If you don’t promote your crowdfunding campaign, it will simply fail. This is one of the most important aspects of crowdfunding as a fundraising tool. The only chance at getting featured on any of these platforms is if you show that there’s a significant interest in your offer. You have six main options for promotion: these are most common and effective for crowdfunding campaigns.
After all, you might have stakeholders who love you, know you and might help you make a crowdfunding campaign successful. The first few days after launch are important because visitors will need to see that some people already have backed you with their money. As ask your inner circle, your current stakeholder, the board, volunteers, partner organisation and your suppliers to back you as soon as your site is up and running.
2. Paid advertising
Some platforms offer the opportunity to pay for extra visibility on the front page or at certain intervals. If you can, allocate some money to do this, either in the beginning (if you don’t have a lot of stakeholders), in the middle (when the campaign is stalling) or at the end (just to get to the goal of you campaign).
3. Maintenance of your site
The more interesting background you provide the more visitors you will attract to your site. News update, a celebrity that donates, being halfway you goal; make sure your target audience knows about it.
4. Building an email list
Having an email list of people who are likely interested in your project is the best way to generate some early backers and get some momentum going. The most common approach is asking your current donors/supporters and building a list. They might feel inspired by your project and will ask others. If you have contact with a company, ask if you can email their customers and/or staff. Look at previous contacts you had with ‘enablers’ or ‘influencers’, people who have a following, bloggers, service clubs, sport clubs, celebrities.
In addition, you could create valuable blog posts about related topics and collect email addresses of readers. This is called content marketing.
5. Encourage your supporters
Making enough noise around your campaign is vital for its success. The strongest message is not from your organisation itself but from others who believe in your project. Ask them to make ‘the noise’: promote it amongst their own network.
6. How to get press for your crowdfunding campaign
If you’re building your own email list, you’re essentially creating an audience from scratch. The alternative is to get your campaign in front of audiences that others have built. Typically, bloggers and journalists, as mentioned above. In order to be successful with this, there needs to be something special and unique about your project that is intriguing. Once you have helped the press to understand this, they will promote it. You can’t go wrong with this!
Know How
Examples
Tools
Resources
Related Toolkits