There are several ways online community can increase the money you raise with crowdfunding:
- Community can help you before you begin crowdfunding by polishing your ideas and your presentation to raise funds
- Community can do something very important… it can grow your network so that during fundraising the money comes in quickly… and that is absolutely critical for success of any campaign
Lots of people jump into crowd funding just assuming that they have the right idea and network to get to their funding goal easily. The truth, according to a PC World article (The Crowdfunding Caveat: Most Campaigns Fail) and statistics from Kickstarter, show that only about 44 % of projects are fully funded and a large percentage don’t even raise 20% of their funding goal.
So improve your odds!
Here is how an online community from SocialEngine can help you increase the odds of success.
FIRST
- You can use the community as a way to beta test the underlying assumptions of your campaign. In other words test the waters before you sail your ship.
- Try out your messaging, your concept, your images and your video. Ask questions.
- Use the community to help make decisions about your crowdfunding campaign prior to launch. Maybe your fundraising goal is wrong – too high, or too low.
- Create a couple of options for your funding and messages and then let the community vote and give you feedback on what floats their boat! If you get the message right that will go a long ways towards successful crowdfunding.
SECOND
- Use the community to enhance your list of potential sponsors. An online community provides a great mechanism to grow a list of potential sponsors, donors and investors.
- Spend a couple of months fine tuning your messages and increasing your audience now; then you will be ready when you have to put it on the line with only 30 days to raise funds.
- Ask all of your community members to invite other people to join the community. In the world of crowdfunding you want to have an open community where everyone with a PC, smartphone or tablet that likes your idea can join and participate.
You will know when your community has reached sufficient size (number of people) and provided enough feedback that your crowdfunding campaign will end up on the side of success rather than failure. Get the free crowdfunding E-book Kickstarting Community: Custom Social Networks for Crowdfunding. Visit http://get.socialengine.com/crowdfunding
