Crowdfunding 101 - Part 10

This was meant to be the 'in conclusion' post, but yesterday I was exploring some other online applications and there could be an appended post tomorrow to review them. However, I will summarise the necessary information about what needs to be required to have a good and effective campaign going, to hopefully get the contributions required to make it work.

You aim to colour your campaign in many ways so that the rainbow effect of internet play will bring you a pot of gold at the end of it. This is not as simple as it sounds. As I portrayed in the first post, crowd funding is almost like a full-time job. What I will tell you here is things I recommend and also what I don't condone to get your campaign working well. I will say here, before I start, that crowd funding is a lot of hard work. I am thinking of a second campaign to raise the remainder of the monies required to get my project going. However, I have decided to take a month off from the actual campaign to rest a little (I say rest operatively, as I have my normal work, and the tasks to perform to get the next campaign ready).

One point I didn't raise all the way through these posts is the threat of the con-artists and web sharks. These are the groups that ask you to contribute to their campaign and in return they will yours. These are the companies that say they will boost your position on the site, but then tell you to do 'this, that and the other' at your expense, etc. Now, I am not saying they are bad or wrong in their intent. What you need to do is sum up their worth. The conversion of visitors to contributors is the goal, and making the total is the objective. Spending money in desperation is not a key or strong element to good crowdfunding.

As I said, take a month or even two, before you start to plan everything. And I mean everything. Make a list of all the necessary angles, all the necessary tools, and then brainstorm it some more. As you (like I) will have forgotten some. Then create a schedule of effect. Figure out when the best time and days are to post things, when something needs to go out (like a press release and ThunderClaps). Strategy is more important in some cases than actual people to reach. What I mean by this is if you have a million people in front of you and sell the product the wrong way, it can be more pointless than having a thousand and selling it the best way. Why, because it's about conversion.

So, how do we fit all the pieces together. Well, the best thing I can tell you, which I learnt too late for the first campaign, is to treat the potential customers (contributors) as if they were involved in your project. Make the rewards more tailored to personalisation, make posts on the Facebook wall that thank people (they love their Andy Warhol 15mins), and don't blast at places like your were white washing a wall. It takes time to personalise emails and and wall/blog postings, but it can work. And there are some tools out there that can help in the process of cutting down on time loss. Maybe not those activities that involve personalisation, but at least the ones that will then free up time to do these.

The Strategy/Plan

Here I will go through some (I don't have time to list all the ways) to help make this work.

If you can get help from friends and project members to do a great deal of "grunt" work then do. It's nearly a Sisyphean task to try and complete this alone.
If you are thinking of using ThunderClap, 100 people is the minimum, then try to coax them into play way before you need them, and make sure they are related to your demographics. And then make sure they are willing to do repeat ThunderClaps.
Make sure you build audiences in many social media venues, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+, etc. (There is a service I didn't mention here, called Fiverr, that can actually raise numbers sites like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, to increate your ratings, and draw real people, and at a cost of only $5)
Follow people as much as trying to get followers. Many follower conversions happen because people find you following well-known people.
As far as Facebook goes, scan popular feeds and the news feed and comment on people posts as much as you can, and include your own @page_name tag when doing so.
Use hashtags whenever possible, even if you don't think they are needed, as they are used as a quick search method by people. There are applications that can help this so research.
Spend time making an email list of people to contact. And then separate them into groups.
Use a mass email application to make it seem that the emails are personal.
Find groups/blogs and forums in your area of interest.
Post articles of interest to feed the audiences.
Make a blog and make daily posts of interest.
Use applications like Pinterest/Instagram/Tumblr in a clever way.

Campaign Specific

Post regular updates (one a day or one every other day)
Reply to comments, or make comments (like thanking contributors)
Add images in the gallery or on the stream to show interaction.
If there are days of no contributions, then add some from your fund. However, this should be done in small amounts, not one big one. Mainly as the frequency is important, not the amount.
Use images in updates and always add the link of the campaign to the update.
Set up a MailChimp account and add contributors to the Newsletter list. Then make a frequent Newsletter during the campaign, to make people aware that you are doing things.
Get a Bitly URL account and make sure that you paste the campaign one, EVERYWHERE you do a post.

Does/Don't

Do try to personalise posts and emails
Don't blast on walls and in groups
Do comment as much as possible on posts, and add URL
Don't sell out to helping organisations, they don't do that much for the money
Do integrate as many social sites as possible
Don't think one site is enough to make the conversion
Do make interesting rewards (more personal the better)
Don't leave everything to the last minute.

I am sure there are a lot of things I have missed in the review, but if you look over the previous posts you can see what is essential in the development of the campaign. What I plan to do is, when it comes to my next campaign, I will actually make posts on my specific process I am doing and see how this plays out. What I would like to do, as I haven't had time is make a PDF to list all the applications, etc, and share that. When I do I will add a post. All I ask in return is that you like this and previous posts and maybe visit the links and consider sharing and following. As I said, I will review the new tools tomorrow, but for the time being I leave the campaign insight there.
If you have any questions about things missed, etc, add a comment and I can reply.

Thanks, hope it was of help?

First posted on my blog on 10th April 2014