Here at LaunchBoom, we’ve been part of too many crowdfunding campaigns to name. Gadget Flow, one of our partners and a top product discovery platform, has also worked with a ton of product launches. We combined our knowledge in a webinar to tell everyone what we’ve learned in more than 5,000 product launches—and today we’re going to share that knowledge with you.
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What it takes to have a huge raise
There’s no one secret that unlocks a 6- or 7-figure crowdfunding campaign. Instead, it’s all about the process. You need to know what you’re doing from the outset, and you need to follow all the steps carefully and consistently. The #1 worst thing you can do is try to skip steps or cheat the process… that’s pretty much a guarantee that you’re going to fail.
Remember: more than 63% of crowdfunding campaigns fail. Make sure you set yourself up for success.
Work with experts
Whether you decide to go with a full-service agency like LaunchBoom or smaller, one-service agencies to fill in the gaps in what you need, you should partner with experts for your crowdfunding launch. You’ll need someone to write your campaign page, design your graphics, and produce your campaign video, among lots of other things. You can work with different agencies to do each piece of your campaign, or you can choose a full-service agency to take care of every step of the process for you, from pre-launch testing to list-building to running ads for your live campaign… you get the idea.
The bottom line is that you’re the number-one leading expert about your product, so you should let that be your role. Let other experts do what they’re the best at, because that collaboration will help you launch your product successfully.
Grow your list
You might have the best product in the world, but if you don’t have a good, qualified email list when you launch your campaign, it’s not going to go anywhere. Working alongside an agency with a proven system is an excellent way to grow that list. You can also partner with companies like Gadget Flow, which will feature your product to their audience of hundreds of thousands of people.
You should grow your list in every good and legal way that you can, because the more qualified people you have on your list, the more backers you’ll get when your campaign launches. (And avoid these list-building methods—they’re all bad!)
Know how much it takes to reach 6 figures—or 7
The short answer is: the more you want to raise, the more you have to spend.
You’re not going to hit six figures based on luck. You’re definitely not going to reach that million-dollar mark by chance.
The biggest obstacle standing between any creator and a huge raise is funding. In order to get people to back your campaign, you need them to know about it. How do you get people to learn about your product? 999 times out of every 1,000, you need to advertise. Even if you’ve gotten great PR somewhere, you’ll still need to be able to advertise to bring in backers. If you don’t have a large advertising budget, you’re not going to be able to raise 6 or 7 figures.
Hit your goal as early as you can
The earlier you hit your funding goal, the better your chances will be at getting front-page or newsletter placement. The platforms like to feature campaigns that do well, so… do well! The more you can do on your own, the more the platforms will be willing to help you raise even more. Hitting your goal right away—having a LaunchBoom, as we say here—makes that much more possible.
Be reasonable and realistic
Your hopes and dreams for your campaign are valid, but you can’t make them your actual goals. Your campaign’s success depends on you expecting results that you know you can achieve. Setting your goal at a million dollars isn’t a recipe for success, but setting it at $50,000 and then getting to a million dollars feels like—well, a million bucks!
Know how much it takes
Building a pre-launch email list. Creating graphics. Writing copy for your campaign page… and your landing page… and your emails. Qualifying your email list. Producing a video. Figuring out your funding goal, then your reward tiers… oh, and a shipping strategy. Choosing a manufacturing partner. Updating your backers… and so much more.
There are a lot of moving parts to a crowdfunding campaign, and unless you have a huge team, it’s nearly impossible to manage everything on your own. Knowing when to call for reinforcements and working with an agency that knows what they’re doing is key to a successful campaign.
Use InDemand
We’ve talked about InDemand before, but it’s worth saying again: using Indiegogo InDemand after your initial campaign closes is the best way to bridge the gap between your campaign and your eCommerce presence. Even better, you can use InDemand no matter what platform you used for your original campaign!
InDemand is the best way to continue raising funds after your initial campaign wraps up. You already know which marketing assets bring in the most backers, so you can continue to run those to bring in additional revenue while you work on manufacturing your product. We’ve seen campaigns exceed their campaign revenue during InDemand—money that would have been left on the table if they’d closed up shop after their campaigns finished.
Get your product out there
It may sound simple, but it’s worth saying: if you want people to purchase your product, they need to know about your product.
This means that you need to think about ways to get your product in front of people. The more promotion you do, the more people will hear about and become interested in your product. This includes things like Facebook advertising, but also includes third-party websites and services like Gadget Flow, any PR coverage that you can get, and organic social media posts.
Remember that you have to spend money to make money, and the more you want to make, the more you’ll have to invest to do it. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but generally, you should expect to spend around 10% of your desired raise to get to that number. If you want to raise $100,000, then you need to budget around $10,000 for advertising. It’s not something that you should turn on once and then turn off; ads need to keep running in order to keep finding new backers for your campaign.
There is no perfect timing
One of the most common questions that we’re asked is “When is the best time to launch my campaign?”
99.999% of the time, the answer is “when you’re ready.” Don’t launch too soon, or your campaign won’t make it out of the gate. On the other hand, when you’re ready to launch, don’t sit around waiting for some sign of perfect timing. It doesn’t exist—and what’s more, if you do all of the preparation to build up your qualified email list before you launch, it doesn’t matter, either. There’s always something that will pop up that could delay your launch, but as long as you’re prepared, it’s rarely worth waiting.
Working with more than 5,000 campaigns has really turned us into crowdfunding experts. These tips are all important things to keep in mind… but they’re far from the only things we’ve learned. If you want to work with crowdfunding experts to launch your next campaign, apply to work with us today—we’d love to share our knowledge with you!
