A campaign plan with great online and offline activities
Fun, creative and inspiring activities will draw attention to your initiative and make it fun to contribute to your crowdfunding campaign. So to stimulate and involve people in your project, your activities need to be well spread during your campaign and fit your project and target audience. Be prepared and plan at least two online activities each week, and then divide the tasks. This way no surprises will happen and you’ll have lots of activities to choose from.
A campaign plan that reaches your network
You’ll get the best results when you combine offline and online campaign activities. Think about how to reach and enthuse your friends, family and fans. Most people will need to hear the message more than once before they contribute to the campaign. So find a varied and fun way to keep things interesting and encourage people to take a look at your campaign page.
Use this template to make your campaign plan.
Adjust your campaign activities to your target audience. We’ve done this by spreading flyers and not so much on social media — Margreet Pruijt van Red de pad, help een vrijwilliger.
The power of online
The strength of an online campaign is the ability to reach many people through social media and newsletters. Because it’s easy to share online you can further your reach and inform many more people and keep them posted on your initiative and your campaign. By updating regularly on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media channels you can keep people informed on your campaign. Make sure you share new and fun updates regularly. This way it’s fun for people to keep following you.
The power of offline
Online is a great way to inform people, give updates and further your reach. But offline it is much easier to involve, enthuse and activate your people. Often personal contact is the trigger to contribute to a crowdfunding campaign. For instance by listening to an enthusiastic story from an initiator or from someone who has contributed before. Offline activities make for personal contact with your potential supporters so you can convince them more quickly to contribute to your campaign. You can also make people part of your community more easily when you meet them in person and they can relate instantly to your initiative.
We’d like to give you some tips on what you can do online and offline at every stage of your campaign. Read more on who you’d like to meet during which stage (LINK!)
Stage 0: Preparing with your ambassadors
When preparing for your campaign, you want to build a large group of people that are enthusiastic about the initiative and feel connected to it. By involving them in the preparation of your campaign you’ll collect lots of great ideas, while they will feel extra involved and probably become your first donors and ambassadors.
Offline: organize a brainstorm evening for friends, local residents and other enthusiasts so anyone can contribute to the project or to the crowdfunding campaign. Say what you’re up to and let people share tips on great activities and cool rewards. This way people will feel some ownership of the ideas too.
Online: share updates on the preparation of your initiative and your campaign. Let people share their thoughts by asking open questions or poll them how they feel about fun rewards. Show your enthusiasm and show how others can contribute or share their thoughts during the campaign.
Stage 1: Starting your campaign with your local supporters (0–20%)
It’s crucial during the start-up stage that the first group of donors is ready to make a donation. It shows that many people are backing you. When the counter goes up during this stage of your campaign it makes people believe your campaign will be a success.
Offline: Ask friends, family and ambassadors to make a donation at the start of the campaign, and do it in person. Or you can have a pizza night with your team, and then plan an hour of placing calls to ask the first supporters to donate. A kick-off party will be the first boost for your counter and for your group of enthusiast ambassadors.
Online: It’s a good idea to launch your campaign in a small circle and go online only when you already have your first donors and your counter shows a nice amount. Start sending out personal messages via Whatsapp, or call people to make a donation. This way, supporters will be more inclined to contribute. An email or non-personal text often isn’t read or will simply be thrown out.
Stage 2: Reaching out to your own network (20–50%)
Once the first group of loyal supporters has donated, it’s time to activate the rest of your own network or the network surrounding your initiative, and ask them to donate.
Offline: potential donor events are a great crowdfunding moment to collect money. Use (national) holidays too, like King’s day or your own birthday. But also consider a fun auction, a benefit diner, organizing a sponsor walk, a bingo, a pub quiz or a clothes swap. Or prepare a big diner and ask for a € 25 donation to join in. This way they’ll have a great evening and you have the perfect opportunity to pitch your initiative.
Also, it helps when the campaign is visible somewhere. So if you have a specific location like a community house, a school or some central location, then show your counter there, and show the status of your crowdfunding. Put up a great invitational poster and install a fundraising collection box (with a good lock on it).
Online: This is thé moment to further your campaign massively through social media. Be positive and original and make sure you have new information to share every time. Saying, “we’re doing a crowdfunding campaign, will you donate”, will work the first time, but lots of followers will leave after that. People like to be updated on your campaign. So share a nice picture of a great activity, share an update on the project, introduce volunteers or share a significant intermediate score on your campaign. It’s also fun to share bloopers from your campaign video or share a personal story. This way people want to follow and share.
Use videos of people who are involved in the project in your social media and campaign updates.
Stage 3: The new network and the final sprint of your campaign (50–100%)
In the final week of your campaign, a big part of the amount has probably been collected. Now you can create a sense of urgency to make it to 100% in those final days. During this stage, you can also try to inspire a whole new network.
Offline: Use the last week to organize a great fundraiser to collect money, get people together and work on the visibility of your project. Remind people in personal talks that it’s really the last chance to contribute. And if you’ve collected half of your target amount, you can approach online blogs and local media to target a new audience.
Online: Countdown to the final days on social media channels, so people will know the end of your campaign is near. Tell them this is the last chance to contribute with a donation, they can still choose that unique reward or help make sure the initiative will come through. Use your campaign page to send an update to all your donors in which you make a call to action to spread the campaign. This way, you’ll give donors the opportunity to be ambassadors during that final stage.
Hopefully, we’ve inspired you with different activities you can use during your campaign. We’ve seen a lot of campaigns and are filled with inspiration. That’s why we love thinking with you on the activities you can use during your campaign. So contact us!
“It’s a very intense period, both the preparation and the campaign itself. It’s unique, creative and beautiful to see how compassionate people can be to make your idea succeed. If you’re not actively approaching people, the money flow will go down. We’ve seen it happen it and we can look back on a really great time. Would we want to do it again? No!” — Simon and Iris van Leeuwen of Fresh milk for anyone
