Psst… want to hear about some ultra secret crowdfunding tips and tricks?
Wanna learn the secrets behind crowdfunding?
I wanna share some of the secrets that I’ve learned over the past several years helping campaign get funded.
This tips will cut to the root of why crowdfunding works, how you can boost your project, and ways to be remarkably successful.
If you take a second to listen to my podcast, you’ll be able to piece together some of these tricks from the numerous guests that have come on and shared their stories.
Hope you enjoy this article. If you’d like more advice like this, take a sec to subscribe to my newsletter.
1. Urgency Prompts Action
The thing that gets potential backers to take action is a sense of urgency.
This is the number one emotion that you’ll want to kindle if you want people to take action and support your crowdfunding campaign.
Thankfully, the crowdfunding model actually has urgency built in. There is a limited amount of time during which a campaign is funded.
That duration could be 30 days, 45 days, or 60 days. Either way, at the end of that timeline, backers will no longer be able to get in on the project.
No wonder why projects tend to see an uptick in pledges towards the end of a crowdfunding campaign.
This is one of the lessons that I’ve carefully documented in my book, the Kickstarter Launch Formula.
Now that you know this, this question is, how do you encourage a sense of urgency amongst your backers.
You can do things like:
- Stress the limited quantity nature of perks
- Offer exclusive rewards that sell out quickly
- Give early backers the best price possible
The most important thing is that you communicate this urgency to your tribe. That way, they’ll know they have to take action now if they want that benefit.
2. Why People Try New Products
Ever notice the huge leap of faith that customers have to go through to try a new product?
I mean… you actually gotta trust another human being online.
You have to believe what they’re saying. You gotta believe the promises they’re making.
If you stop to think about it… that’s a really big hurdle to overcome.
I’ve also set out to answer this question for myself. I shared some of those findings in this article as well as in my Kickstarter Launch Formula Udemy course.
Basically, it all comes down to creating social proof around your product.
When strangers come to the page, if they already see a bit of funding and traction, then they’re more willing to watch the pitch video.
That opens them up to being influenced to your marketing. It’s all about social proof.
From there, it comes down to the strength of your campaign page, video, and overall marketing.
Social proof can take many forms including:
- Some initial funding
- Media mentions and logos
- Glowing reviews by influencers
- Lots of social shares and virality
Basically, because other people are saying “this is a cool product,” you’re more willing to give it a try!
3. Engineering Ultimate Success
Most projects will engineer their success to some degree. This is done by setting as low a goal as possible so that they can wildly surpass it.
You want to plan to have your project funded within the first week to week and a half. At the very least, be at 30% of your goal.
This will make it easier for you to trend on websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. It will also be easier to have social proof, which as we covered, can get people to try out your product.
As part of engineering your success, you should also come up with key announcements that you can drop throughout the campaign.
These could include:
- Stretch goals
- Project updates
- News announcements
- Add-ons
Basically, these give you an excuse to talk about the project. You have an excuse to continue to promote it to your following.
The last part of engineering success is to have a rock-solid pre-launch strategy going into your upcoming campaign. This initial crowd will help shoot your project up the charts, leading to even more funding.
4. Blowing Up With Crowdfunding
One secret crowdfunding tip that I have for you is that most projects tend to see an 80/20 breakdown of their pledge source.
What do I mean by that?
I meant that typically, there is one source of pledges for a campaign that is the main driver. That could include:
- Crowdfunding platform super backers
- Initial email list
- Facebook ads
- Media and PR
- Viral social media sharing
- Influencers
The secret to blowing up is to hyper focus on the one avenue that is working very well for you and to go all in. Once you do, you can leverage that success and it almost has a bit of a ripple effect.
For example, if you’re doing well with FB ads, the continual traffic and pledges will eventually cause the platform’s algorithm to catch on. You can then take that success and start talking about it to the media.
You basically start with a strong foundation and keep trading up the chain until you’ve almost built up a bunch of mini revenue streams for the campaign.
It’s really that simple! But don’t be fooled, it’s not always easy.
5. Behind a Successful Project
When you’re new to entrepreneurship, you might spot a hyper successful crowdfunding campaign and think wow… that guy or gal did a killer job.
What you don’t see is the entire team of people that they assembled behind the scenes to help pull off that huge fundraiser.
Behind most successful projects are a team of people who are working hard to get that project funded. They could be helping with:
- Project pitch video
- Campaign page design
- Marketing and advertising
- Press releases and PR
- Etc.
As you’re gearing up to the launch of your project, take some time to think about who you want on your team.
You can book a coaching call with me to get my thoughts on your project as well as how I can help your campaign.
I’ll also give you the inside scoop on all of the other service providers in this niche so that you don’t end up wasting money.
6. Getting Ridiculous Traffic
Not all traffic is created the same.
If you get 10,000 people to take a look at your project page but they don’t suffer from the problem your product solves, you won’t make any sales.
Additionally, if those 10,000 people DO suffer from the problem, but they don’t have any money to spend or aren’t willing to spend money to solve the problem, then you won’t make any sales.
I’ve put together some of the best ways to get traffic to a project. I’ll also share with you a list of great marketing companies in this niche.
Study these, along with what it means to have qualified leads. You don’t want to make the mistake of relying on vanity metrics.
Vanity metrics refer to when you have thousands of followers but none of them are buying your product. Vanity metrics are when you have a lot of traffic, but no conversions.
Solving this problem will vary from product to product.
7. The Validation Loop
A little bit about crowdfunding that isn’t talked about terribly much is the validation loop that companies go through.
After a successful fundraising campaign, the entrepreneur then gets to receive valuable feedback on his product from real users.
That feedback paves the way for further iterations on the product. It leads to version 2.0 and version 3.0. It can result in new product lines.
This validation loop is what lets some creators launch dozens of campaigns on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
Their crowd stays with them through each project because the creator has delivered on their rewards in the past.
Ultimately, this validation loop is where the bond between customers and business is created. It’s the brand-building phase of the project.
When done correctly, it can lead to a long road of success. If done poorly, it can hurt your company’s image, destroy trust, and make it harder to launch new products.
