There are many individuals trying to raise funds through Crowdfunding, as it is a very accessible way to start funding for your cause, product, etc. Raising funds is not easy, and the reason for doing so is because there are not enough funds to start with. Although Crowdfunding requires money for marketing, what can you do if you do not have any funding available for marketing your Crowdfunding campaign?
Why would you need money for a Crowdfunding campaign?
For those that want to create a Crowdfunding campaign, there are strategies that can be used to get traffic to the campaign. First, is the pre-launch strategy. If you are thinking of using the pre-launch strategy as one of the Crowdfunding methods to gain more attention to your campaign before launching, you may need to spend money. Many campaigns use this method and offer prizes to users in exchange for their email. It can be hard to offer such prizes if there are no funds available.
In addition to the pre-launch campaign, many campaigns start to use advertising across multiple social media platforms to target potential backers. This type of targeting can only be accessed through paid advertisement. What are you supposed to do when there is no funding available, but you want to use Crowdfunding as a source to fund your next project or cause?
Using Crowdfunding without spending any money
It is not recommended to use Crowdfunding if you do not have any money available, but that is not to say that it cannot be done. You can still raise the funds needed without having any money, and it has been done before. The only trade off to not having the funds is the use of your time. This is because of the age-old saying “time = money”.
If you still want to create your Crowdfunding campaign without having access to any money, you need to do the following:
- SHARE, SHARE, SHARE, your campaign everywhere. You need as many eyes on this campaign as possible. Find as many groups on all social media platforms as possible. Crowdfundingforum.com provides links to great groups and communities that you can get involved with. Once you are on the forums, you can discuss with other campaign creators and potential backers on how you can improve your efforts.
- Wait for the right time to create your campaign, and launch. Although this may sound straightforward, many campaigns rush into creating the campaign which will be their biggest downfall. It does not hurt to share your campaign among many social media platforms and forums before you launch. You need to generate as much hype as you can so that you will get 30% funded as fast as possible. You can spend months researching, and be promoting your campaign before you launch just to get the hype needed for your campaign to be successful.
- Use your social circle. In a typical Crowdfunding campaign, the first group of backers are friends and family. These are the people that trust you the most, and will likely share your campaign among their own social circle. If enough of them decide to share your campaign, you may potentially have a viral Crowdfunding campaign, which will do the marketing for you. This is one of the biggest advantages of Crowdfunding, which sometimes, is not utilized enough.
The work that is needed
Now that you understand some of the methods that you can focus on without having any money available, you need to comprehend the time and effort it will take to launch and run the campaign. For those that are planning on running a campaign to release a particular product or service, you need to have a great campaign video. Here are some quick tips to create a Crowdfunding video. You will have to create valuable content such as the campaign video and produce quality images of the product/service. The same amount of effort can be applied to a personal/charity Crowdfunding campaign as well but is not as valuable to the end donor. This work, if on your own, will take a lot of time only when executed properly, and will have to be done before the launch of the campaign.
It takes time and effort to create a successful Crowdfunding campaign and is not easy to reach the Crowdfunding goal. It is, however, an achievable goal if there is the right amount of time and effort put forth by the campaign creator.