By Joe Cunningham, UVC Community Connector
Getting your business started is a long and complex process. As with many things, money can solve a lot of your problems. When pitching to investors shows no quick fix, there is another way that’s become very popular online: crowdfunding.
From Exploding Kittens to a poor man’s Batman suit, a myriad of interesting projects have been funded 100 times over on popular crowdfunding websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The trend has attracted philanthropists of all kinds to donate $5-$5k to a variety of cool new companies and gadgets via the World Wide Web.
57% of crowdfunding campaigns fail. Here are a few ways to give your fledgeling company the best possible chance of getting money via online crowdfunding.
1) Must Have a (Good) Video
Not having one reduces chances of success by 26%. So, duh!
Here’s the “Best Of” from Indiegogo from a few years back.
2) Choose the Platform Right for You
And read the fine print.
Okay, not all of it, but at least enough to know that if you choose Kickstarter and don’t reach goal, you keep nothing. Indiegogo lets you give them more of a percentage (naturally) if you want to take him every other dollar of a failed goal attempt.
3) Don’t Just Ask for Money
You’ve got to “give them an offer they can’t refuse.”
Most successful campaigns not only sell the donors on how amazing their idea is, how it will change the world etc.; but offer some sort of brownie points/swag for helping them out. Take the wildly successful Exploding Kittens campaign: for just $20, you get one of the games in 6 months. Result: broke the crowdfunding records: beat their $10k goal in just 20 minutes; raised $8.7 million total.
4) Don’t Just Use Social Media
Given the nature of online crowdfunding, social media marketing is an obvious means to achieve your goal, but old school methods are important as well. For instance, after you share the message on your company and personal Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, call your friends and business associates and ask them to donate and share the link as well. It’s the best of both the old fashioned and new media worlds.
Bonus Tip: Love Will Find a Way
The “magic sauce,” the “secret,” the “X factor” isn’t really a mystery at all. Paraphrasing the words of a good friend, Jeff Knauss, President of The Digital Hyve, an online marketing agency, “There’s no secret to success. It’s just about hard work.”
What other tips do you have for creating a successful crowdfunding campaign? We would like to know. Add your own in the comments below.
