Commonsense Ways to Promote Your Crowdfunding Campaign

by Startacus Admin

Proper promotion and marketing are just as important to the success of your crowdfunding project as the quality of your product and your pitch.

After all, how will investors find out about your campaign unless you get out there and tell them about it? They simply won’t!

Here are a few ways that you can promote your crowdfunding campaign!

Your Contacts

Just take a look around you (both literally and figuratively).

Crowdfunding itself exists within the ‘online bubble’ and thus some people forget that they can bring their campaign quite easily into ‘real life’. Get on the phone, pay some visits, invite someone out for lunch.

This doesn’t mean that you need to ‘hit up’ every person in your phone contacts, there are loads more ways that your existing relevant contacts can lend a hand with your campaign… sometimes the power of your network is worth more than a £20 investment.

What skills, advice, or services do you need at this moment, and what will you need later in your crowdfunding campaign?

Can you think of someone who could provide the assistance you need?

This will probably be more positively received than ‘begging’ email, as it suggests you value their input, and not just what’s in their wallet.

Build an Audience Early

If you start from a base of zero engagement, you are really going to have an uphill struggle to get your crowdfunding project the level of interaction it needs!

You need to work hard on this long before your campaign starts.

Depending on the level of money you are hoping to raise it will take in the very least several months to build an audience large enough to give you a little bit of traction within an industry.

For most entrepreneurs nowadays, this isn’t too much of a challenge as crowdfunding projects often run concurrently with an already established online presence. It’s just a case of maximising the impact and influence this traction has.

Blog about it. Shout about it. Tweet about it. Email about it. Share it.

In short do anything you can to make darn sure that people know about your products.

It’s not always necessary to show your hand completely at this stage. For example, you might not wish to make your crowdfunding intentions public at this stage. The idea is to ensure that when the time finally does come to launch your project you will have a motivated audience ready to assist with the initial promotion.

But there’s more:

Generating interest in this way also presents an opportunity to encourage some valuable feedback that could ultimately impact / improve your crowdfunding campaign.

List your Campaign on the Startacus Showcase and Collaboration area.  It's free and will allow you to easily share your campaign across social media, as well as connect with entrepreneurs, startups, and investors! 

Make it Easy and Remove Barriers

The chances are that delivering a crowdfunding project will require a lot of hard work on your part. But, and this is crucial, sharing it should be made as easy as possible.

Never assume that people's interest in your project means that they will jump through hoops to share it amongst their own networks. They won't. Thus, you need to make sure that the shareability of your campaign is as high as possible.

Utilise as many social media widgets as you can possibly think of so that interested parties and influencers can spread the word with the minimum of hassle.

The same goes for the media!

Did you know that there are journalists scouring crowdfunding platforms on a daily basis to find innovative and noteworthy projects? Take our word for it, they are and you should make it as easy as possible for them to report on your campaign.

That means you should provide easy to access press releases and media packs with straightforward, well laid out copy, and high-quality images that they can publish wherever they please.

Whilst a journalist might go as far as to send an email for this information, you shouldn’t take the risk! Make the information open and accessible, and provide contact details in case they need any more information.

Video

Online video is increasingly being described as the future of content marketing, and whilst it will probably never truly eclipse the written word, when it comes to the promotion of crowdfunding campaigns, it can be one of the most useful tools in your box.

Not only does it give an easy to digest way of explaining the major details of your project, it also adds a touch of humanity to your campaign. It has often been said that people invest in people, and creating an effective promotional video is one way to present yourself (and your business) as an investment opportunity.

Furthermore video is a very shareable medium, not just because people like them but because they are now compatible with all major social networks. This increases their potential to go viral significantly and makes it that much more likely that you will be to achieve your funding target.

We offer free crowdfunding publicity!

Are you thinking of running a crowdfunding campaign? Startacus offers a free publicity and support package to help spread the word about your campaign! Check out all the details here!

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• #crowdfunding
• #publicity
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Published on: 8th October 2015