In a crowdfunding study at University of Buffalo, presentation, track record, and social proofs are important keys to consider for successful fundraising.
In addition to those mentioned, more factors like marketing, communication, backer experience can come into play before and during the campaign period that can further affect your project’s success rate.
So, what do project creators like you need to know?
You can actually minimize the risk involved by using crowdfunding tools that are ‘tailored fit’ to give the edge you need in managing your campaigns’ exposure and backer experience.
We have listed 5 of the best crowdfunding tools we can find so you can gear up pretty well on your next crowdfunding endeavor.
Check these out.
BackerKit
Main Benefit: Easy Campaign Management
This revolutionary crowdfunding tool makes for an easy peasy campaign management. Think of it as your fundraising headquarters on the net where you can manage all the backer information, fulfill and track rewards, do your surveys and tons more.
BackerKit is a paid service. They do not offer fixed prices since the cost would depend in a per project basis.
Canary, a security systems company showed how BackerKit saved them from the mess they have to deal with after gaining a lot of backers from Indiegogo for which the later can help them with data and fees collection.
83% of our @Indiegogo backers have confirmed shipping info in @BackerKit check your email for the invite or go to http://t.co/Cdf8K4qgv3
— Canary (@canary) March 21, 2014
BackerKit is for you if you are looking for an orderly way of managing post campaign fulfillments and the support problems associated with it. The software comes with a trusty dashboard that helps you understand how data collected from your backers. Not to mention its top of the line support suite to ensure every support communication is taken with great care.
Thrinacia Reach
Main Benefit: Fully Control Your Crowdfunding Project
Thrinacia reach is handy dandy tool for launching and displaying your crowdfunding project on your very own website through the use of a simple html widget. With Thrinacia reach, you can launch fundraising campaigns in a jiffy.
How does it work? It’s super simple.
Once you have signed up, you can now create a campaign, there are 2 funding modes you can choose from:
Keep it all – Keep all the funds contributed even if the goal isn’t met
All or nothing – Keep the funds contributed if the funded goal is met
Choose an option and you can easily breeze through these sections.
Your campaign set up is over before you know it. Simply copy this widget code and paste it onto any post, page or widget area of your site.
Thrinacia Reach is best for you if you want much better control over your fundraising. You command the pacing, campaign duration, data from your backers and most importantly you own the web traffic from any marketing efforts you’ve made during your campaign run.
This compact crowdfunding tool is completely free to use. It is also white labeled, you can use your own brand and very customizable to match your existing website design.
Buffer
Main Benefit: Optimize Social Media Updates
Buffer is the leading social media scheduling tool. It comes packed with a content calendar for scheduling your upcoming social updates, timing intelligence, advanced image editor, uploader and analytics for you to keep track of each days progress.
Buffer pricing ranges from free to $10 for personal accounts and $99 -$399 for small teams to enterprises in a monthly basis.
This Business insider story depicts how Buffer helped them achieve over a million fans. They had a consistent schedule, easy to manage posting workflows and a 6x growth rate of Facebook Fans.
In crowdfunding, social media updates are critical for your potential backers. A well oiled system of updating your backers is the same as maintaining strong communication with them about how well the campaign is being run and what future improvements are still underway.
Easily put, Buffer makes it easy for project creators to manage social media posts and further optimize them in terms of publishing times and what content posts works well.
Cision
Main Benefit: Reach The Best Influencers
Cision is the cornerstone of PR marketing. Cision’s robust database combined with their top of the line communication cloud enables you to do an outreach on influencers related to your niche super simple. Reach those people who are most likely to pitch your crowdfunding campaign to their audience.
JetBlue Airways took advantage of Cisions database and PR monitoring to verify growth in audience reach and impact from their marketing efforts.
This tool is perfect for large scale crowdfunding projects that requires heavy lifting on media releases to bolster enough encouragement and support from the masses and in depth PR analytics to ensure that project updates are reaching the right audience.
Wideo
Main Benefit: Handcraft Quality Campaign Videos
Wideo is an advanced animation video maker and editing tool that is best used as explainer videos during campaign promotions.
Wideo’s great library of templates, drag and drop features helps you create high quality videos in less time. If you have limited resources to hire a Video Editor for your crowdfunding campaign then Wideo can be a viable option.
This tool is currently priced at $59 per month for 180 seconds video and up to $199 per month for longer ones.
For Key Travel, a travel solutions business, Wideo paved the way for them to get them 2.5x more clicks coming from their email campaigns.
Wideo videos can used to push engagement on almost every aspect of your fundraising promotion, from emails, social media pages, websites and more.
Summary
Okay!
So there goes our quick round up of the best crowdfunding tools designed to make your project campaigns much less stressful and rewarding.
Get to see an increase in exposure, welcome more engagement and above all close in that much needed funding.
It’s about time you do crowdfunding ‘the smart way’ after all it is in your best interest to get your dream business funded. Right?
Have other crowdfunding tools you want to place in this list? Let us know in the comments!