Film Financing and Funding Feb. 2016 | Page 9

How to Plan your Crowd Funding Campaign like a Pro By Narek Vardanyan Crowdfunding is a great way to make your dreams come true. But did you know that 60% of campaigns fail to achieve their goals? If you want to be among the successful 40%, then you need to prepare like a pro. Follow my top tips to get your crowdfunding campaign off on the right foot. Plan 3-4 months ahead Success hinges on preparation, which accounts for the vast majority of the outcome. The ideal preparation period depends on your project. Your funding goal, expertise, and social network will all determine how long you should invest in this stage, but an average campaigner should consider starting 3-4 months before launch. This gives you time to begin building relationships with the various organizations that will be interested in your cause or project, as well as the media, journalists, and friends. There is no best time for your campaign launch, but rumor has it that the worst months for crowdfunding are July and August, when everybody is out on vacation, and December, when Christmas and tax season reigns supreme. Leverage your team power Imagine yourself as a trainer at a football club. You need the best players to win the game and inspire people to attend, so you build your dream team. You start with ten people; they know ten more, who know ten more and, before you know it, you end up with 1,000 new prospects. Even if you’re starting with just yourself or a friend, the principle is the same — it’s just a little bit harder. Organise a party and make a motivational speech about your dream. Build your team. They will have their own responsibilities, so include only the ones you can rely on. And make sure you get organised! Free websites like trello.com are a great way to keep everything on track. Create a landing page You need to build an email database since most of your communications will be via email. Why? Because social media is unreliable: Facebook has decreased the organic reach of pages, and even if your page has 10k likes, your posts might only be shown to a couple of hundred people. Most of your results will come from your emails, so you need to start collecting them right away. One of the best ways to create an email database is to build a landing page — a simple page with your pitching video (can be different from your final video) and photos. Here you’ll tell your audience why you are running your campaign. The purpose of your landing page is to encourage people to sign up. If they’re going to give you their email addresses, you need to offer something in return (ebooks, 8