Crowdfunding 101: What you need before launching a campaign

Crowdfunding has opened the door for so many startups that wouldn’t have otherwise had the chance to get off the ground. What so many people fail to realize is that a successful campaign doesn’t just “go viral” and get lucky. Most of us that see any level of success spend months and sometimes even years building the foundation for a big campaign. Below are a couple myths that I’d like to shatter:
You don’t need any money to start. Sadly, this is false. The ol’ saying still proves to be true and that is “you’ve got to spend money to make money.” For our campaign in particular, we had to spend money on things like photography, videography, marketing, PR and advertising. It was all of these things things combined that got us to funding.
You have to get covered by all the biggest outlets. Let it be known, that first comes funding and then comes the reporters wanting to write about you. Granted, we were fortunate enough to have TechCrunch break the story of our launch which gave us a ton of traffic but not a ton of backers. You should absolutely spend time targeting bloggers and influencer marketers that will help bring you more backer and not just traffic.
“It’s a great idea, so it will do great!” Wrong. The best ideas need strategy to get the word out and that strategy involves time and targeting. You need to first identify the different types of people who you think will back and support your campaign and then you need to figure out how to tell them about your campaign.
So there you have it. Don’t let this information get you down. I know it’s hard having to reevaluate but I can assure you that taking this information to heart before launching your campaign will only help.
Photo Credit: Dominic Torell
