Tag: crowdfunding

Crowdfunding Campaigns

Part Four: How to Write Copy for a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

What you write for your crowdfunding campaign has a lot to do with its success. Nobody wants to support some shoddy cause. Here are some ways to have your crowdfunding campaign’s copy stand out.

Invest Time in Great Writing (Headlines + Body Copy)

While word-of-mouth advertising is important to your success, your written copy will be the most widespread communication method. Crowdfunding platforms, commercials, and most other forms of advertising use written copy to convey information. The writing you have done to promote your cause needs to be high-quality. Most people cannot write on the level needed to create effective, high-quality written copy. Invest in finding and hiring someone to do your written copy who has the experience and the skills to do the best job possible.

This is especially true for your crowdfunding platform and other online channels. They have the potential to reach people around the world and convince them to donate without ever talking to you. You want your headlines and body copy to be the highest quality that you can get to ensure your success.

Describe Exactly What the Money Covers

One of the best ways to ensure that people will donate to your campaign is to tell them exactly what their contributions will do. People don’t donate to problems, they invest in your solutions. You have to explain to them how your solution works and how their donations can help you develop it. Many organizations do this by providing a detailed description of their operations detailing what the organization is doing and how it channels donations to facilitate it. If you can show donors how their efforts will help you solve a problem, they are more likely to donate to your cause.

Use Excellent Photos in the Campaign, Reminder Emails, and Social Media

Next to your written copy, your imagery is the strongest method of communication. People often connect more with pictures than they do with written text. So, you want to use powerful and descriptive photos in your marketing efforts. One good picture can be the difference between a successful campaign and a failing campaign.

Social media and reminder emails are great ways of disseminating information through pictures. Social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter are exceptional methods of distributing pictures with text that can get donors’ attention. Take advantage of your social media platforms to grow support for you cause by periodically sending updates with eye-catching pictures to get people involved.

How to Promote Your Cause on Social Media

Social media is great for promoting your cause, but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. You want to focus on providing images and text that can draw a viewer in with a positive mindset. You also want to do it in channels with appropriate context. Sending pictures that are off-putting and negatively provocative in the middle of an Instagram feed for funny memes is the wrong context for your advertisements. Instead, focus on using imagery that gets people interested in a positive way in the channels that your target market uses. Tailor your content to your audience so that you are drawing more people in rather than scaring them away.

At Triassic Media Group, we love writing crowdfunding campaigns. Email us at info@triassicmedia.com for a custom quote for your project.

Crowdfunding

Part Three: How to Get Your Donors Excited About Your Crowdfunding Campaign

It is entirely possible to find funding for your cause. People generally want to help solve problems, especially your family and friends. If you go about it in the right way, you can easily find the support that you need to raise funds for your cause. Crowdfunding is a valuable source of support, and will likely continue to be a major influence around the world. Here are some ways that you can keep your donors excited about helping you.

Set Clear Goals and Timelines

Supporting a cause is much like any other action that you take in your personal and professional lives. You need clear goals and timelines so that you can efficiently manage your efforts and produce results. Set clear and achievable goals so that you have something to aim for. In a way, it gamifies your efforts by giving you something to achieve. This works for your donors as well. People are more willing to donate if they feel that they can help you achieve a tangible goal. You are most likely to get donations when people see that you are close to reaching your next goal. It helps them see that even though they can’t donate a lot, the little that they can donate will make a big difference in reaching your next goal.

Thank Donors

Donors want to feel involved and appreciated when they contribute to your cause. When a donor sends you money and support, be sure to thank them immediately. A simple thank you note is enough in most cases and has a big effect on whether that donor spreads the word about your campaign. The more positive feedback that you can give donors, the more likely they are to donate higher amounts, donate multiple times, and tell others about it.

Crowdfunding platforms automate this process for you by automatically responding to donations. You can design a thank you note or gift to send to your donors as a way of giving back to them. The message or gift depends on the campaign that you started. If the campaign is focused on creating a product, you might send them one when it is finished. If the cause does not have a tangible product, then a well-designed thank you note is appropriate. The point is that you want them to feel appreciated for helping you.

Keep Thank You “Gifts” Low in Value

Regardless of the size of the campaign or the donations, thank you gifts should have a low monetary value. Expensive gifts cut into your donations and rub donors the wrong way. They don’t want to feel like their donation is used to send people fancy gifts. They want to know that the money goes towards the solution that you presented that convinced them to donate. Simple, thoughtful gifts are the key to creating a successful thank you gift. For example, a heart-shaped gift with a thank you note on it is appropriate for a campaign that is focused on solving heart-related issues. It is easy to find or design a heart-shaped gift that is relatively inexpensive. The fact that you put in the time and effort to create a relevant gift shows donors that you are more focused on the cause then other things.

Take advantage of this growing trend to make the changes in the world that you feel are right. Don’t forget that your family and your friends can be your biggest supporters if you give them the opportunity. Give everyone the opportunity to support your cause by setting up a campaign and spreading the word.

Kickstarter

Part Two: How to Pick Out the Right Crowdfunding Platform

If you want to collect donations for your cause, then you should use one of the popular crowdfunding platforms available online. Crowdfunding platforms make it easy for people to send you money for your cause. Without one, people won’t know where to send the money to. They also help you spread the word about your cause to a wider audience which increases your chances of getting the funding that you need.

In recent years, crowdfunding platforms have made it possible to raise billions-of-dollars for different causes ranging from helping people to creating new products. GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and Patreon are three of the leading platforms, and they each focus on a different type of cause. Here is some information about the most popular options available.

GoFundMe

GoFundMe is likely the leading crowdfunding site for personal causes. If you are looking to find support for a cause like paying medical bills or taking a trip for yourself, then it is the best option. It focuses on the personal cause funding market and has raised billion for these personal projects.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a leading platform for funding creative projects. It doesn’t allow you to fund personal projects, but you can use the funds for developing products or starting your business. It is a great way to get started if you want to make a product that can help people, but you lack the funding to finish its development.

Patreon

Patreon is used mainly for creative work that does not produce a purchasable product.  Podcasters and other entertainment creatives use it to fund the development of their shows. It is a great way to find funding without having endorsement deals with major companies. Instead, you can get the funding directly from the people that enjoy your form of entertainment even though it’s on a platform where you cannot charge for it.

There are many other platforms that you can choose from. It’s important to read the fine print about these platforms first. All crowdfunding platforms charge fees for their services. Some charge you while others charge your donors. All of this information should be listed on their site or in documents when you sign up.

Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

Part One: How to Get People, Friends, and Family to Donate to Your Cause

Most people have a cause that they want to support. People do it through volunteering their time or raising awareness of the issue. Most people support causes by donating their money to fund it. In the past, most people struggled to find funding for their causes. Spreading the word, gaining support, and collecting donations were time-intensive endeavors. Technology and the development of crowdfunding platforms have made getting support for your cause much easier.

While you can use crowdfunding to fund your efforts, some people still find it difficult to raise the needed funds. There are specific steps that you need to take to gain support for your cause. If you are looking to find funding for your cause, here is how to get people, friends, and family to donate to your cause.

Decide on a Cause

Before doing anything to find support for your cause, you have to decide exactly what your cause is. Without a firm understanding of what you are working towards, you won’t be able to articulate it to other people. That’s a sure way to fail at getting donations. You need to determine what your cause is, what it is not, and what you want to do.

Your cause needs two components: a problem and a solution. Start by identifying a problem that needs to be solved. It can be a personal issue like finding a way to pay for medical bills. You can also pick a socially conscious cause such as supporting changes in local legislation. Once you have identified a problem, find a way that you can solve it. People are more likely to invest in a solution to a problem than they are to invest in a cause that won’t produce any positive changes.

Find Out if People Will Support This Cause

Once you pick the cause that you want to work for, do your research to see if others want to work on it too. Working towards a cause is pointless if you cannot get the support that you need to make positive changes. You will need the support of your community, family, and friends. Start with your close acquaintances like your family and friends. Poll them to see if they would support you in both monetary and non-monetary ways. Slowly expand your polling to others outside of your network. If there seems to be support for your cause in the community, then it is worth pursuing.

A fast way of researching your cause is to see if other people have tried to support it before. Some causes are universal and can be found around the world. If there are other groups working towards the same goal, then you can probably find the support that you are looking for.

Define a Target Donor Market

While it may be tempting to market to everyone, you will likely not be able to get the support you want without focused efforts. Choose a donor market to target when you advertise to get the most return on your time. For example, you will need to raise in the hundreds-of-thousands, if not, millions-of-dollars to make a tangible change in cancer research. So, you will want to target millionaires, billionaires, and their companies. These people and organizations are most likely to have the resources be able to donate enough for you to reach your goal. If you are working towards a cause that needs less funding to make a tangible change, then you can target people with fewer resources. Likewise, you’ll want to focus on local donor markets for local causes. Local donors will be more likely to donate since they are affected by local changes in the community.

Once you figure out your cause and donor market, it’s critical to pick out the right crowdfunding platform, get people engaged, and write the best copy. Learn how with our upcoming series about writing successful crowdfunding campaigns.