Whether you’re raising funds for a social robot, a tablet, or a smart suitcase, InDemand is a great tool for scaling your crowdfunding campaign into a long-term growth strategy for your business. Since InDemand launched last year, several campaigns have actually raised more funds in InDemand than during their live campaigns.  After looking at some of our most successful tech campaigns in InDemand, we’ve come up with five tips to help lead you to InDemand success!

1. Consistent Communication

Campaigns like BodyBoss 2.0 that have maintained momentum during InDemand have dedicated time and resources to building strong relationships with their contributors. Consistent and direct communication can go a long way, converting contributors into evangelists for your project. Friendly and detailed updates, as well as prompt answers to contributor questions, build trust with contributors and encourage them to contribute again, and share with like-minded friends.

Updates

During the InDemand portion of your campaign, we recommend posting updates at least once per month. Updates are kind of like a blog for your campaign. They are a great opportunity to introduce your backers to people on your campaign team, share project milestones and to directly survey your contributors for feedback on your product. They are also an opportunity to be personal, and to share a little bit of what inspires you.

Set up a Customer Management System

We strongly recommend setting up a customer support system so you can answer contributor questions in a timely and organized way. Tools such as Zendesk are great for this– check out their blog for additional customer service tips. Committing to a response time can help set expectations and build trust with backers.

2. Limited Offers

Just because your campaign is in InDemand doesn’t mean that deadlines aren’t important. In fact, creating urgency on the page is one reason why crowdfunding is so effective!

Limit the Number Available

Many successful InDemand campaigns such as Viviva Color Sheets limit their perk numbers to test the popularity of different perks. On Indiegogo, you can add and remove perks at any time, so if you sell out of a perk, you can add a new perk right away. A limited number available creates urgency on the page, and may encourage people who land on your campaign to contribute right away as opposed to waiting to contribute at a later date.

Flash Sales

Flash sales are an effective strategy for encouraging contributors to act quickly as well. Just add a new perk and reach out to your network letting them know that this perk is only available for 48 hours. After the allotted time, remove the perk from public view.

3. Add-on Perks

Offering contributors opportunities to re-contribute for a backpack for your drone or an additional upgraded product features adds value to your existing perks and encourage contributors to give again. Now we offer a tool to help you upgrade your perk, making add-on perks and other upgrades easier to use than ever!

4. Digital Marketing

Paid advertising is an effective strategy for bringing new contributors to your campaign and testing the effectiveness of your messaging. Indiegogo offers you the ability to track results for Google AdWords and Facebook paid placements. This tool enables you to better track and evaluate the success of your ad campaigns, but can also help you find new audiences through Facebook’s Lookalike Audience tool.

5. Cross-Promotion

Cross-promotion with other Indiegogo campaigns can be a great way to build relationships with other campaigners and share your campaign with new, relevant audiences. The simplest way to cross-promote is when each campaigns sends coordinated campaign updates. Cross-promotion is most effective when you find a campaign that’s a good match for yours.

Consistent communication, flash sales, and add-on perks are all useful for live campaigns as well! However, these five tips are foundational for what works in the long term. We hope that these tips will help inspire you to drive your crowdfunding campaign to success!

If you have further questions about InDemand, feel free to check out our Help Center or reach out to campaignersupport@indiegogo.com.