I recently wrote about the powers of Crowdfunding and how it not only provides money to entrepreneurs and business owners, but it provides customers and a massive marketing push.
But, I didn’t have time to discuss one of the keys of Crowdfunding success, which is to effectively market your Crowdfunding raise to others.
It is important to always remember that the best product or service doesn’t always win; usually it’s the company who best MARKETS its product or service that wins.
Likewise, it’s often NOT the best companies (i.e., with the best team or product/service) who successfully raise Crowdfunding dollars. Rather, it’s the companies who most effectively market their Crowdfunding raise to others who succeed.
So, how do you market your Crowdfunding raise so tons of people fund you?
To answer this, I’m going to use the classic 4Ps of Marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotions.
Product:
You always need the right product to get sales. In the case of Crowdfunding, your “product” is 1) your company (what you are building) and 2) what your offer is to those who fund you.
With regards to your offer, make it compelling and creative. For example, some entrepreneurs have given crowdfunders cool rewards such as invites to attend their launch party, public acknowledgements to them on their websites, and some have even named products after top crowdfunders.
Price:
With regards to price, people will obviously be more prone to write you a $50 funding check today for a promise to ship you a $100 product later versus requiring a $75 payment today.
Place:
Place refers to where you sell your product. In the case of Crowdfunding, there are several “places” or Crowdfunding platforms you can use. Three of my favorites are Kickstarter.com, RocketHub.com, and IndieGogo.com.
Promotions:
Here’s where it starts to get really exciting. Promotions are how you tell others about your Crowdfunding raise so they fund you.
The easiest group to tell and convince are your friends, families and colleagues.
But huge Crowdfunding success comes when you can get thousands of strangers to hear about what you’re doing and fund you.
Now some people think that the way to do this is via social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as email and your website.
This is partially true.
I say “partially” since social networking sites are merely mediums with which to share information. The key is to have information that’s worthy of being shared.
So, what information is worthy of being shared? And what information do people share with tons of others?
The answer is “viral” information. Such information is defined as that which people readily pass to their friends and colleagues.
Here are some more famous examples of viral information used by businesses.
Viral Offers: Groupon grew quickly and to a massive size by offering viral offers; offers that are so appealing that people spread them to others who might be able to use them.
Viral Unique Concept: A few years back, Alex Tew created “Million Dollar Homepage,” a website on which he sold one million pixels for $1 per pixel. It was an extremely unique concept and people started talking about it and purchasing pixels. Alex generated over a million dollars from the venture.
Viral Cool: The manufacturer of Blendtec blenders made a series of videos called “Will it blend?” Its videos test its blender chopping up various products including an iPad (over 13 million views), an iPhone (over 10 million views), a glow stick (over 8 million views), an iPod (over 5 million views), marbles (over 5 million views). It has also created videos blending Wii remotes, rake handles and more. Collectively these videos have resulted in tens of millions of views and millions of dollars in Blendtec blender sales.
Viral Inspiring: our friends at Grasshopper.com, created an inspiring video called “Entrepreneurs can change the world.” The video has been viewed over 1.3 million times to date on YouTube.
As you can see, viral marketing can get thousands, tens of thousands and even millions of people to hear about you, your company and your Crowdfunding raise. And it can thus result in you raising tons of money and gaining tons of customers for your company.
So start getting your creative entrepreneurial juices flowing and figure out ideas for spreading news about you, your product or your company virally. Once you come up with the idea, create the content (e.g., develop the video or other information), and then market it (by sending it to your friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and asking them to forward it to their friends).
Want Crowdfunding for your business? I developed a simple-to-follow program called “Crowdfunding Formula” that has helped numerous entrepreneurs raise great sums of money via Crowdfunding.
The program is a series of videos I recorded that walk you through each of the 14 steps to raising rewards-based Crowdfunding. Many of you have already joined the program and raised money.
If you haven’t, click here to get Crowdfunding for your business now!
How to Get Funded in 90 Days or Less
If you need funding fast, you have to use Crowdfunding.
1. It’s fast. You’ll get the money in just 90 days or less.
2. It’s easy. You don’t even need a business plan – you can get started right away.
3. You keep ALL the money. It’s not debt, and you don’t you don’t give up any ownership in your company either…
