Crowdfunding 101 - Part 5

Now, there are many ways to get your campaign noticed. The obvious ones that many people think of, but also several others that may not have crossed your mind. They rarely cross your mind, because you simple don't associate them with direct marketing aspects and so therefore don't think they can help, but in fact they do help. Mainly, as anything that can make someone aware of the presence of your campaign can bring a conversion aspect that can take them to the site and make a contribution.

This post will be the start of a long list of services I found before and during, and even some after, that have helped and also gives a boost to the overall awareness of the campaign. Some are relatively simple affairs, that simply need some consideration when doing your campaign. Some take some work and need you to be motivated to get the necessary affects you require. However, saying that, the one that was most stress filled for me, was the one that brought the most rewards.

I will start off this list with the obvious tools and then slowly go through the others and indicate the tactics behind them. On the last post on this section, I will make a full list of these sites (if they are sites), plus add their tactical basis. During the campaign I was influenced a lot by a company to use their service to help boost (what they call) the GoGo factor on Indiegogo. Now, I am not saying that the service they provided was bogus or bad, but on the whole I felt the money I spent wasn't worth the effects they put in, as most of it was advise that I had to do on my part. So, as a free service I will share some of the aspects that they told me, and you can use these to your advantage.

We see here a graphic of the total visits to the campaign over the two month period from 1st Feb to 2 April. In the lower right you see a pie chart of unique next to returning visitors. And in the text section you will see Visits, Unique Visits and Page View data listing. Now this can help you understand a few things, mainly for the time you may spend in future campaign development. The things to be aware of in this chart are:

1. The rises in the graph in specific dates. The really big rise in the middle was due to an effect created by this company that provides the GoGo boost. I questioned this, as being a script that automatically registers visits to a site, even though the person does in fact go themselves. It simply uses their IP address. I questioned it because out of the 1,200 visits that day not one converted into a sale. I know it, because I monitored the activity via my iPad.
2. You will notice several other peaks. These were effective actions created by myself. The first two was due to the initial mail out and Facebook campaign, which resulted in contributions. The second, preceding the large one, was due to a ThunderClap campaign that actually brought the most contributions. Also the peak following the large one was a ThunderClap campaign, and the final noticeable peak was an article that appeared in a Greek magazine about the campaign. This too also produced a large contribution conversion.
3. Now the importance of the pie chart, as I have researched, is that the green area needs to be relatively proportional to the blue. Many people don't contribute on their first visit. They tend to look around, think about it and then return. So, if the green area is large then it indicates that people are coming back to look at the campaign. Therefore a good chance of getting a contribution.
4. There is a section that states 'Average Time'. Now, this is very important, as many of these campaign sites are requesting a video as part of the campaign front page Now, in my case the video was 6mins long. So to watch that and read the text included you needed at least 10 mins. So, if people were only spending on average 2-3mins on the page, many were not even going through the whole video, which means the most powerful part of the campaign hook may have been lost.

What can be learnt from all this? Well, as I said, not much can be done during the campaign, but in future you can be aware that a shorter, more direct video will engage more that an informative one. Like I mentioned about the 'elevator pitch'; Hook them first then reel them in. The importance of the other aspects of external campaigning are vital, as shown with when the contributions came at the highest. If you can sustain viral and engaging material out in the internet that can direct people on mass on a daily conversion level, then visits convert to contributions at a ratio of possible 10 to 1.

So what can be done to help this along. I will start with some of the more simple ones that can be employed.

Email:

Now, if you email people on a daily basis or reply to emails on a daily basis, then a good tool to think about using, which is not too aversive to the reader is a simple modification in the signature you attach to your emails.

Luckily I use OSX on my Macintosh, and that allows for the creation of some really nice graphic signatures, using inline HTML coding. Above you can see the signature that is use now and during the campaign. It makes clear the link that needs to be followed, put at the same is informative and gives icon based links to all the other social media sites the project has.

Can be pointed out as well. You can have an "Away" message or Holiday message in many service options, and if you are away anytime during the campaign, you can set this to include a link to the site.

IM Services:

Now, when you have your computer on and you are away from it, then many people don't know that you are away, and they can still try to contact you. Now, usually you can set the status to away, or even after some minutes it goes to idle mode. But why not use this to your advantage. Some IM services and apps allow you to set your own away message. This is the one I created for my application (AdiumX), which even allows connection to Facebook chat, and so when Facebook users contact me, they also get the away message.

One word of warning. Some people can find this a little annoying so use only when away from your computer.

OK. These are two non-social media ways to draw attention to the campaign. It's hard to judge how effective they are, as they cannot be monitored as direct click through conversions. But as previously stated they are extras than can only help.

The next post will move to social media platforms that can help with the delivery of free advertising.

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