10 KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL IN A CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN
At Morrison, as you already know, we are fervent defenders of Crowdfunding both as a financing tool and as a communication and marketing tool. At a time when there are more and more young people interested in starting a business, where the collaborative economy is booming and access to financing is quite restricted, formulas like this are gaining ground in the entrepreneurial context.
Crowdfunding should be understood not only as a way to get financing to launch your project, but also as an excellent opportunity to test your product and validate your business idea . If you think about it, the benefits of carrying out a Crowdfunding campaign are infinitely higher than not carrying it out and, ultimately, it can help you avoid a future failure in your business adventure, at a much higher economic cost. In addition, practically any project is valid to take advantage of this tool, the only thing you must achieve is to be sufficiently different in your business strategy, be it for your product, your way of communicating, of selling...
The first thing we must say is that it is really difficult to summarize in 10 points the most important aspects that your Crowdfunding campaign must meet to meet your objective, since this depends on a multitude of details that must be correctly connected, but we can give the guidelines that we follow to make our Crowdfunding campaign successful.
1. Build a mass of followers before you start
Before launching your campaign, make yourself known. Use social networks, a blog... tell people who you are, what you want to do and why. People patronize people. Do not use only one week, you need more time to strengthen ties. It is useless to launch your campaign if there are no people who want to listen to you. To give you an idea, we started our Crowdfunding with 4,000 followers on Facebook. 4,000 possible sponsors of our campaign.
2. Sorry: people don't know what crowdfunding is
Can you guess what was the most recurring question when we started telling our friends and family that we were going to do a Crowdfunding?: – “What is a Crowdfunding?” Oddly enough, it is a largely unknown tool in our country in any age segment.
Strive to transmit and teach your followers - BEFORE YOUR CAMPAIGN STARTS - what Crowdfunding consists of. If they don't understand what it is, if they don't feel comfortable in the environment, they won't participate, and your campaign will fail. We uploaded a post to our Blog where we explained what Crowdfunding is and a step-by-step Guide on how to participate.
3. Study other campaigns
Spend time studying other campaigns that have been successful. Whether they are from your sector or another. Normally you can extract the aspects that most attract your attention and incorporate them into your campaign. The best proof that something can be done is that someone has already done it before.
4. Create really attractive and varied rewards
It is important that people understand the benefits of participating in your campaign. They should know that they are privileged because they will have conditions that will never be repeated and that it is now or never. They need to be involved now, not when you bring the product to market. We repeat over and over again that our sneakers would NEVER have a price like this again.
Recommendation: Think about those who can help you with little. Create rewards from 5 or 10 euros for people who want to participate but can't spend a lot of money.
5. Do not make an excessively long campaign
When we studied statistics to find out how long our campaign should last, we saw that the normal range was between 30 and 60 days. Our campaign lasted only 20 days. Because? We thought that if we did a long campaign people could relax and leave it for another time. That is why we made a short campaign, so that people would feel pressured to participate because they could miss the deadline and be left without the benefits that we offered.
6. Create anticipation before launching the campaign
It is not worth publishing “Tomorrow the campaign begins”. Talk about your campaign and your products long before you start it. We had 7 models of sneakers. We post a model's photo every day, a week before we start. People would ask us for the photos of the next day before posting them.
That none of your followers is left without knowing that your campaign is starting and that your discounts will be unrepeatable. Chase them!
7. The first 48 hours are vital
It is essential that people see that your campaign works from the beginning and that there are other people who participate. It will be much easier for them to get involved if they see that you can be successful. Also, keep reporting your progress . Let your followers know that your campaign is going well, that other people have already participated and that little by little you are achieving your goal. Publish your progress on your social networks, your followers will help you spread it and you will be able to reach new people who may be interested in participating.
8. Make a video that falls in love
Tell your story and show your products a lot. It is the face of your Crowdfunding.
As a suggestion, follow a 3-part structure:
Part 1: Who are we?
Part 2: What do we do and what do we want?
3rd part: Emotional closure. Create empathy. Win over your audience.
Don't make a video longer than 2 minutes, people will get tired. If possible, put subtitles in English, many foreign people usually participate.
9. Serve your sponsors as soon as possible
Even if you have put a lot of effort into explaining what crowdfunding is, during the campaign there will still be many people who ask you questions. Prepare for it and be as quick as you can to answer, you will give them confidence and, sometimes, it will be a golden opportunity to get a new sponsor.
10. Send your questionnaires as simple as possible
At the end of your Crowdfunding, if you have been successful, you will have to send questionnaires to your sponsors so that they provide you with personal information, shipping address, sizes... Try to make them as simple as possible so that the information is clear and simple. You have to make their lives easier.
We probably leave many topics unanswered: how to set the objective of your campaign, how to put the ideal reward for your product, how to manage shipping costs, taxes... but it would be going too deep. We believe that if you apply these 10 points you will be closer to success in your Crowdfunding campaign.