The most important factor in a successful crowdfunding campaign is the marketing strategy. This is an area that most Kickstarter and Indiegogo creators have trouble mastering. However, marketing can be very simple when you have the right guide. This list will guide you through the easiest ways to get more pledges and secure press coverage. There are marketing services that will bring you pledges up front and let you choose what you want to pay afterwards. There are marketing tools that guarantee your crowdfunding campaign will be successful. There are also marketing strategies to get featured on Kickstarter and Indiegogo which will expose your campaign to millions of people. The more of these simple marketing strategies you use together, the more successful your crowdfunding campaign will be.
Pre-Launch Marketing
Crowdfunding campaigns that fail, almost always fail because they skipped this step. Pre-launch marketing sets the momentum for your entire campaign. If you are not certain that you will raise at least 50% of your funding goal on your launch day, then you are not ready to launch. The momentum of your launch day will be consistent throughout your campaign. So, if you only receive a few pledges on your first day, you will quickly be buried by other crowdfunding campaigns. However, if you have a great launch, then it will be much easier to get featured on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Raising 100% of your goal on the first day will make it easy to gain press and media attention. This is why pre-launch marketing is so critical for a successful crowdfunding project. Set aside at least 3 to 5 months before launching your crowdfunding campaign to focus on this strategy.
To keep the pre-launch marketing strategy simple, focus on building an email list; growing a social audience; and securing press coverage. This takes a lot of time but does not need to be expensive. Instead of hiring a PR agency you can email blogs and influencers in your niche on your own. You can easily run your own Facebook ads to build an email list and grow your social following. To help secure attention from blogs and influencers you can give samples of your product to them for review. This will also build trust with crowdfunding backers.
Guaranteed Marketing Services
If you want to raise a lot of pre-orders but do not have a large marketing budget; you can use a crowdfunding marketing service that does not charge until after you receive your profits. This is the strategy used by the top Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns. A professional marketing service that is specialized in Kickstarter or Indiegogo will help you receive more press coverage, grow your social audience, and receive more pledges. The added momentum from these services will push you towards the top of Kickstarter and Indiegogo resulting in even more pledges and press. If you use the best services, you can accomplish this without risking marketing funds.
Use several marketing services together to make this strategy even more effective. However, be careful about which services you use. Some will ask for large payments up front or charge 30% of your campaign’s budget in the end. The most simple way to filter out the good marketing services from the bad is to use ones that offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Crowdfunding marketing services may have different strategies for bringing you pledges. As long as they offer a full guarantee, there is no risk to your crowdfunding campaign. Gadget Feed provides crowdfunding marketing with no upfront fee. They also let you choose how much you want to pay after your campaign is successfully funded. Using several of these marketing services together will help you exceed your funding goals without risking any marketing capital.
Social Marketing
Social marketing is a cheap and effective marketing strategy for a crowdfunding campaign. A startup with a large team will often have one person dedicated to social marketing because it is so effective. If you are launching a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign by yourself, you will still be effective in social marketing if you use the right strategy. The trick is to use online tools that let you schedule out your posts months in advanced. That way you will have social posts automatically going out to your Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages.
Posting to your social accounts and engaging with people is not enough to grow a large audience. You will need to implement additional marketing strategies. The most effective ways to grow your audience in a short amount of time includes Facebook ads, partnering with influencers in your niche, and hosting a giveaway. These are all marketing strategies that are easy to implement and won’t take much time or money away from your marketing budget. Social influencers might share your product in exchange for mailing them a sample of your product. Hosting a giveaway will encourage followers to tag their friends and share your posts with their audiences. Running Facebook ads will help your posts reach a very targeted audience.
Press and Blog Coverage
Getting good press can push your crowdfunding page into a level of sales you weren’t expecting. Not only does this add trust to your Kickstarter or Indiegogo project, it will help drive free traffic that can convert to more pledges. As you receive press coverage, add in a press section to your crowdfunding page to share who has been featuring you. This will build trust with backers that don’t know about your news coverage.
Securing press is easiest with small blogs in your niche. Once you have been published by those blogs, you can begin reaching out to larger magazines. Proper pre-launch marketing will also make securing press easier. Getting featured with 100% of your goal funded on the first day is much easier than getting featured with no pledges. The more successful your campaign is, the more editors will assume their audience will have interest in your crowdfunding campaign.
Provide More Media
When you launch a crowdfunding campaign, you’re asking strangers to put money into a product that doesn’t exist. The more trust that you can provide the more likely they will support you. Also, the more they know who is behind the Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign the more they will care about your story. So, the longer you can make your crowdfunding page, the more visitors you will convert to backers. Reading to the bottom of the page and still having questions might result in lost pledges. So, add as much content as you can and answer as many questions as you can. Also, the more you can embed short videos and GIFs into your crowdfunding page, the more interesting your page will become. Adding media might not feel like a marketing strategy but it’s a part of your copywriting. It’s very difficult to have a successful marketing campaign unless you have great media on your Kickstarter and Indiegogo pages.
Your Crowdfunding Campaign is a Marketing Campaign
If you think of your crowdfunding campaign as a marketing campaign for additional projects, then you may become more creative with your marketing strategy. If this is your first Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign you might find it beneficial to do a test run with a simple product. Before launching your main item, you can run a campaign for a similar item that costs $5. Choose something that is easy to deliver. This will build a solid audience and earn their trust by delivering your first item. When you launch your main item a couple months later, you will have more trust with your audience and with your crowdfunding platform. Kickstarter is more likely to feature a crowdfunding campaign that has already successfully delivered items through their platform.
The Conclusion to Crowdfunding Marketing Strategies
Marketing for a crowdfunding campaign is simple. Use the listed marketing strategies in combination to have the greatest effect. Instead of having a goal to get funded, make your goal getting 100% funded on your launch day. This will give a level of momentum that carries throughout your crowdfunding campaign. As a startup that’s raising capital, its not advised to spend a lot of money on PR agencies that do not offer guarantees. There are many marketing services specifically for crowdfunding campaigns that will guarantee your success and won’t charge until after you are successful. Also, remember this is just one project. You can leverage this crowdfunding campaign to have more success for your future projects if you build trust with your audience.
