Key Points:
- On average, a successful campaign raises about $28,656 through crowdfunding
- To build a truly successful campaign, you need to have a great social media
- Make sure that before you start your campaign, you have a complete road map laid out, one that includes how you want to handle marketing, manufacturing, rewards, and backers
By now, you’ll have heard plenty of success stories of intrepid entrepreneurs that took a simple idea and turned it into a million-dollar business thanks to crowdfunding. On average, a successful campaign raises about $28,656 through crowdfunding. However, Indiegogo campaigns seem to have found a magic recipe for success - campaigns on the platform manage to raise an average of $41,634 each. Indiegogo is one of the most popular crowdfunding platforms available; in fact, 15 million people visit the platform each month. So, it’s the ideal place to raise money for business startups.
Easyship is the exclusive shipping partner for Indiegogo and can help you find easy fulfillment solutions for your campaign. We have plenty of experience in crowdfunding, having helped a range of wildly successful campaigns, including Tropicfeel and Keyboardio.
Fulfillment is one of the biggest hurdles to crowdfunding success, but Easyship can help you navigate this. Our intuitive, detailed product listings process will help you find more accurate shipping rates while our automated processes can automatically generate shipping labels and customs declarations. But if you truly want to find campaign success on Indiegogo, there are a few things you should know.
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10 Tips to Boost Your Indiegogo Campaign to Success
Your startup can get a very good boost with a campaign on Indiegogo, but it will require focused effort. Competition on the platform is tough so you’ll really need to stand out from the crowd if you want to succeed. To help you on your way, we’ve combed through the best crowdfunding campaigns to assemble a list of winning tips.
1. Plan - a lot
Planning is the most important part of a successful campaign. You might have a brilliant idea but if you haven’t thoroughly planned every aspect of your campaign, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Sometimes, campaigns launch with a very good marketing strategy and great awareness but lose their footing when it comes to shipping because they forgot to plan for it.
So, make sure that you have a complete road map laid out before you start your campaign, one that includes how you want to handle marketing, manufacturing, rewards, and backers.
2. Be an attention grabber
All the top Indiegogo campaigns have one thing in common: they’re completely unavoidable. You simply can’t browse by them within being sucked in. Whether it’s a catchy title or logo, insightful videos, or creative marketing campaigns, every bit of a successful campaign is designed to appeal to casual viewers. Don’t forget that each part of your campaign should also work towards developing your brand identity.
3. Share rewards generously
Offer appealing rewards as incentives for your backers. Most of the top campaigns do this by creating different reward tiers based on how much a backer contributes. You could also offer major discounts to early adopters. This will not only encourage them to invest in your campaign, but it will push backers to lay down some money far sooner than they otherwise might have - this will spur you on your way to a successful campaign.
4. Use social media to promote your campaign
To build a truly successful campaign, you need to have a great social media, PR, and marketing strategy that launches long before your campaign does. Timing is everything - by building buzz ahead of your campaign, you can ensure that people will already be interested in the time it launches.
And, you shouldn’t leave any medium unturned. Build yourself a following and strategy for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, and make sure to create engaging, sharable content for the widest reach.
5. Set a budget for everything
To be among the top Indiegogo campaigns, the way you manage your finances will be very important. Overenthusiastic campaigners often spend most of their funds on marketing or production and forget about rewards and fulfillment. That’s why you need to think ahead and budget for things that must be done after your campaign, like sending orders to your backers.
If you’re concerned about budgeting for shipping, the Easyship can help. Our detailed product listing options will help you find the most accurate shipping rates for your needs, and you can set up flexible insurance that provides your packages with exactly the protection they need - this way, you can figure out almost exactly how much money you’ll need.
Easyship client Tropicfeel - which ran two successful campaigns on Indiegogo - was able to leverage our platform to reach over 32,000 backers in 142 countries by carefully working out how much shipping would cost, accessing affordable courier services, and then building this into their campaign goals.
6. Hire an SEO writer
Good content is very important for your campaign. To be successful, you not only need solid marketing content but great SEO-driven content. Blogging is a very fruitful way to spread the word about your campaign.
It’s also a very effective technique to get a good position in search engines so that your campaign is more visible. To achieve this, you need a writer who understands how to use SEO. They will also help you use tools like Copyscape and Google Trends to evaluate your keywords and generate plagiarism-free content.
7. Complete your pre-launch checklist
Another thing you need to do to be one of the best campaigns is take to advantage of all the expertise the platform can offer. The Indiegogo help center can help with this. They have a detailed checklist that you can use to figure out exactly what you need to do to build a great campaign on Indiegogo. The document will tell you, for example, how long your pitch video should be, what kind of content quality you should aim for, and how to make things personal.
8. Add your personal touch
No one will be more passionate about your campaign than yourself. The honesty and persuasion that your spoken word will carry are unmatched. So, use a personal touch to convey your campaign message as passionately as possible - it won’t go unrewarded since this will help you get a better response.
Be part of your campaign’s pitch video and be clear in what you say - keep the message short and concise. In any written content, be sure to tell your personal “founder’s story.” You can also send personalized emails to your backers to make them feel like part of the team.
9. Set reasonable goals
This is perhaps the most important element of your campaign. You should understand that the goals and targets that you set for yourself are the most important part of your campaign. All the best Indiegogo campaigns of 2019 achieved their goals because they were practical about them.
Experts recommend that your fundraising goal should be the minimum amount you need to complete your project and fulfill your rewards - don’t forget to include fulfillment costs in this amount! You should also include Indiegogo fees and charges when setting your campaign targets.
10. Save time by answering all the questions beforehand
You don’t want to waste your time by answering the same questions about your campaign again and again. That’s why it can be helpful to compile a list of the most frequently asked questions about your campaign and answer these on an FAQ page. You should also provide clear information for contacting your customer service team.
Find Success on Indiegogo
Indiegogo is a very popular and reliable crowdfunding platform. It’s helped many businesses find the funds to take off. You’ll find many success stories on the platform, but don’t make the mistake of thinking a campaign is a walk in the park. Running a successful campaign on Indiegogo requires thorough research, hard work, and passion.
Easyship offers support for crowdfunding shipping needs. Sign up for a free account to see how we can help you find success on Indiegogo!
