Crowdfunding is extremely exciting yet daunting. Do you know about that trust exercise where you lean backwards until you fall and have to put truth in the people behind you to save you? This is crowdfunding. You put trust in your fans, followers, friends and strangers and it is up to them to decide whether they want to see you fall or succeed. One should not take this trust for granted, which is why we give you five quick tips that could help you acquire the funds you need for your dream project.
1. Put your fans first
The primary function of crowdfunding is to gather funding for a project. However, despite this being the purpose, crowdfunding also affects the people who decide to trust you and the fanbase who see your practises. This is both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is that you can raise the loyalty of your fans or if you do things wrongly it could lead you to alienating your fans.
You can see it as an investment. Your fans give you money to create something. If the communication and returns are not what they expected or takes longer than they wish for, they will be unhappy with their investment. So if your fans are happy, then you are already a long way.
2. Plan things out
When you see campaigns that were successful, you only see the end result and what they have acquired. However, you do not see the planning and execution of what they have done. Crowdfunding can work without preparation for very big bands due to their fanbase but more often than not you’d want to plan out a pre-campaign, during campaign and post-campaign marketing and production plan. However, also be able to adapt to see certain trends arise during the campaign and capture the interest and momentum by engaging with your fans.
3. Have realistic goals and rewards
Some campaigns you see goals where you can imagine it is what they hope to achieve from their fans and others have a goal that is realistic to achieve the project. A mindset to keep in mind is to always make the goal the minimum of what you need to complete the project as is written down. The rest is bonus for you, and for the fans, to achieve greater things.
4. Engage and communicate
We know this point has been discussed already in the other points but it certainly deserves it’s own point. And that is engaging and communicating with your fanbase and the outside world (correctly). Your funders feel emotionally connected to you and your project as soon as they put their money forward. In a way you get into a relationship with them, a tie that has to be respected and treated well.
5. Be honest and humble
This final part is something that runs through all the previous parts. People are not stupid, so if you write down excuses and do not respect the promises you made in the campaign then it will lead to angry fans and loss of respect. You may see the trend in these tips that a lot could be seen as common sense. The thing is, there is no magic trick when it comes to crowdfunding. It is a lot of things that make a big impact in the end.
Have fun and work hard
In the end, there’s nothing more exciting than to see the direct support you receive from your fans and it is an exhilarating feeling. Enjoy the ride and work hard to make your dreams come true.
If you have any questions or need advice for your case/project specifically, do reach out to us! We’d be happy to give you input.