Before you go about buying services to help market your Indiegogo campaign, I think it’s important to study up on how to best promote your project on your own. After all, no one is going to care as much about the success of your project as yourself!
I hope that some of these techniques and avenues will be helpful as you go about preparing for the launch of your Indiegogo campaign.
1. Email Marketing
The reason I put email marketing first is because of all of the entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed, email marketing has been the most effective source of pledges.
It’s extremely important to build up an email list before you launch your crowdfunding campaign. There are a lot of ways to do this including:
- Putting an email opt-in on your website
- Creating a popup that asks people to subscribe
- Making a lead magnet, like an ebook, video, or some other form of content.
- Driving cold traffic to an email capture page via ads and seeing how well it converts.
- Exporting your LinkedIn and Facebook email addresses
Once you have an email listed of targeted subscribers, you must send out regular emails to tease the campaign, educate subscribers about crowdfunding, and introduce them to you or your team.
You can use a tool like Mailchimp or Aweber to manage your email list and see how many people are opening your emails and clicking on your links.
2. Buying advertisements
Buying ads can be an effective way to build up an email list, but it’s also a way to get targeted visitors on your campaign page. The most common platforms to buy ads are on Facebook and Google, but I’ve also seen creators buy private ads with bloggers and YouTubers.
The most important part of buying ads is to realize that it takes time to get your funnel down correctly. By this I mean that you need to toy with the image, copywriting, and landing page that you’ve set up until you’ve created an optimal conversion funnel.
Many creators don’t realize this and they get frustrated when they buy traffic, but it doesn’t covert, or they’re seeing low engagement with their advertisements. Even though traffic is instant, sales aren’t. You need to commit to building a conversion funnel and experimenting until you get it right.
3. Social media marketing
I don’t mean social media ads. I’m referring to building up a social media profile that will drive traffic to your website or Indiegogo campaign.
It takes time to build up a great social media account and attract relevant followers. One of the top questions that I get from readers is “why would anyone follow me?”
The mistake that I made when I first got into social media was thinking that it was a platform to shout about me and my own wants, needs, or desires. It’s not. It’s all about your audience and the individuals who follow your account. What content can you deliver to them that will either inform or entertain them?
You don’t have to deliver your own branded content. You can simply become a curator and link them to articles or videos that they’ll find helpful or entertaining. Of course, you can also share mock ups and progress as you near the launch of your Indiegogo campaign.
When you’re marketing your campaign, it’s best to come from the frame of mind that you’re establishing a relationship with followers, not selling them on your product or project. Eventually, there will be a hard sell, but until then, you’re just relationship building.
You can use websites like these to discover content to share:
4. Creating an Indiegogo referral
Using Indiegogo’s referral system, you can have campaign backers refer their friends for the opportunity to win a perk or reward. You can set up the program so that it’s based on:
- The backer who brings in the most contributors
- The backers who brings in the most funding
- Visits to your campaign, etc.
It’s important that you list a beginning and end date for your contest so that backers will know how long they have to get involved.
Also, don’t forget to inform backers that they must use Indiegogo’s share tools in order to participate in the referral program. Otherwise, they might be sending backers to your campaign and it won’t count!
5. Making an Indiegogo secret perk
What’s an Indiegogo secret perk? Basically, it’s a way to reward loyal supporters! You can provide a unique link that will unlock a “secret perk” which they can choose when they back your campaign.
Not only can you use a secret perk to thank your hardcore followers, but you can also use it when courting bloggers, influencers, and online communities to get them interested in your Indiegogo campaign.
No one wants to feel like they are being marketed to. The goal is to make your followers feel unique, special, and valued. The secret perk is one way to accomplish this.
6. Promoting to online communities and influencers
If you’re familiar with my work, you’ll know that I talk about this a lot. Online communities are an amazing way to get your project or campaign in front of a whole new audience that you didn’t have access to previously. The same goes for influencers who have a large following.
The key rule of promotion is to always think in terms of what the other person wants or is looking to get out of an interaction. Rather than just spamming your link, ask yourself how you can add value to an online community. How can you add value to an influencer?
To give you a rudimentary example, let’s say you were back in school and you wanted to influence a game of middle school kids playing dodgeball on the playground. You wanted them to decide to play four square instead of dodgeball. What would you do?
You wouldn’t just go up to them and demand that they play four square, or even ask them to. If you did, you’d likely create feelings of animosity and people would shy away from you, because you’re trying to kill the fun the group is having.
Instead, you’d start to play dodgeball with them, make friends with different members of the group, and get to know the leaders. Once you were “part of the group,” then you could introduce the idea of four square, or encourage one of the other members to introduce the idea.
The same works for online communities. Get to know the various members of the community before asking them to do something or share your Indiegogo campaign. This way, you don’t come off as “spammy” or “salesy.”
7. Doing PR outreach
Finally, doing PR outreach is another way to market your Indiegogo campaign. There are a few different forms of PR outreach, which you can learn about here. I’ll break them down in a simple fashion below:
- Direct PR outreach: You’re actively emailing journalists on a one-on-one basis. The name of this game is relationships.
- Indirect PR outreach: You’re sending out press releases to locations that journalists will check for stories. This is all about having a great well-written story and good media assets.
You can also get media hits by framing yourself as an expert in a particular area, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to talk about your crowdfunding campaign when you use this technique. However, you’ll likely get a link or mention to your website.
No matter what form of PR outreach that you’re doing, we recommend reading up a bit on how to write a good press release, pitch journalists, and set expectations for traffic and exposure. Not every PR hit, even if it’s in a major publication, is going to lead to pledges or traffic. But, it will almost always boost the credibility of your campaign.
