01 Apr How to Launch a Successful Equity Crowdfunding Campaign
Crowdfunding is rising in popularity nowadays, especially with business owners who have come to the realization that it can have enormous benefits for growing their business. A lot of entrepreneurs turn to crowdfunding when they think about business startups, as it has become extremely easy to reach the right investors that way. In the day and age we live in, when digital marketing is of huge importance for business success, crowdfunding online is one of the best options to connect to a vast number of people and raise awareness.
Crowdfunding opens the door to reaching a lot of investors and successfully kickstarting a business. With the right combination of marketing and content strategies, you can very easily achieve your goals, especially if you combine traditional and modern marketing strategies. If you are looking to launch a crowdfunding campaign for your business startup, read on to learn how to effectively do so.
Make Sure You Build Momentum
As much as 60% of all crowdfunding campaigns don’t manage to achieve their goals and one of the greatest reasons for that is not having consistent momentum. A lot of campaigns show great potential when they launch and create a lot of buzz among a large number of people but, soon after, the excitement tends to drop and the campaigns fail. In order to avoid that, you need to have the right plan of how you want things to develop in the process. You need to create a timeline of everything you plan on releasing, namely new features, new accessories or new partnerships – anything that will help you reach investors and keep the buzz going.
Of course, you need to find a platform on which you will launch your campaign and raise investments for your startup. The best platform for launching your equity crowdfunding campaign is Crowdfunding.com, as it has a flat monthly fee of a few hundred dollars, while other platforms take a percentage of the funds you raise.
The power of social media – In order to really create momentum and reach more people, social media are the best solution for you. They will enable you to spread the word about your business among literally millions of people, helping more investors get acquainted with your work. Planned marketing and PR are of huge importance here, since you need to truly engage people and make them interested in what you have to offer. It takes a lot of time and effort, but social media will most certainly help you propel momentum and have a lot of people talking about your campaign, not to mention that they will help drive a lot of traffic to your crowdfunding page.
Create a Captivating Video to Engage Supporters
In order to make the product of your business really stand out to make investors want to engage in your business, you need to create a video that will capture their attention. People prefer this to merely hearing and reading about a product, and your video will enable them to truly experience what your product can do for them and how they can benefit from it. By having a captivating video, your business will easily be set apart from your competition and your viewers may actually recommend you to their friends and family. If they start sharing it on social media, you will be one step closer to succeeding in your campaign.
Making a video for your crowdfunding campaign is one of the best ways to tell your story and to make sure the story has great impact on the viewers. It is the best way of engaging supporters online, which can be quite a tough thing to do, since there are really a lot of people online, having their attention pulled to a number of directions. You need to find a way to grab their attention and keep their interest, and the video you provide them with is a great way of accomplishing that.
Keep the Communication with Your Supporters
Crowdfunding means that you don’t get to meet with your investors and supporters face-to-face, but staying in touch with them is of crucial importance. You need to let them know what you are doing to develop your product and show them what they invested in. Keeping them updated with everything that you are doing to start your business will show that you respect them as your supporters, which is especially important when it comes to your investors.
As already discussed, social media are the best for connecting with your investors and supporters and for truly engaging them in your work, so make sure you plan your social media marketing the right way and with your ultimate goal in mind.
Alex Perdikis, the owner of the Koons of Silver Spring Car Dealership, offers great advice on crowdfunding, stating that “the trick to raising funds through crowdfunding is to have a specific goal in mind”, adding that social media are the best for advertising a fundraising event. Both statements couldn’t be more true, as the right goal in mind followed by proper campaign planning and engaging people on social media leads straight to a winning crowdfunding campaign.
