It’s election season, and many campaigners are wondering if now is a good time to launch a crowdfunding campaign. After all, people are overwhelmed with news about the elections, so backers must be too distracted to back campaigns, right?

Not exactly. The answer is now is absolutely a good time to run a crowdfunding campaign!  The University of Chicago recently published a study that shows that elections have no meaningful effect on consumer behavior. And our models project that this election season may actually be stronger for crowdfunding than previous election years, as early adopters are spending more time online due to work-from-home guidelines.  

Of course, election season does present some unique challenges. For instance, Politico recently reported that close to $1.8 billion will be spent on digital advertising before Election Day. That’s a lot of noise. 

To break through the noise, here are some tips to designed to stand out this election season:

1. Announce early, stay on message. 

By announcing early and staying on message you’ll be giving your campaign a larger window with your community to ensure they are aware of your upcoming launch.

2. Capitalize on the renaissance of email marketing. 

According to this recently posted analysis by MailChimp, clicks and open rates are significantly up in the era of COVID.  Take advantage of the renaissance and be sure to keep your community’s inbox warm and engaged with great content from your campaign.

3. Optimize for mobile. 

According to this late 2019 Pew Research report, more than 8 in 10 Americans get their news on smartphones; given this number, it only stands to reason we’ll be spending more time than ever on our phones this fall.  So plan ahead and make sure your marketing assets, pre-launch page, and campaign page are optimized for mobile.

4. Know the map to keep your advertising costs down. 

You don’t exactly need to check FiveThirtyEight every fifteen minutes, but smart campaigners should certainly be cognizant of where the battleground markets are, as political spending is sure to drive the costs up in these markets. To do this, we recommend this helpful article on Facebook Bidding Strategy.

So if you still find yourself wondering when is good time to launch a campaign, we’ll answer your question with another question and this piece of wisdom from The Smiths. “How soon is now?”