It’s all about engagement and selling yourself
As technology continues to develop, people are beginning to innovate in their own households, providing more and more opportunities for startups and new small business to arise. Traditional methods of getting one’s product to market, however, can be incredibly difficult to those with minimal experience in the business world. One of the most daunting tasks for people in this position is raising enough capital to actually develop and sell their ideas.
Thankfully, the crowdfunding on the internet has streamlined the process, allowing perspective innovators to connect directly with their clients and use small contributions to raise enough money to take their businesses off the ground. While Southeast Asia has traditionally lagged behind the United States and Europe, crowdfunding has become more popular over the years in the region.
In order to ensure a successful crowdfunding campaign, startups need to successfully market their products. Here are five tips for creating a successful marketing strategy for your crowdfunding campaign.
1. Choose The Right Crowdfunding Platform
Times have changed since the only real options for crowdfunding on the internet were Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. While these platforms still have their benefits, fees as high as 10% coupled with a slew of other inconveniences means that for many startups, they may not be the systems best fit for effectively raising capital.
A new startup, Acorn Collective, is attempting to shake up the crowdfunding platform market by streamlining the experience and offering users more control over their campaigns via blockchain technology. One of the company’s biggest selling points is that campaigns are free, allowing users on both ends of the platform insurance that all money raised will go directly to furthering the goals of the new idea. They are accept all legal projects across Southeast Asia.
The company’s comprehensive ledger and decentralised processing allow for any legal and non-harmful project from around the world to easily set up and begin their campaigns. In addition, the company prides itself on a comprehensive and helpful support staff that surpasses the resources offered by current crowdfunding competitors.
2. Build an Engaged Audience With Your Marketing
Now that you have selected the crowdfunding platform that best fits your needs as a budding business, you must create a loyal community that will support your project and help market it.
Chat tools like Telegram have been extremely helpful. For example, ConnectJob has utilised the tool to create a community of nearly 2,000 fans. One of the more popular crowdfunding campaigns, ConnectJob has raised over $6 million to create an ecosystem of services and service providers in a secure and easy to use mobile application.
Another way to drive engagement is by giving crowdfunders access to a project’s management team. A blockchain SAAS product, Morpheus Labs, is doing exactly this by having it’s core team members on the front lines of their crowdfunding campaign. You can interact with them across social media, where the founders can be seen interacting with other participants. This has allowed them to build a passionate community of long-term fans and enthusiasts.
3. Utilise Image And Video Content
In addition to regular written content, images and videos that promote your project are some of the greatest tools in the arsenal of a crowdfunding marketer. Image and video content help build your reputation further than you would be able to with written content alone by allowing backers and followers of the project a chance to experience progress on the project with their own eyes.
One crowdfunding campaign, Galaxy eSolutions, leveraged a video AMA (“ask me anything”) to give contributors a chance to ask questions and learn more about the project. Based in Hong Kong, Galaxy eSolutions is hybrid ecommerce platform in the multi-billion pre-owned and refurbished market. Dynamic marketing has been one reason they are a popular crowdfunding campaign.
While it is not recommended that you design your product with the intention of creating a viral sensation, coming up with genuinely creative ways of showing off your product or idea through visual representation makes the project very easily shareable and allows common news and media outlets to do promotion for you.
Also read: Are crowdfunding and P2P lending good options for business financing?
4. Create And Maintain A Strong Social Media Presence
Social media is omnipresent in millennials’ lives making it an absolute necessity that you build a strong network of accounts.
Creating social media accounts is incredibly simple, and by utilising the content you have already created for your website and campaign page, populating the feeds should be a low effort job. By posting your written and visual content to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social feeds, the outreach of your content increases exponentially as well as the ease with which larger social media presences and influencers can share your project.
Japanese startup Patron, is actually building a platform to help connect social media influencers with brands and companies. Access to top social media influencers and resources has never been easier. Crowdfunding campaigns should consider influencers as part of their strategy.
5. Continue Developing Your Project
By paying attention to customer feedback, crowdfunding campaigns can gain significant amounts of trust and popularity amongst millennials allowing for acceleration in not only exposure but also in raising campaign funds.
One of the simplest ways to demonstrate that your project is listening is to continually update your Frequently Asked Questions section. While often overlooked, FAQs that are pertinent to what consumers actually are interested in knowing about signal that a company is on top of their game and listening to problems that real backers and followers may have with the project.
While feedback from customers is not always useful, making sure to respond to questions customers pose on your platform or through social media are surefire ways to demonstrate that your campaign is trustworthy and on top of production.
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