Crowdfunding campaigns take a lot of time and effort to run successfully, and many find this out the hard way while running a campaign. To avoid the simple errors that can destroy a campaign, we at Thrinacia have gathered a list of pitfalls to avoid when raising money for your Crowdfunding campaign:
Cold starting the Campaign
There are folks out there that decide to launch their campaign without a legitimate email list, pre-launch marketing, or even worse without much research in the product.
Before launching your campaign you should have gathered an email list for marketing purposes. In addition to the email list, you should have already deployed your pre-launch marketing strategy so that when you launch, you will receive a good initial amount of funding that will make your campaign seem legit to strangers on the web. The pre launch of your campaign can be a determining factor in the success of your Crowdfunding campaign. It can set the standard for how much you can earn throughout the timeline of the campaign.
Setting the wrong goals
Some Crowdfunders decide to set the wrong goals, in other words, they overlook the reality of the Crowdfunding market. These specific individuals believe that they are going to receive millions of dollars when they have not researched similar campaigns. For instance, it is not reasonable to believe when Crowdfunding for a smartwatch that you will automatically receive millions of dollars just because the Pebble watch was a real success in the Crowdfunding market. You would have to research the current and most recent smart watch campaigns to get an idea of where the market is at today.
Do not set goals that are far out of reach. You should be setting reasonable campaign goals that you can reach. This should all be based on the data that you gathered when researching the Crowdfunding market.
Choosing the wrong platform
It is important that you decide on the right platform for your campaign. Although you will be driving most of the traffic to your campaign yourself, the platform that hosts your campaign on can also help with generating some additional backers. With that said, some Crowdfunders make the mistake of thinking that the platform will generate most of the backers while they will attract the minority of the backers. This is not true and can lead to underperformance of your Crowdfunding campaign.
Rewards
The rewards for your campaign should be another reason that your backer will want to donate his/her money to the campaign. Not offering any rewards can be a major pitfall that individuals encounter. You can lose potential donations if there is no reward offered. It is another incentive for a donation, so use the donations to the best of your abilities.
Losing momentum
Some campaigns seem to plateau in the sense of donations after the first week of launching their Crowdfunding campaign. This is a common issue among Crowdfunding campaigns. Unfortunately, there is no set answer to sustaining the momentum of new backers to your campaign after the initial launch. This should be researched, and included in your marketing strategy. There are various ways that past Crowdfunders have been able to avoid this issue using marketing strategies.
These are some of the common pitfalls that can make or break your Crowdfunding campaign. Most of the successful campaigns address these issues and plan ahead before the launch and pre launch of the campaign. Keep researching the ins and outs of Crowdfunding so you do not encounter these any of these pitfalls.