Crowd Funding Exposed

Crowd funding has now become all the rage. The problem with that is that the competition is now fiercer than ever. Want to get your first novel idea funded? Good luck. There’s ten would-be authors on Kickstarter with dazzling profiles looking to accomplish the same thing. Did you just invent the next doohickey that makes air travel obsolete, but you only need $50K to create your first prototype? Your profile is going to have to really bring it, and even then you probably have several other competitors to contend with. Not only does your idea have to have merit, but it has to beat out the competition AND get your potential crowd funding supporters excited about what you’re offering. Do not become discouraged, however. You can do this. The following crowd funding tips are relevant right now and will help you dominate the site you’re working with, even if you have several others in the industry vying for the same crowd funding dollars.

Solve a Need

One of the most important crowd funding tips to keep in mind is that your audience should actually want what you are offering. Even better, your audience should see it as a must-have. For best results, your crowd funding offering should solve some pressing need. Get on popular forums and peruse social media looking for individuals who lie awake at night dreaming of a solution to their problems. Then come up with a crowd funding offer that provides that solution nicely.

Come Up with a Plan

You should plan your crowd funding campaign at least six week in advance. Some experts recommend you give it six months. Not only does this give you time to plan your crowd funding venture, but you can spend that six weeks or months building hype around your official launch. The idea is to get your target audience really excited for what you’re offering so that the money comes flooding in the moment you launch.

Spy on the Competition

If you want to know how to really put these crowd funding tips to good use, find out what the competition is doing and vow to do it better. Search the various crowd funding sites for individuals and companies who may be competing against you. Gauge the colors they use, the images, the videos, the language and rewards. Follow them on social media and see what kind of posts they put out.

Following the competition is one of the best ways to form your crowd funding plan. Especially if you can find an offering like yours that previously succeeded in reaching its goal. Emulate the very path that crowd funder took, modeling it to your own offering as best you can, and you’ll be that much closer to reaching your goals.

Realistic Goals & Rewards

Come up with rewards that people will want to earn, such as an acknowledgement in the book you plan to write, a discount on the service you plan to provide or anything else that is relevant to your offering and that gets your audience stoked to participate.

As long as your goals are easily reachable for most people and as long as your rewards bring the excitement, you should succeed in putting your audience in the giving mood.

Be Social, Even When You Scale

Speaking of your audience, you will want to communicate with everyone who shows interest in your crowd funding offering as often as you can. Don’t just communicate with your audience until you reach your goals and then stop. Likewise, don’t just reach out to people when they happen to donate to your cause. Instead, reach out often and keep the discussions coming. Make your audience feel wanted and make your donors feel special.

Nothing Engages Like Video

As you begin going back through these crowd funding tips, start thinking about ways that you can incorporate video marketing into your campaign. You should at least have an introduction video that tells prospective crowd funders what your offering is all about. You should then film videos at regular intervals so that you can keep your audience informed of your progress every step of the way. For extra effect, you can send out personalized ‘Thank You’ videos to your top donors. Get creative with it, as nothing will keep your audience excited quite like video.

You now have several crowd funding tips to get you started. Form a plan, build hype, communicate with your audience and keep the excitement coming until you reach all the funding goals you set for yourself. Plenty have succeeded before you. Study them, emulate them as best you can and copy their plans-of-action until you are able to achieve the very same results. As long as you pay attention to your ‘crowd’ and you reward those who help you, success should be closer than you think.

Image Source: Berkeley Unified School Distract's photostream on Flickr