Pro Tips and Advice for Launching a Crowdfunding Campaign Successfully

In this article, we share some useful crowdfunding tips and advice designed to help you launch a successful campaign. These are ‘inside pro’ crowdfunding tips and come from our experience launching various campaigns successfully (and unsuccessfully) over the past few years. Crowdfunding can be tough and the more information you have at your fingertips the better placed you are to launch a successful project.

1. When is the worst time to launch a crowdfunding campaign?

The leading platforms will argue that there is never a ‘worst’ time to launch a campaign, however from experience, there are certainly times in the year that are likely to make a launch harder than others.

Probably the most difficult time to launch a campaign is in January, followed by August. Why these months? Well, January is one of the hardest months to crowdfund in as people have the less disposable income to spend after Christmas and many people are away for summer break during August.

This ultimately means if you plan to launch in either month you will have to work even harder to get people to support you and make your campaign a success. It’s not impossible, and launching in January may be vital to the success of your campaign e.g. delivering a product for springtime, but compared to if you launch at any other time of the year it will be harder.

2. What information should I include on my campaign page?

Your campaign page has 1 purpose, to convert people into backers. How do you decide what information to include on your page? Simply, think from the ‘backers’ perspective. Why would a backer desire to support your project? What needs and desires does a backer have that your campaign offers them? How will their support make them feel? What visual and written content do they need to see to help compel them to trust you and support you? What messaging is going to evoke the right response of support from them? These are all questions to think about and answer when designing your page.

Some simple tips to help increase conversion are:

  • Make your campaign personal by including information about the team behind the project.
  • Include lots of nice imagery and photos rather than long paragraphs of text. Make sure the photos you show are relevant. e.g if you have a campaign for a craft food stall, include photos of people enjoying eating food at your venue.
  • Create rewards/perks that are simple to understand and choose between. If you have too many options this causes confusion and delay due to too much choice. This will inevitably make people go away to think about what to do rather than supporting you then and there. This will lead to missing out on vital sales.

3. What type of marketing should I use to promote my project?

One of the main principles of crowdfunding is to build a ‘crowd’ before you launch a campaign. For most campaigns, this means implementing various marketing strategies, which reach out to your intended audience and communicate your message.

The easiest and cheapest way for you to let a large number of people know about your project and what you are doing is to use social media. Setting up a Facebook, Twitter or any other social media account will be very beneficial to getting your message out there.

When using social media develop a strategy to release a post or number of posts each day, which give an insight into your project, the people involved and the problems your cause/project is solving.

Make your posts personal and this will help you to connect with your audience and make them aware of what you are doing. Remember people can only support you if they know about you. So mass, consistent communication will build up real momentum behind your campaign.

It's a good idea to set a team member who is responsible for arranging social media every day. They should write frequent, engaging posts with links and build momentum behind the campaign.

Other areas of marketing include ‘paid advertising campaigns’ on platforms like Facebook or Google Adwords. But you will need a separate ad budget to pay for the ads. This can be costly but also very effective at getting ‘cold’ leads and traffic.

If you launch an advertising campaign, direct the traffic from the ad campaign to a landing page, which captures the leads email address. You can then launch an email marketing campaign, which nurtures a relationship with the lead and entices them to support you.

PR can also be a great way to gain exposure about your project and attract interest, however, PR normally isn’t great at converting more sales, so if your budget is limited think carefully about how much money you invest into a PR strategy.

Optimising your campaign to be the best in can be is the best way to make it successful. Take on board the advice above to improve your campaign and avoid the pitfalls many projects make. If you are stuck and wish more guidance and support then consider hiring a crowdfunding marketing agency like Wow Your Crowd to help launch your campaign. An agency’s experience and knowledge can save you time and money in the long run. To your future success!


Crowdfunding 101 - How to Crowdfund Your Big Idea Successfully Part 2

In the past, typically only enterprise companies with large R&D budgets could bring a product or innovation to market. But today, crowdfunding has levelled the playing field and enables businesses and entrepreneurs to make their ideas a reality. In this blog, part of 2 of ‘How to crowdfund your big idea successfully we continue to explain the key areas of how you can launch your crowdfunding campaign successfully.

Marketing Campaign

Once you have your messaging ready now is the time to build your marketing campaign. At the heart of your marketing is a marketing funnel, which generates awareness of your campaign and attracts leads to support you.

The key areas of your marketing funnel are:

  • Landing page
  • Email marketing
  • Facebook Paid Advertising Campaign
  • Social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc)
  • PR

Landing page - is a 2-page website, which has a ‘home page’ that works as a sales page and a ‘Thank you’ page. The home page is designed to showcase the launch of your campaign and request people who are interested in your campaign to sign up using their email address. Once someone signs up they are taken to the ‘Thank you’ page, where you can have additional messaging such as requesting people to join your Facebook page or community page.

Email marketing - Once someone registers their interest on the landing page their email address is added to your email list. You can then email the person on a regular basis nurturing a relationship with them. The idea is to provide them with relevant content about you and your campaign which entices them to back you when you launch. The whole idea of the email marketing sequence is to foster a relationship with the leads and get them to know like and trust you. This makes it easier to sell to them when your campaign goes live.

Facebook paid advertising campaign - is the preferred choice of traffic source. Running a Facebook ad campaign almost guarantees leads from your target market and is a very quick way to build up a large lead list. The only drawback is that is can be expensive, however, most successful rewards crowdfunding campaigns have used this strategy, understanding its important to invest money upfront in order to generate the leads required to make sales when your campaign launches.

Social media channels - use your social channels and your team’s channels to promote your campaign. Its best to start talking about your campaign as soon as you can, to build up the buzz and noise around your launch. Post about all topics to do with your campaign - the cause, the prototype, the team, experiences to date, campaign news, fun stuff etc.

PR is good for brand and campaign awareness. Not all campaigns use PR as it can be a bit hit and miss, with some industry stats indicating it is only responsible for generating 5% of campaign sales, however PR if done right is great generating awareness and building interest in your product and company.

Build a Crowd

Building a crowd of hungry backers before you launch, who are ready to support you, is vital to the success of your campaign. Its a fact, the more people you have on your email list when you launch, the more money you will raise. But building a list is not easy and you will need to work hard using various strategies to build your crowd.

Many people think the crowdfunding platform will send people to your campaign but unfortunately, unless your campaign reaches around £25,000 in the first few days of launching, platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo will not promote your campaign. Industry stats show that 75% of funds raised by campaigns come from the traffic they sent to the campaign page. So, how do you build a crowd?

Leverage your network - Your own network is the foundation for your campaign and the best place to start building a crowd is with your friends and acquaintances. Sit down with your team and create a spreadsheet, which lists all of your contacts, use your phone's contacts and platforms like Facebook to build out your list. Once you have your close contact lists build a list of your 2nd and 3rd tier of contacts like friends, people from networking, relevant and related people and business. Use Linkedin for help with 2nd and 3rd tier contacts.

You need your campaign to gain momentum early on, so leveraging your close contacts to support you is a tried and tested method for gaining early support and getting your campaign off to a good start.

It takes more work to build a relationship with a cold lead and get them to know like and trust you, so don’t be shy to let your friends and contacts know what you are doing.

From your and teams list of contacts choose 15 to 20 people who can help amplify your campaign. Reach out to them and ask for their support in advertising your campaign across their networks, directing traffic to your landing page or campaign page depending at what stage your campaign is at. The bigger your team the bigger the reach you have.

Some tips for using social platforms to build awareness of your campaign:

Pinterest

  • Set up and use your Pinterest account to promote your project’s vision and “brand.
  • Pin pictures of your product/rewards and anything else visually interesting that relates to your project.
  • Pin images and videos that direct people back to your campaign.

Instagram

  • Post pictures documenting your product development and campaign journey.
  • Post pictures of the team and events relating to your project.
  • Tag your pictures with a link that relates to your campaign.

Facebook

  • Set up and use a personal & business Facebook page for your campaign to send regular campaign updates.
  • Always include a link to your campaign whenever posting about it on Facebook.
  • Set up a private group and get leads to join it. Ask them for feedback on your project and use their comments to build a stronger campaign.

Twitter

  • Use popular and trending hashtags to raise awareness for your campaign.
  • Ask contacts for retweets to help spread the word about your campaign.
  • Tweet at people (even those you don’t know) who might have a special interest in the subject of your campaign.
  • Make sure your team also tweet to their contacts about the campaign.

Crowdfunding is a game-changer and has made it easier than ever before for you to launch your big idea. Use the information explained in both parts of this blog to help develop your campaign and launch it successfully. For more information about how Wow Your Crowd, crowdfunding agency UK can help support you with your campaign, get in touch today and arrange a free crowdfunding strategy success session. To your crowdfunding success!


Crowdfunding 101 - How to Crowdfund Your Big Idea Successfully Part 1

Many entrepreneurs and businesses struggle to raise the funding they require to turn their big idea into a reality. Crowdfunding helps to solve this issue, but how do you crowdfund? In this 2 part blog, we explain the main areas of ‘how to crowdfund your big idea successfully’, and highlight certain strategies we use here at Wow Your Crowd, which you can implement and help launch your campaign successfully.

Crowdfunding is being used across industries in many different ways to great effect. Helping individuals and businesses to build communities of customers and followers and to raise funding, which helps to advance projects and causes and improve the lives of us all.

The three main types of Crowdfunding are Donations, Equity and Rewards.

Rewards Crowdfunding is the most known form of Crowdfunding, due to the rise of Kickstarter the famous Crowdfunding platform, where projects generally pre-sell products, in order to raise the money required to manufacture the product.

Equity crowdfunding is on the rise with more platforms appearing around the world as it becomes a legitimate way to raise investment for business projects. Investors gain shares/equity in the business for their investment.

Donation crowdfunding is primary for charity and social causes, where backers of campaigns donate to a good cause but generally don’t receive any form of reward for their donation apart from gratitude.

Although the three main types of Crowdfunding are quite different the core strategies that need to be implemented in order to run a successful campaign are the same. These strategies once learnt can be repeated time and time again whether you are crowdfunding or marketing your business or special cause.

The steps for how to crowdfund your bid idea successfully are:

Research & Analysis

The very first thing to do is to carry out research into successful campaigns similar to yours. Whether you are launching a product, raising investment or asking people to donate to your cause its vital you understand why campaigns have been successful.

Make notes, compiling a spreadsheet, which lists information about the campaign: for example campaign name, raise amounts, value propositions, positioning, messaging, target markets, reward types, pricing, type of imagery, type of video, website and campaign page design.

Message

The next stage is to clarify your message. Crowdfunding is about Innovative products, disruptive businesses and strong causes that will change the world for the better.

Use the information collected from the ‘research & analysis phase to position your product, business or cause so that it differentiates itself from other campaigns. Your offer should sound different from previous campaigns.

Think about who your audience is and write to them. What are their problems, pains and needs? Tailor the messaging to solve their biggest problem. Create copy that makes them feel emotionally connected to your project and wants to back your campaign. You are the leader and guide, make them want to be part of your movement and community.

All big brand advertising campaigns have a ‘planning’ phase at the beginning of a project. Where the planning team develops a ‘comms strategy’, which clarifies the key points that the campaign messaging should focus on. The comms strategy is like the launchpad for your rocketship. Without the comms strategy or more importantly the key points from it your campaign will struggle to take off.

Before you start your project, create a comms strategy and use it to help create the messaging for your campaign. Key points of your comms strategy include:

  • Your why - the reason why you are doing what you doing.
  • Your mission and vision statement.
  • USPs - unique selling propositions,
  • Features and benefits and the value they provide.
  • Target market/persona of your ideal audience, their likes and dislikes, age, backgrounds, jobs, financial position
  • Develop a branding guideline, including tone of voice and styling.

The comms strategy will form the foundation of your business moving forward as well as your campaign, so it's worth spending the time developing it.

Use the points from the comms strategy plus the research you carry out to craft the best messaging for your campaign, which attracts your audience and entices them to back your campaign.

Marketing Campaign

Once you have your messaging ready now is the time to build your marketing campaign. At the heart of your marketing is a marketing funnel, which generates awareness of your campaign and attracts leads to support you.

The key areas of your marketing funnel are:

  • Landing page
  • Email marketing
  • Facebook Paid Advertising Campaign
  • Social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc)
  • PR

Landing page - is a 2-page website, which has a ‘home page’ that works as a sales page and a ‘Thank you’ page. The home page is designed to showcase the launch of your campaign and request people who are interested in your campaign to sign up using their email address. Once someone signs up they are taken to the ‘Thank you’ page, where you can have additional messaging such as requesting people to join your Facebook page or community page.

Email marketing - Once someone registers their interest on the landing page their email address is added to your email list. You can then email the person on a regular basis nurturing a relationship with them. The idea is to provide them with relevant content about you and your campaign which entices them to back you when you launch. The whole idea of the email marketing sequence is to foster a relationship with the leads and get them to know like and trust you. This makes it easier to sell to them when your campaign goes live.

Facebook paid advertising campaign - is the preferred choice of traffic source. Running a Facebook ad campaign almost guarantees leads from your target market and is a very quick way to build up a large lead list. The only drawback is that is can be expensive, however, most successful rewards crowdfunding campaigns have used this strategy, understanding its important to invest money upfront in order to generate the leads required to make sales when your campaign launches.

Social media channels - use your social channels and your team’s channels to promote your campaign. It is best to start talking about your campaign as soon as you can, to build up the buzz and noise around your launch. Post about all topics to do with your campaign - the cause, the prototype, the team, experiences to date, campaign news, fun stuff etc.

PR is good for brand and campaign awareness. Not all campaigns use PR as it can be a bit hit and miss, with some industry stats indicating it is only responsible for generating 5% of campaign sales, however, PR, if done right, are great generating awareness and building interest in your product and company.

Build a Crowd

Building a crowd of hungry backers before you launch, who are ready to support you, is vital to the success of your campaign. Its a fact, the more people you have on your email list when you launch, the more money you will raise. But building a list is not easy and you will need to work hard using various strategies to build your crowd.

Many people think the crowdfunding platform will send people to your campaign but unfortunately, unless your campaign reaches around £25,000 in the first few days of launching, platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo will not promote your campaign. Industry stats show that 75% of funds raised by campaigns come from the traffic they sent to the campaign page. So, how do you build a crowd?

Leverage your network - Your own network is the foundation for your campaign and the best place to start building a crowd is with your friends and acquaintances. Sit down with your team and create a spreadsheet, which lists all of your contacts, use your phone's contacts and platforms like Facebook to build out your list. Once you have your close contact lists build a list of your 2nd and 3rd tier of contacts like friends, people from networking, relevant and related people and business. Use Linkedin for help with 2nd and 3rd tier contacts.

You need your campaign to gain momentum early on, so leveraging your close contacts to support you is a tried and tested method for gaining early support and getting your campaign off to a good start.

It takes more work to build a relationship with a cold lead and get them to know like and trust you, so don’t be shy to let your friends and contacts know what you are doing.

From your and teams list of contacts choose 15 to 20 people who can help amplify your campaign. Reach out to them and ask for their support in advertising your campaign across their networks, directing traffic to your landing page or campaign page depending at what stage your campaign is at. The bigger your team the bigger the reach you have.

Some tips for using social platforms to build awareness of your campaign:

Pinterest

  • Set up and use your Pinterest account to promote your project’s vision and “brand.
  • Pin pictures of your product/rewards and anything else visually interesting that relates to your project.
  • Pin images and videos that direct people back to your campaign.

Instagram

  • Post pictures documenting your product development and campaign journey.
  • Post pictures of the team and events relating to your project.
  • Tag your pictures with a link that relates to your campaign.

Facebook

  • Set up and use a personal & business Facebook page for your campaign to send regular campaign updates.
  • Always include a link to your campaign whenever posting about it on Facebook.
  • Set up a private group and get leads to join it. Ask them for feedback on your project and use their comments to build a stronger campaign.

Twitter

  • Use popular and trending hashtags to raise awareness for your campaign.
  • Ask contacts for retweets to help spread the word about your campaign.
  • Tweet at people (even those you don’t know) who might have a special interest in the subject of your campaign.
  • Make sure your team also tweet to their contacts about the campaign.

Crowdfunding may sound difficult but with the right team behind you and a solid plan, crowdfunding is simple and produces amazing results for those that get it right. For more information on crowdfunding video and how we can help support you with your campaign, get in touch with Wow Your Crowd, a crowdfunding Agency in the UK and arrange a free crowdfunding strategy success session. Speak soon!