Why do some projects reach their target, and others don’t?!

Ben Hamilton - Fri, May 5th, 2012 10:31am

That, my crowdfunding friend, is the ultimate question for every crowdfunder.

Some have their theories, whilst others have attempted to analyse trends, but sadly nothing is guaranteed. There are no rules. At the end of the day, you need to find a crowd that cares.

What we can do however is share some insights with you, looking at all of our PleaseFund.Us success stories, which might give you more of an idea what you need to be aiming for.

It takes 49 days for a project to successfully reach its target (on average)

…although we’ve had some reach theirs in just 4 days.

Time and time again, project owners make the same mistake of thinking that the longer a campaign, the better chance they’ll have of reaching their target. Wrong!

Regardless of how big your funding target is, longer projects are not necessarily better: They tend to lose interest and fizzle out. Shorter projects on the other hand are easier to manage and keep an ongoing interest; there is a sense of confidence and urgency that helps motivate potential backers to reach your funding target. We recommend that a project lasts no longer than 60 days, although 40 days is usually long enough.

A successful project will be shared, on average, 649 times on Facebook and 143 times on Twitter (and that's just from their project page alone).

Sending out individual, personal emails is in fact the most effective tool for gaining support for your campaign. However social media (particularly Facebook and Twitter) play a massive role in helping you get the word out there. In the last month, successful projects have even been averaging over 1,000 shares on Facebook!

These figures are taken from the number of times a project has been shared directly from a project’s page. There’s no doubt that each project’s URL has been shared more, but it’s important to remember the simple criteria of the Creatives Grants that measures your shares on your project page.

71% of video pitches for campaigns are under 3 minutes long

Your video pitch is often the first thing people will look at on your project page, and having a great pitch will massively increase your chance of success.

You don’t have to be a professional filmmaker to make a pitch video.  Mission: Explore Food made their film (through stop-motion animation) simply by taking lots of photos on an iPad using iStopmotion and then added some words over the top.

Video has become an integral part of the web, with 500 years worth of Youtube videos are shared and watched on Facebook everyday, which is why it’s vital for your video not to be too long.

By keeping your video short, you can increase the likelihood that people will watch the full video and hear all the key points that you would like them to hear. A video pitch is essentially the perfect selling tool for your campaign. If people like what they first see, they can read on to find out more. That said, remember to keep it personal and provide a bit of background, as well as the call to action.

Just having a promo vid without telling the backer what your project is all about is not got going to help you.  If there’s extra material you’d like to share via video, you can always include it in your gallery, or share it as an update as your campaign progresses.

A successful project will receive 65 unique pledges to their campaign, with the average pledge being £64.

To date, no project that has managed to get more than 30 backers has failed to reach their target. Getting your campaign off to a good start can add to the credibility of your project, and can help get the ball rolling with regards to gaining further support. Having some cool rewards will also help too!

** For hints, tools, and advice on how to make the best pitch video, create the most enticing pledge rewards, check out our Project Incubator **

About the author: Ben Hamilton is a Community Manager for PleaseFund.Us. If you need any help or advice about crowdfunding (or perhaps you'd just like a chat), drop him a line at: ben@pleasefund.us