Indiegogo: Here Are Five Ways to Build an Audience For Your Crowdfunding Campaign

On Thursday, Indiegogo announced five key ways organizers to build an audience for their crowdfunding campaigns. The global crowdfunding platform revealed most campaigns should have at least 30% of their goal already funded before they even launch.

The website noted:

“Gaining momentum and raising funds will help other contributors feel more comfortable contributing their own funds to your project once it goes live. The best way to gain momentum for your project is to build an audience.”

Here are Indiegogo’s top five ways for initiatives to grab more attention.

1. Share your story: Reveal to backers the backstory of each product. Cuddle & Kind’s team stated: “We explained our mission to help feed children in need and the idea behind cuddle+kind… we explained how crowdfunding works and asked them for their help and feedback. From these conversations, we learned how important it was to create an easy to understand message, then present it in our video and consistently throughout our own website and social media.”

2. Focus on your circle of friends and family first before branching out: Identify and expand the list from friends/family to friends of friends and even acquaintances. From there, organizers should reach out to their community and people that were referred to your project. 

3. Create an email list: Gather email addresses of already and potential backers. From there, you should conduct your initial email campaign. Nuheara IQbuds: Super Intelligent Wireless Earbuds campaign creators noted: “We had about 22,000 people on our database before we launched.’ The startup also had about 17,000 Facebook likes and 30 to 40% click-through and open rates.”

4. Share the initiative on social media: Begin your social media campaign AFTER you have done your emails. Indiegogo reported successful campaigns had raised an average of 21% of their funds from backers who learned about the initiative through Facebook.

5. Expand, Expand, Expand: After social media, send messages to bloggers, press, social media groups, etc. That way you can expand your connections and draw in more viewers.