
If you wanted to raise investment for your E-bike company you would launch your campaign on an equity crowdfunding platform like Crowdcube or Seedrs.
And if you wanted to raise money for your new charity idea then you would use a platform dedicated to donation campaigns like Crowdfunder or Go Fund Me.
There are many other platforms out there to choose from but they are smaller and less reputable compared to the big platforms. This may have an effect on people being willing to support you.
It’s important to consider where your audience will come from. If you want a global audience then pick a global platform or if you want a local audience to choose a platform based in your country.
Who can crowdfund?
There are no restrictions on who can launch a crowdfunding campaign. As long as you can access a crowdfunding platform and social media platforms for marketing the campaign then you are well placed to launch a campaign.
That being said campaigns that have a team behind the project generally outperform projects with a single founder. The reason is simple, a team can spread the workload and access a bigger network of contacts, which increases awareness and momentum for the campaign.
I’m not going to pull the wool over your eyes, crowdfunding involves a lot of work and will take up many hours and many days to bring your project to life. Having a team that can work together on your project, implementing their diverse set of skills, will make things a lot easier for you and set your campaign on the road to success.
When should you launch a crowdfunding campaign?
Launching a successful campaign takes time to implement and build momentum. The most successful campaigns spend many months perfecting their project, messaging and building buzz around their campaign.
At a minimum, you will need 3 months to get everything in order and launch your campaign. So if you plan to launch sooner, then stop and think clearly about what you need to do. The worst thing you can do is launch your campaign too soon and see it fail, just because you weren’t ready.
Before setting a launch date ask yourself these key questions.
- Do you have the time required to make the project work?
- Do you have a crowd to help fund 50% of your target on launch?
- Does your audience actually need or care about your idea?
- Does it make financial sense to crowdfund your idea?
Unless you can answer yes to all of these questions it’s best to postpone your campaign until you can.
Why should you crowdfund?
Many people think ‘money’ when crowdfunding, but crowdfunding provides you with so much more than just raising the money. The best and most useful benefit gained from crowdfunding is building a community of followers and fans. For a start-up or cause building a crowd provides huge benefits.
A community can help to shape your offer and develop your product by sharing their ideas and feedback. The community are likely to feel connected to your project and support you long term, as they now have a vested interest in your success.
Here are some of the main benefits of crowdfunding:
- Build a community
- Validate your idea
- Create brand awareness
- Increase your social media following
- Attract customers
- Raise funding and Investment
Crowdfunding can be transformational and really propel your business or cause to the next level. So don’t be deterred by the hard work that is required to launch a campaign. Embrace the challenge and go out and make your big idea a success. Remember a crowdfunding video is an integral part of your campaign, so be sure to enlist the help of an agency like Wow Your Crowd, who can support you with all areas of your campaign guide you on your crowdfunding journey.
