How Do You Run A Successful Crowdfunding Campaign?

[john williams]

What are the best ways to run a successful crowdfunding campaign?

All of my experience comes from running our TFC crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, so I’ll just caveat that I’ve only run one.

Some major lessons or must-knows when running a crowdfunding campaign

A lot of work happens upfront. From pre-committing donors, to selecting a platform, to building your email lists, to getting video and creative assets together. You need six to eight weeks minimum to do it correctly. Crowdfunding, especially the first time, is an incredible amount of work.
The platform you choose matters. Take time to really research which crowdfunding platform (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Crowdrise, etc) is best.
Don’t only talk to the teams there, but also talk to people who have run crowdfunding campaigns on that platform. It’s sort of like selecting investors, you want to talk to people they’ve backed that have been successful and those who haven’t. We certainly did this, but I wish we did more of it. We took certain things the platforms told us to be gospel and it turned out that was a mistake.
Lists, traffic, promotion. At the end of the day you need to commit the first 50% of your campaign goal on your own. The platforms will tell you 30%, but it’s 50%. This is your list. After that, when you look at which platform to choose, I’d suggest ranking them by
a. How much traffic they get?
b. How much promotion they will give you?
How much traffic they get is far and away more important than the promotion because if they don’t have an active base the promotion won’t matter. You should also ask previous companies how valuable the promotion was.
Build in stories and promotion. Try to make every part of your campaign a story. From launching to the perks, to a donor that gave to you. Press will only cover launching and exceeding a goal so many times, so have stories to tell that aren’t just typical “we launched” and “we exceeded goal.”
Twitter is nice for hype,Facebook is good for donations. Twitter posting and sharing is nice for influencers and reporters to see your campaign, but as far as social networks go, it drives little in the way of donations. Facebook, is a much more effective and larger source of actual donations.

[Cavender]

Here is a very brief breakdown of how to launch a Successful Crowdfunding Camapign:

Step 1. You need to have a product or service in mind, and a clear outcome of what the funding will provide. You need to choose a platform to launch your campaign on, for example, Reach, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundMe.

Step 2. Research this could be the most important step in the entire process. You need to gather all of the info needed to create a successful campaign.

Step 3. Conduct your pre-launch campaign. You should have a pre-launch landing page, and social media pages built to gather information and market the launch of your campaign.

Step 4. Launch the campaign. When launching the campaign, be sure you have a Crowdfunding video created along with a detailed description of your product or service that you are going to offer.

Step 5. You are now running a Crowdfunding campaign. All of the research that you did in step 2 will be implemented and generate donations to your project.

[MikeA]

Here is a very brief breakdown of how to launch a Successful Crowdfunding Camapign:

Step 1. You need to have a product or service in mind, and a clear outcome of what the funding will provide. You need to choose a platform to launch your campaign on, for example, Reach, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundMe.

Step 2. Research this could be the most important step in the entire process. You need to gather all of the info needed to create a successful campaign.

Step 3. Conduct your pre-launch campaign. You should have a pre-launch landing page, and social media pages built to gather information and market the launch of your campaign.

Step 4. Launch the campaign. When launching the campaign, be sure you have a Crowdfunding video created along with a detailed description of your product or service that you are going to offer.

Step 5. You are now running a Crowdfunding campaign. All of the research that you did in step 2 will be implemented and generate donations to your project.

Thats a good brief description of the process. there's a lot more to it obviously. but good stuff

[seamonkey]

What are the best ways to run a successful crowdfunding campaign?

All of my experience comes from running our TFC crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, so I’ll just caveat that I’ve only run one.

Some major lessons or must-knows when running a crowdfunding campaign

A lot of work happens upfront. From pre-committing donors, to selecting a platform, to building your email lists, to getting video and creative assets together. You need six to eight weeks minimum to do it correctly. Crowdfunding, especially the first time, is an incredible amount of work.
The platform you choose matters. Take time to really research which crowdfunding platform (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Crowdrise, etc) is best.
Don’t only talk to the teams there, but also talk to people who have run crowdfunding campaigns on that platform. It’s sort of like selecting investors, you want to talk to people they’ve backed that have been successful and those who haven’t. We certainly did this, but I wish we did more of it. We took certain things the platforms told us to be gospel and it turned out that was a mistake.
Lists, traffic, promotion. At the end of the day you need to commit the first 50% of your campaign goal on your own. The platforms will tell you 30%, but it’s 50%. This is your list. After that, when you look at which platform to choose, I’d suggest ranking them by
a. How much traffic they get?
b. How much promotion they will give you?
How much traffic they get is far and away more important than the promotion because if they don’t have an active base the promotion won’t matter. You should also ask previous companies how valuable the promotion was.
Build in stories and promotion. Try to make every part of your campaign a story. From launching to the perks, to a donor that gave to you. Press will only cover launching and exceeding a goal so many times, so have stories to tell that aren’t just typical “we launched” and “we exceeded goal.”
Twitter is nice for hype,Facebook is good for donations. Twitter posting and sharing is nice for influencers and reporters to see your campaign, but as far as social networks go, it drives little in the way of donations. Facebook, is a much more effective and larger source of actual donations.

So, you're recommending that before launch, you have 50% of your goal already pledged? I know this may be a silly question, but how do you demonstrate these pledges? Can people pledge on the platform before the launch?

[Markallen]

To run a successful crowdfunding campaign you there are certain things you can do. First and foremost chose a best crowdfunding platform. There are few characteristics which are extremely desirable for any crowdfunding platform.
1. It should be user friendly.
2. It should charge low platform fees, letting campaigners keep the most part of the amount.
3. It must technically updated.

Selecting a right crowdfunding platform is just the first step towards your goal of running a successful crowdfunding campaign. Here are few things you can do to make your fundraising campaign successful.

Write a compelling fundraiser story. Add images, videos etc to the fundraiser story to make it more palatable.

Share the link of your fundraiser frequently on social media platforms.

Write frequent updates. Keep your donors posted about the developments in your fundraising activity.

[InhyeokPark]

I've run crowdfunding campaign 7 times already at my country. but This is first time for me to run the campaign in USA. It would be really helpful for me. Thank you so much!