1. Be Strategic and Targeted
Start marketing for your campaign at least 4 months before you launch. Be strategic about who you contact. Determine the audience for your campaign and identify which blogs they visit and what interests they have. Also single out journalists and bloggers that have written about similar campaigns or projects and contact them to write about your campaign before it goes live. Google is your friend. This way you gain social proof through well-known individuals in your target industry talking about you.
Don’t forget to utilize sites that exclusively promote crowdfunding campaigns. While Kicktraq is mainly for tracking the progress of your campaign, it is also a great place to promote it since it gives statistics on each campaign. Blogs that are focused on crowdfunding like CrowdFundBeat and CrowdBooster can also get the attention of backers and influencers. YouTube is a great place to tell your story, but since gaining a substantial following can take time, consider using an existing YouTube Influencer. Places like Craigslist are also great, since you can discuss your campaign in their forums and get to people you wouldn’t ordinarily come across.
2. Be Reputable
Ensure that you have a story worth telling. Building a team with a reputation can boost your story. It’s no secret that the most successful campaigns come from teams with varied and interesting experiences. Whether it has to do with your childhood obsession with building computers, or the fact that the members on your team come from 4 different continents, make it something to talk about. Campaigns with more than 4 team members statistically generate double the money of campaigns with only one person, so consider who you want to work with.
Don’t waffle, make your story short and to the point. Campaigns that have a video on their site shorter than 5 minutes are statistically 25% more likely to reach their goal. Keep in mind the “elevator pitch”. What would you say to an investor if you get into an elevator and have 10 floors to pitch your campaign to them and get their signature?
3. Be Quick
Forget the slow burn. While you should give yourself enough time to prepare before you go live, the actual duration of your campaign should be short and sweet. Ramping up quickly makes you far more likely to succeed. Try and reach 30% of your goal in the first week (this is where your strategic marketing beforehand will really help). Not only will you reach your goal quicker, enthusiasm for your campaign won’t peter out and leave you with half of your goal still left to go. Statistics show that you have a 25% better chance to get a website visitor’s pledge if you have reached 40% of your goal. Visitors will also spend 35% more time on your website since there is social proof for your campaign.
Interestingly enough, shorter campaigns tend to do better than ones that last for a long time. Campaigns that are shorter than 40 days are 6% more likely to reach their goal. This tells you that you should get in quick and get out just as quick.
4. Be Social
Take advantage of social media to keep your backers in the loop. You are likely to get three times as much money if you update your backers at least every 5 days, but we recommend touching base more frequently.
Crowdfunding groups and pages on Facebook are great places to get advice on how to promote your campaign, but you’ll get lost in the noise if you just promote there. It is essential to niche down on Facebook and social media. Target the pages and communities that talk about products and topics that are similar to yours. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a crowdfunding blog, but just related to the topic of your campaign.
5. Be Original and Unpredictable
Don’t be afraid to pull out all the tricks in the book. Find original ways to promote your campaign. Social media and online promotion are obviously essential, but more traditional and original methods can get you support from places you don’t expect.
Despite everything moving to social media and chatbots, emails are still an incredibly effective way to garner interest and support for crowdfunding campaigns. Emails have an average 25% conversion rate. Compare this to a Facebook post with an average of 3.8% conversion, and it is clear how more direct targeting influences your campaign’s bottom line. So, pull out those email lists and start typing.
Go Local. By incorporating a human-interest aspect into your campaign, you can easily get the attention of local news outlets and even TV shows. Contact local reporters to tell your story and who knows, yours might be the campaign that goes viral.
Offline methods such as phone calls, texts and conversation are still incredibly valuable to get attention for your campaign. A nice trick is to wear a name tag stating: “I support (campaign name).” It’s a nice conversation starter and will give you the confidence to share your story face-to-face.