By: Josef Holm (Tech Entrepreneur, Crowdfunding Innovator & CEO Krowdster)
These actionable crowdfunding marketing tips were developed for rewards/pre-sale crowdfunding campaigns on #Kickstarter, #Indiegogo and similar crowdfunding platforms, but most tips work for all types of campaigns. Crowdfunding success is a direct result of proper planning and execution.
The time before launching your campaign is the most important phase, when the outcome for most campaigns is decided. This blog post contains essential steps you need to take for your campaign to become a success.
- Build an Email List
Nothing beats email. Email still is the most cost-effective way to reach supporters when you need to. According to Indiegogo, visitors attracted by email are 20% more likely to make a pledge than other sources. The bigger your email list is, the better for your campaign.
Where to get email addresses from? You’ll be surprised how many email contacts the average person already has, sometimes unknowingly. Create an Excel file and fill it with names and email addresses from your email inbox, client lists or company newsletters. Gmail users can easily export contacts or extract all emails from conversations in the inbox.
We strongly advise against buying email lists and emailing people you don’t know. Follow the CAN-SPAM rules and other applicable law. Build a dedicated email list for your campaign
You can either collect emails on your website or use a service like Prefundia. In a few mouse clicks you can set up a ”coming soon” page designed to introduce your upcoming crowdfunding campaign and collect emails to grow your list.
How to send mass emails? There are email service providers like MailChimp or AWeber that allow you to import contact lists and send out emails to those lists, or if you use Gmail you may consider Mail Merge to send personalized emails to your list for free.
- Grow Your Twitter Following
Why should you care about Twitter? Twitter is the world’s second biggest social network with 320+ million active users. Compared to Facebook, where the organic reach of fan pages has dropped below 5%, it is still free and instant to reach your Twitter following whenever you want. How to grow an engaged Twitter following? Unless you are some sort of celebrity or have mainstream media exposure, growing a decent-sized Twitter following organically is an uphill battle. Luckily there are tools that help you and speed up the process immensely, like the Krowdster Twitter Marketing tool.
Building a targeted and engaged Twitter following can take several months but is an investment that you will benefit from in the future, because the Twitter following is yours forever.
Use Twitter to boost awareness and drive traffic to your website, pre-campaign page or campaign page. Twitter is a great marketing tools and traffic source that you should not overlook.
Best practices- Most importantly, don’t just ask people for money. Invite them to become a part of your project and start a meaningful conversation first. Never come across as desperate. Always take the high-road when receiving feedback.
- Connect with Backers & Super Backers
How to find previous backers and super backers? Krowdster’s Backer Directory is the world’s largest database of backers of previous Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns. The directory can be filtered by platform, category, location and number of previous campaigns supported to find backers and super backers who have backed more than 50 campaigns.
How to engage with backers? The ever-growing Backer Directory gives you access to backer’s social media accounts on networks like Facebook and Twitter.
There are built-in tools to engage with backers on Twitter and to automate the whole process which saves a ton of time. The Backer Directory makes it easy to identify supporters of similar campaigns than yours and to contact them via social media. Always remember that regardless of how easy this makes it to connect with backers, there are rules to follow if you want to be successful.
Best practices:
Don’t just ask backers for support.
Invite them to become a part of your project and start a meaningful conversation first.
Never come across as desperate.
Invite feedback and take the high-road when receiving it.
- Secure the First 30%
Don’t launch without support lined up. This early-stage marketing tip is fundamental: Before you launch your campaign, make sure to secure the first 30% of your funding goal from your inner circle like friends, family and existing customers.
Why is this important? No one likes to be the first to put money in an uncertain crowdfunding campaign so if your campaign doesn’t look like a shining success in the making, you simply won’t be able to convert 2nd and 3rd level connections into backers.
This is why you need to line up as much initial support as you can; in the form of supporters who know you, trust you, and to whom you reach out long before your campaign launches and who will make their pledges the minute your campaign goes live.
How to get it done:
For example, let’s assume your funding goal is $25,000 which means that you should secure at least $7,500 in pledges that will be made right when your campaign launches.
Make a list of your 1st level connections who you think will be likely support your campaign. Add the amount you think each person can contribute next to each name. Call each of them individually and explain to them what your campaign is about and why you need their support and that you need it right when your campaign launches. Don’t launch until you have 30% of your funding goal secured. Seriously, don’t.
The minute your campaign goes live, call them again to remind them to make their pledge NOW.
Source- Linkedin.com
