We thought we’d share some of the lessons we’ve learned about the behemoth that is CROWD FUNDING.
1) Find your crowd
Find out who your core audience is. Do your research into all the relevant individuals, groups and organisations who care about your project. Get in touch and talk to as many people as possible. You need to build a groundswell of support and awareness far in advance of launching your campaign.
2) Choose your platform
There are a handful out there that will do the job. With Just Do It, we built our own, on our site. But there are others already set up that will do lots of the legwork for you.
BUT – make sure you do your research, again. For example, Indiegogo allows you to receive all donations, whether or not you hit or target. Where Kickstarter is an all or nothing job. There are pros and cons on both sides, but it’s important to look at the implications of each and every one of them so you can make an informed decision.
3) Choose a realistic target
Look at your budget and evaluate how much you need to make the project possible. Then look at how much support you’ve managed to muster in your preliminary outreach and how much potential reach there is for the subject of your project. Taking all of this into account, set yourself a target that both stretches you but looks achievable.
4) Perky perks
Perks are surprisingly important. Think about what in your project could be transformed into either physical merchandise or a personal and invaluable experience that people will want to donate for. For example, the most popular perk with Just Do It was the advanced download of the film – people wanted to see it, and to own it, but not necessarily have more “stuff” – it ticked all the boxes.
5) Be prepared to work hard
Crowd funding is really, really hard work. Make sure you believe in your project enough that you’re prepared to spend every waking (and sleeping!) moment talking to people about it and convincing others that it needs to happen.
5.5) Stay positive!
Stay positive – crowd funding has the power to make projects that struggle to find funding elsewhere happen. But most importantly, crowd funding builds a crowd and it builds a community. We’ve had an amazing amount of non-financial support from the community that we created thanks to our crowd funding campaign.
Got questions?
Email our producer Laura at [email protected]
