Effective Tips For a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Effective Tips For a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Reach Out to Different People via Social Media

Your network can broadly be divided into four categories: solids, 1st, 2nd and 3rd networks. Reaching out to your network is key for crowdfunding. Solids are people closest to you such as immediate family members or close friends. 1st network includes people you are in regular contact with. 2nd network comprises people with who you are not constantly in touch with but know each other. 3rd network has people with who you have mutual connections or references with. 

Leverage The Power of Influencers On Social Media

Tag relevant celebrities or influencers in your posts, or reach out to any if you know them personally and encourage them to post on their social media. Celebrities or influencers can help you gain more popularity and audience attention. They have a higher reach and individuals are more likely to contribute if they see their favourite celebrity or influencer contributing. 

Using WhatsApp to Connect With Like-Minded People

Create a WhatsApp group of well-wishers who might be interested in the product that you’re building. Forming a WhatsApp group of those interested in the project can help in spreading the word. In this group, you can send regular follow-ups, appeals and informative messages. Make sure to add those who are genuinely interested in the project. 

Give a Personal Touch to the Messages

Customise personal messages; use your contact’s name or use a personal reference in your communication with them. Customising messages adds a personal touch and your audience or backers might feel a connection with the project. It also is a sign of effective communication and helps in garnering more interest.

Schedule Your Posts on Different Platforms

Create a rough timeline for your posts and the platforms you will be engaging on. A timeline is always helpful to ensure timely posts at regular intervals and tracking their progress. It helps the project stay on track and not lose sight of the goal.

Engage More on Crucial Days

The first and last 3 days of the project are the most important- be cognizant of that and communicate effectively during those days. The support is highest during the first and last 3 days. Make sure to capitalise on this time and aggressively promote your project.

Keep an eye out for crucial days to engage more with your audience!

Know Your Audience

Understand your audience and post accordingly from different categories of content; informative, persuasive, narrative and more. Your audience comes from various backgrounds; it is important to understand that and curate your content accordingly. The content has been divided into sub-categories- informative, persuasive and emotional. Informative focuses on providing additional information for the project and the community, persuasive is geared towards pushing individuals to contribute and narrative is to create an appeal to encourage contributions. Utilize relevant content from these categories to post on your social media.

Consistent Posting Can Go a Long Way

Post regularly to keep the project alive — focus on continued engagement and not the volume of the posts. Do not let the project “fall asleep” and continue posting content throughout the duration. It is key to focus on regular posts as opposed to too many posts at the same time. 

Communication With Your Backers

Update and follow-up posts are equally important to show your audience how much has been raised already and to acknowledge your backers’ support. Post regular updates about the project so the backers are aware of the progress. You can also thank your backers and acknowledge their support in the project’s advancement. This will keep them in the loop and also encourage them to share it within their networks.

Get in Touch With Potential Backers

Call individuals who might be interested and ask them to contribute to the project. Calling individuals from your network will help garner interest leading to contributions. Direct calls help in easy communication and potential backers can also ask questions regarding the products.

Understand Audience Demographics

Understand your own reach and audience; if they belong to a particular demographic, make posts that will draw their attention. As pointed out earlier, understanding your audience and reach is important for the project. Identifying the key demographic that engages with your product can help you decide what content to post.

Don’t Overdo the Social Media Game

Posting too much or too often might also lead to people losing attention in the product; instead, you can use social media for more than just money like sharing relevant information for the project and adding the crowdfunding link below. Excess content can also create fatigue, leading your audience to lose interest in the project. Instead, you can use social media to post about different kinds of information and add a link to your crowdfunding page at the end.

Connect with Your Audience on Festivals

Capitalise on festivals and occasions when people feel like they are particularly in the giving spirit. The time when people are in the giving spirit is the ideal time to gain support. During occasions like birthdays or anniversaries, you can ask those close to you or within your family to contribute a small amount for the project to show support for new beginnings.

Use a Combination of Posts

In your posts use different visuals like collaterals, infographics, audiovisual content — this will help in generating interest and providing more context. Social media fatigue is real and a majority of the audience does not like seeing text-only posts. Mix your content by using different kinds of visuals such as infographics or collaterals or using audiovisual content. 

Understand What Works Best on Different Platforms

Understand how different social media platforms function and post relevant content on each one; for instance, using personalised messages on WhatsApp or relevant hashtags on Twitter. Each social media platform has its unique customer engagement dynamic and it is essential to recognize the different metrics. For WhatsApp messages, you can lead with personalised messages for individuals or groups. Twitter uses hashtags extensively so the focus could be on that.

Make Hashtags Your Superpower

Use hashtags extensively and try to make them as creative as possible. Hashtags play a vital role in digital outreach but the trick is to make them as creative as possible. Regular hashtags will not gain as much visibility as hashtags that are creative and stand out. They should be relevant to the cause and clearly communicate the many facets of it.

Use your creativity to come up with new hashtags as well.

Explain the ‘Why’ behind your products

Share information both about yourself and why you’ve begun the project. While sharing information about the project it may also be useful to share information about the organisation that has initiated it. Let the audience know what problem statement are you solving with your product.

Video Message for Clarity

Create your own 30-second video; your audience is more likely to engage when they see your face in the post on your personal social media platforms. Your followers are more likely to be drawn if they see your face on the post and would consider contributing. Furthermore, it suggests that you are personally invested in the product.

Connect With Your Audience In-Person

Hold offline awareness events at your workplace/college and try to source contributions from these events wherein people can simply donate by scanning a QR code. Conducting offline events are of great value to crowdfunding campaigns.

Focus on the Rewards and Bonuses

Create a reward-tier system, so people can get mini rewards, like a thank you note, for contributing to your campaign. Rewards encourage people and create a feel-good emotion. This is an extremely important emotion to capitalise on. Make sure that you build rewards for every bracket that a backer might be from. Rewards help create a feeling of trust and importance in the minds of the backers.

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