Industry blogs and consultants talk about developing your network long before actually launching a crowdfunding campaign. What they don’t tell aspiring project creators is that starting is easy. Everyone has friends, family and extended social media contacts. Once these outlets are tapped comes the real challenge. Enter the Valley of Death (a.k.a. the 20% hump).
Findings show that a crowdfunding project that can surpass the 35% funding level is 399% more likely to eventually get funded. What does that mean for campaigns in their early days? Three things:
1. Start building your social media connections and networks as early as possible.
The consultants are right! Let them know what is coming and get them pumped-up to give your campaign some early momentum. Just about every crowdfunding platform out there features ‘trending’ campaigns since the projects with more momentum are likely to drive more revenue into their platform. That said, having a huge first day is probably your best bet to get an early shot at making that list of popular campaigns.
2. Don’t over do it!
HA! Much easier said than done. You don’t want to fully exhaust (aka annoy) your most loyal fans in the early stage of your campaign. Campaign managers must play the balancing act of getting some launch excitement amongst your most loyal supports, while at the same time not overloading them with requests. Since most campaigns begin to see a drop off around the key 25% hurdle that is when you will need to tap into your network once again.
3. Reward supporters that promote your product.
We have seen this time and time again. When a crowdfunding customer uses PlugMob they have a place to enter a message to their supporters to say thank you and, optionally, offer an incentive. Those that offer incentives see much higher conversion rates of people that visit their PlugMob to those that simply thank them for their help. The kicker is that the incentives often don’t cost the project owner anything. We’ve seen things like a PDF copy of a script to a movie or early access to new videos showing off the product. The key here is that the people visiting your PlugMob have almost certainly put money behind your idea so Tweeting your product in exchange for a little more information about the it is a no brainer.
Using a PlugMob is a clever and valuable way to engage with your funding community, while at the same time gets the word out about your camping to a very large audience with minimal burden to your most loyal supporters. PlugMob is be free for most campaigns up to 200 supporters.
