Your crowdfunding campaign is comparable to a protracted product launch. You will need to devote considerable time to marketing and public relations before, during, and especially after your campaign to ensure its success.
Far too many new business owners believe crowdfunding is a simple or free way to make money, but it takes significant effort to create a project that funders will perceive as providing a valuable service. As crowdfunding continues to grow in prominence, backers have become considerably more discerning about which campaigns they will fund.
Utilizing social media as a pre-campaign lead generation strategy is the key to initiating a successful crowdfunding campaign. Before launching your campaign, spend a month or so posting on social media to collect prospects who wish to be notified when the campaign goes live.
Lead generation prior to a campaign has two benefits:
A successful launch day propels your campaign to the top of the platform's trending listings, resulting in an abundance of free traffic.
It offers a wealth of free information on how to position your campaign and how potential investors respond.
Information gathered prior to a campaign helps you coordinate the campaign and provides you with specific selling points, resulting in a high conversion rate once the campaign is live.
Creating strong momentum for the launch of your campaign can place you on the first page of your crowdfunding site, and the higher you are, the less you will have to spend on advertising.
A compelling video, excellent product photographs, social proof, and engaging campaign copy are required to convert visitors into backers.
At the forefront of your marketing efforts should be a video campaign that can be repurposed for use across multiple platforms. Whether you are creating the video on your own or with a professional team, you must take charge of the scripts and ensure that they contain the following:
What you, your company, and your brand represent. Ensure that you inform potential investors about yourself, as they are investing in you and your business only exists due to your efforts.
Tell a tale. The needs you have identified and how you came up with your solution. The current standing of your product, company, and/or brand.
Why would you purchase your product? Why you identified the market gap and how your product will satisfy the requirements of your target market. If the only thing you're offering is a cheaper product, make sure your patrons understand that it still fulfills a need for everyone.
Why you need assistance. Be transparent about the purpose of your crowdfunding campaign and how the funds will be spent.
Include a direct request for support; ensure that your supporters feel valued by you, your business, and your product.
What your supporters will receive. Make sure to emphasize what the supporters will receive, or you will appear to be begging for money, which is common on crowdfunding sites.
Keeping in mind that viewers have short attention spans, your video should be between two and three minutes long and convey its key points swiftly.
Create 15-second teasers to accompany the main video and distribute them on social media to direct patrons to the main video.
As the quality of your product photographs can make or break a conversion with potential supporters, it is essential that yours appear professional.
Photos
Good photographs can display more than simply the prototype and its specifications. Include additional images to help sponsors understand your brand as a whole.
Backers enjoy behind-the-scenes images and photos that illustrate the progress you've made thus far; include photos of you and/or your family so that backers can support someone they "know." By providing potential supporters with an insider's perspective, you will foster a sense of connection between them and your team and process.
Social proof Including social proof in your campaign will significantly increase its credibility. Crowdfunding is a highly innovative field, and many of these new products and entrepreneurs lack a track record demonstrating that they will deliver a quality product.
Therefore:
Attempt to obtain product evaluations from reputable third parties. Contact sector influencers or use social media to invite potential customers to review your offering or, if you have the completed product, to review the product itself.
Create brief campaign videos featuring product walkthroughs. If you receive the same question more than three times, you should create a short campaign video addressing it; the more you do this, the more backers will realize that you are attentive and sincere about your business and its products.
Copywriting
As important as high-quality images are for a crowdfunding campaign, so are well-written words. To create a successful campaign, you will need a compelling title and a clear, convincing project description.
Your project's title should be simple, descriptive, and memorable; however, the best headings are likely not the first ones you generate. Make sure your title includes the name of your endeavor or product.
If you are creating organic cat food, "The New Organic Cat Food" might be a good title to start with, but "Webb's Organic Cat Food – for cats who deserve it" is more appropriate.
Remember that your product was developed to fulfil a need, so if you make unbreakable gifts for children, "Webb's Toys that even your child cannot break" will generate interest.
Notice that titles that explicitly address the prospective client sound better than those that do not.
The introduction to your campaign should provide backers with a clear comprehension of your product, the problem it solves, and how it compares to other products on the market. Always start strong; if you spend 10 pages building up to the actual benefits of your products or services, you are expecting too much; it is preferable to start with the benefits and then spend time proving them.
Instead of requiring people to read the entire campaign page to comprehend the essentials, use the essentials to entice them to continue reading.
Your proposal should be succinct and direct. It is simply the three sentences you would use if someone asked you what you did while you were seated on an airplane.
After your campaign's launch, you should continue to solicit support. The more you post, the greater the likelihood that your campaign will gain traction on social media.
Reaching out to individuals who write about your niche is essential to any crowdfunding campaign. By utilizing social media effectively, the major media entities will discover you, and your campaign will be poised for success.
Do not undervalue the importance of understanding how to manage your income and expenditures during and after your campaign, particularly if you have little experience with business finance. A competent accountant can help you get off on the right foot by optimizing your campaign earnings, taxes, expenses, and cash flow.
This should not be too expensive and could save you a great deal of trouble in the future.
Consider the platform fees of the crowdfunding site when setting your fundraising objectives. Some sites charge up to 5% of your total funding and 3%–5% in payment processing fees if your product is successfully funded.
Marketing your crowdfunding campaign is crucial to its success. Crowdfunding is a marketing strategy for generating revenue and increasing product awareness. Promoting your campaign and persuading people to contribute a small quantity in order to raise the necessary funds in a short period of time comes down to effective marketing.
With the increasing use of crowdfunding as a source of funding for entrepreneurs, you should be able to implement a successful crowdfunding marketing strategy for their campaigns. Additionally, you should be aware of the marketing expenses associated with a successful crowdfunding campaign. There are numerous advantages to utilizing crowdfunding, but identifying the costs and developing a successful marketing strategy for the crowdfunding platform are crucial to your success.