First, Pin Down Your Market
In my experience from interviewing campaign creators, interacting with creators on the Kickstarter Forum, and working with creators on CrowdfundingPR, it’s extremely difficult to realize success with internet marketing unless you pinpoint your various target audiences.
The reason that I say target “audiences” is that most campaigns are made up of a following that includes:
Supporters: People who believe in you or your effort and want to support it in some small way.
Buyers: People who want to own the creative product (which is often times offered in a reward tier)
Sponsors & Evangelists: People who love the creators, the mission, and the product, and are willing to go above and beyond to see that this creative project becomes a reality. They will often pledges more than the minimum tier needed to just acquire the product. These upper tiers can include rewards like having a discussion with the creator or getting producer’s credit in a film.
Influencers: People who will not pledge for your product, but like you, your mission, or the product, and are willing to help out in other ways. This could include sharing the product on their social network, blogging about it, or introducing you to someone who can help you increase visibility of the project.
You need to target each of these audiences separately and market your reward tiers separately. Once you pick out the target audience for each of these groups, it’s time to do some research. Where do they congregate? Are supporters typically active on forums, or social media groups? Are there industry publications or blogs that have the audience you are looking for, or do you need to attend in-person events? This research yields different results for each campaign, so there is no real formula here.
Forums + Blogs
Successful forums and blogs naturally have a community of users that read content, respond, and contribute.
The important thing to remember is that marketing to the community surrounding a forum or a blog requires the utmost delicacy. Why?
Because if you do it the wrong way saying “Check out my Kickstarter ____” or just pasting your pitch, you will come off as a spammer. Many forums don’t even allow new users to post links and suggest that users include them in their forum signature instead. Some forums don’t even allow users to add links to their forum signature until that user has contributed a certain number of posts!
The golden rule is: give before you expect to receive.
This is also true when engaging with communities that surround blogs (through comments). You can easily be flagged as a spammer if you just paste the link to your crowdfunding campaign asking people to check you out. First engage with the community and set your Kickstarter link as your “website” when submitting a comment, so that people can choose to click on your name if they are interested in finding out more information about you and your endeavors.
Begin engaging in both of these communities as early as possible. If you’re having trouble finding these communities, try using the google forum or blog search function. Alternatively, you can check out Finding Your Target Audience Online.
In-Person Events
In my experience, many creators are reluctant to attend in-person events, create meetups, or organize get togethers to promote their crowdfunding campaign.
Simply put, it’s the fear of being in front and center. People also don’t like the idea of asking for money. They are afraid that others will judge them, laugh in their face, and not contribute anything towards their Pozible campaign.
Rejection and getting out of your comfort zone is part of the game!
I’ve listed a few in-person networking ideas below:
– Create a Meetup.com event for professionals in your industry. This would be a great way to connect with others in your industry even long after your crowdfunding campaign is finished, and is an easy way to make new business connections. You can list your campaign as a sponsor and give a short pitch to members that attend your meetups.
– Join and attend Meetup.com events that cater to the audiences outlined in the section “First, Pin Down Your Market” above.
– Create a Facebook event and throw a party. Ask your friends directly to support your campaign or to contribute a certain amount for the party (you would buy goodies/drinks/food and use the profits as a contribution towards your campaign). This is no different than the bake sales or fundraisers you may have engaged in during college.
– Research and browse event calendars in your area. A lot of coworking organizations, non-profits, and professional organizations will put on events where you can network and meet people that you might be able to get excited about your campaign.
Social Media + Content Marketing
Social media is probably the easiest low-budget way to connect with potential backers and engage members of your community. For more information check out:
Marketing Your Campaign Using Twitter
Content Marketing For Your Crowdfunding Campaign
LinkedIn Tips For For Your Crowdfunding Campaign
Using Cover Photos To Marketing Your Campaign
PR
PR is one of the trickier parts of promotion for your Pozible or crowdfunding campaign. Essentially, I view it very similar to sales. You need to sell a blogger or journalist on the benefits of writing about your campaign. Sometimes, if you have already raised a significant amount of money or have a really innovative product, it’s an easy sell. Other times, you need to get creative and come up with an angle for your story that would appeal to the publisher’s audience.
I’ve compiled a list of a few articles to introduce the concept of generating attention for your Pozible campaign through bloggers and journalists. Feel free to leave a comment if you have a question.
How to get bloggers to blog about your Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or Pozible campaign
5 Low Budget PR Tips for your Crowdfunding Campaign
Why should you target smaller blogs?
Getting Media Attention For Your Crowdfunding Campaign
Advertising
Advertising is a touchy subject because many campaign creators don’t have the budget to consistently buy fb/google ads for their campaigns and aren’t even sure if advertising would be effective.
Unfortunately, the only way you can figure out if advertising is a good route for you is trial and error. Google AdWords and Facebook ads allow you to set a spending cap so that you don’t go over budget.
The economics are pretty simple. It’s worth it if you discover spending $1 in ads results in >$1 in pledges. You can only discover whether or not ads are a good fit for your campaign if you try it. Be sure to hone your messaging or your advertising strategy towards the different target audiences we talked about above in the “First, Pin Down Your Market” section.
Questions?
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