October 15, 2013 · Tips & Insights

Tool Time Part 2: Online Resources for Marketing Your Crowdfunding Campaign

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Earlier this year, we released a set of crowdfunding e-sources to help campaigners through each phase of an Indiegogo campaign. We aren’t stopping there, though, and we’ve continued to seek out tools that will empower campaigners to make the most of their crowdfunding experiences. In particular, we focused on ways for campaigners — regardless of the sizes of their personal networks — to spread the word about their campaigns.

One key word to keep in mind as you explore these tools and plan your marketing strategy is…KEYWORDS. These are the individual words that connect your campaign to larger themes, subject matter, and ideas. For example, a campaign that’s raising money for a horse stable to teach at risk youth would have keywords like: education, nonprofit, Teach For America, equestrian, riding, horses — and so on. Armed with these keywords, you’ll have a much easier time finding important conversations online and connecting your campaign with the right audiences.

Get out a piece of paper and start building a list of your keywords. Two free tools to get you started are KeywordDiscovery and Google Trends.

In the meantime, check out the resources below and let us know if we missed any in the comments!

  • Social Media

    • Headliner.fm: Connects your social media posts with influencers who share your interests and will amplify your message.

    • Thunderclap: This is almost like crowdfunding for social media posts. You post a message you’d like to share, and then, other people “donate” their social media following. Once you hit a certain goal,t your message goes far beyond your personal reach.

    • Twitter Advanced Search: This free tool from Twitter allows you to dig deeper into topics and conversations that might have overlap with your campaign. Search keywords related to the subject of your campaign to find influencers and fans!

    • Jamplify: Allows you to manage a referral contest for your fans and followers.

    • Snaps: If you’re looking to share images of your perks, team members, or anything else related to your campaign on social media, this app allows you to easily beautify it and add content in a variety of ways. There are even special tools just for Indiegogo campaigners!

  • Media Sites

    • Indiewire Project of the Day: Indiewire promotes a new film project everyday and often includes crowdfunding campaigns. You can submit to be a POTD here.

    • Newsle: This connects to your Facebook or LinkedIn to tell you when people in your network make the news, which can be helpful when you’re deciding who to reach out to about your campaign.

    • Upworthy: A curated content site that focuses on “Things that matter” and has featured a number of crowdfunding campaigns. You can submit your campaign to submissions@upworthy.com.

  • Influencers

    • CrowdfundingPR.org Press List: CrowdfundingPR has collected an impressive list of crowdfunding blogs, influencers, consultants, and more.

    • CrowdCrux 30 People on Twitter: Similarly, CrowdCrux has created a list of 30 Twitter influencers who love crowdfunding (including Indiegogo)!

    • Help A Reporter: Reporters use this to find sources for the stories they are working on. Tell the story of your campaign, and you might catch the eye of a writer who shares your interests.

  • Tools

    • Klout and Kred: These social presence ranking systems help you identify influencers.

    • Bing Ads and AdWords: If you’re up for putting a little spend behind your crowdfunding marketing campaign, search engine marketing can be effective as it allows you to target people based on their interests.

    • Crowdfund Mafia and Seeding Factory: These crowdfunding consultants can help you develop strategies to spread the word beyond your network.

    • Outbrain: Places content (like your campaign) on top media sites.

    • Launchrock: Allows you to create a “Coming Soon” landing page and create pre-launch buzz and word-of-mouth.

    • Indiegogo Updates: Your existing contributors are also a great way to amplify your marketing efforts — and our Updates tab is a great tool to help manage your communications with them.

    • Harness the Crowd: Self-described as, “A place to share and discover crowdfunding tools,” HTC is absolutely chock-full of them — including ones that will help you spread the word about your campaign!

 

Let us know what resources we’re missing in the comments and share this post with your followers on Twitter!

 

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