Promoting Your Project
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: Everyone, without exception, underestimates how much work goes in to running a successful campaign.
Whilst a crowdfunding platform will automatically give a project exposure to its associated online community, the project owner needs to be the driving force of his/her project. It’s therefore imperative that you don’t just rely on the ‘crowd’ associated with your chosen crowdfunding site, and tell people about your project (and in more ways than one). This is a must if you want to feature more significantly on the PleaseFund.Us platform as it is programmed with a popularity index that gives increased exposure for projects with the most amounts of pledges/page views during the previous week. This means you need to promote your project, so here’s how you can do it:
Reach Out To Your Own Crowd
For most project owners, support comes from within their own networks and their networks’ networks. Your friends and family are a good place to start.
“No matter how good a project is, without a core network of 1st degree supporters, very few projects get off the ground.” Vladimir Vukicevic
Your friends and family (aka ‘1st degree supporters’) should be your immediate first point of call; not only because they are perhaps your easiest targets but it will also help get your project rolling and will enhance its credibility. A project that appears to already have a following with numerous backers will help resonate a degree of credibility and will encourage people to trust your project and entice them to back it.
Be Personal
Your email contact list should be the next point of call, but don’t just spam mass emails. Take the time to contact people individually. It makes a big difference. Another tip is to simply add a link to your email signature; this will help promote your campaign with every email you send.
Get Networking
Once you’ve exhausted all your close friends and relatives, it’s now time to hone in your target audience and get the word out there. You need to reach out to your target audience in any way possible.
Contact your local newspaper, TV and radio station and tell them about your project. Get in touch with online media outlets, magazines and bloggers to request coverage. Seek out any like-minded organisations that might help promote your project. However, with any project, a large amount of promotion will be done online as most crowdfunding platforms heavily rely on online communities.
Social media is one of the best ways to reach an audience, with social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter playing a massive role in crowdfunding. These sites are an easy way to connect with large amounts of people and ultimately promote your project. It is also a great way of keeping people up to date with your progress and how your project is getting on. If you haven’t already created a Facebook page for your project or created a Twitter account, then do so.
The More Crowds, The Better.
Don’t be afraid to use the ‘crowds’ of others. On twitter there will be hundreds of people interested in your field, so drop them an @mention to highlight what you’re doing. At least a third will RT or post about your campaign.
On Facebook, leave a post on all the pages that are relevant to your campaign. Ask page owners to post about your project on their pages. Tag influential people in your sphere. There is no reason why you, the project owner, can’t drive 100 people a day to your project by effectively using FB + twitter alone!
Share. Don’t Beg.
When marketing and promoting your campaign, be careful not to sound desperate. Any hint of desperation will taint a campaign with such a stench that no one will come anywhere near it! In other words, don’t just talk about money, money, money. Tell people about your project, about you and keep them up to date with your progress. If people want to help back your idea, they will. Your job is to just make sure people know about you. It’s important therefore to network like you’ve never networked before. Don’t rely on people just finding you on Twitter; find related tweets and posts by other people and re-tweet them on your account. This way you come off as recommending high value opportunities and thoughtful ideas to your fans and the original poster will (hopefully) then re-tweet or re-post something of yours in appreciation. As a result, you will be reaching their fans and ultimately increasing your audience.
Make The Most Of PleaseFund.Us
There are two tabs on your project's profile page that should not be ignored: "Embed" and "Updates".
- Using the 'embed' tab will let you share your project widget (or video) on any website and will automatically drive more trafffic to your page. Simply click on the tab, copy the embedding code, and paste it into your own website, a friends, or anyone with a website who will let you. Simples.
- Updating your supporters and backers is crucial to the success of any crowdfunding campaign (see next page for more detail). These are people who have already showed an interest in your project and who will ulimately want to help you reach your target. Regular updates are important so that you can involve your supporters: Share with them how you're getting on and what difficuties you're experiencing, or how pleased you are with its success so far. They are perhaps your easiest source of help and can help share your project...all you have to do is ask!
Pace Yourself. It’s A Marathon Not A Sprint.
There will be a dip in activity in any project and this is more often than not somewhere in the middle stages of your timeline. The vast bulk of support often occurs at the very beginning and very end of a project; it’s exciting when it’s new and it’s exciting when it’s down to the wire. It’s imperative to therefore have a strategy and have ways of promoting your project by keeping it active and alive for its entire lifespan. It’s all about retaining some excitement in your project during the middle period.
Regular updates are very important - don’t let your project go quiet. This is a simple way of keeping your followers in the loop. It’s also a good idea though to have a few tricks up your sleeve. Competitions relevant to your project outline for example can be a way of keeping your follower’s interest alight, by offering something different, and allowing for your followers to interact and engage on another level (as well as promoting your project).
