Running a crowdfunding campaign can take up a lot of time and energy. It all begins with the efforts that you take before the campaign even goes live. You’ve got to market your ideas like crazy and encourage people to get orders in right away. Having an angel investor or two also helps because investors feel like they’re getting more bang for their buck. If you want a $100,000 success story, however, you’re going to need some extra help.
Friends and Family Can Only Do So Much
In the first days of any given crowdfunding campaign, the first respondents are generally family and friends. You might get a few close business associates helping and some word of mouth advertising helping you out, but unless you’re a known name like LeVar Burton, then that’s about all you’ll get.
That’s why pre-marketing is so critical to your success. By bringing in the local press and online affiliates, you can begin reaching others with your idea. The goal is to have publications in different demographics to be willing to feature your crowdfunding campaign in some way. When this happens, a spike in participation almost always happens as well.
A great example of this is for the Bluetooth tag app called Duet. In the first days, they saw less than $5,000 in participation come in and most of that came from their personal networks and email lists. When an article was released about Duet from an online tech magazine, the monetary participation levels tripled.
It’s Not Just the Press That Gives You Press
There are a number of email marketing lists out there. Almost everyone has a newsletter. These are big time ways to get the word out about your product to a thriving, engaged customer base. When Indiegogo featured Duet in their weekly newsletter, the crowdfunding campaign saw an almost equal level of increased participation.
That’s something that you can replicate on a local level. Contact the businesses in your community to see if they’ll include a small feature about your crowdfunding campaign. Most newsletters are desperate for new content, so there is gratefulness for the idea. In return, you get better brand saturation and ultimately better participation.
Without a proper marketing launch, great ideas simply become average ideas. They might still succeed, but it is a struggle. Average ideas – they just fail. You could make videos and have great rewards, but sharing it on Facebook here or there or adding a few tweets about your campaign is going to make it fail.
You need ambassadors. To get them, you must get the press involved in every demographic to get the widest range of support. If you can do that, through the quality of your product and your efforts to reach out to others, you really can have your next crowdfunding campaign be a $100k success.
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