This question pops up from time to time, so I thought a blog post might be in order…
The question is posed by an ensemble director that happened across our crowdfunding platform on a Google Search. The director set up a free account and then established the performing ensemble on the FansRaise platform. We validated the ensemble (has a website, is obviously arts-focused, etc) and then enabled the “Campaign” features within the platform.
The director immediately set to work building a very well-done crowdfunding campaign page. The wording is nice and tight, the copy is on-message, and nice photos and a great group shot to serve as the Campaign banner image were uploaded. Just about all the boxes were “ticked” and the page looked great!
This crowdfunding campaign should “crush it”, right?
…not so fast there, buddy….
What you’ve created is just a very nice-looking landing page. It would be like me making a FansRaise webinar event landing page, but without telling anyone about it or anybody really knowing it was there.
You’re probably thinking, “Well that’s easy, just share it up on Facebook a couple of times and then people will donate and share and share and share..and it’ll be great!“
But here’s the thing with that:
- Sharing on Facebook is a hit/miss proposition. Just because you have 300 “friends/followers” does not mean that 300 people will see that thing you shared. Actually the number of people that will see it is staggeringly low.
- Facebook is such a crowded, chaotic, and jumbled place. It would be similar to sitting in a crowded restaurant during the lunchtime rush and whispering your donation request to mere passing acquaintences. It’s not the most effective way to get the help that you need.
- How can you measure what is or is not working?
Relying on Facebook for your promotion alone means that your signal will get lost in all the static…
The importance of student-driven emails
I wholeheartedly believe that by bringing the donation request down to a personal level (meaning it’s not the Org asking for help, it’s the STUDENT), the results are tremendously better. We are already seeing this within the active campaigns at FansRaise – those that directly involve and engage students/members with the task of contributing (20) perform really well.
Those campaigns that are just static pages without much promotion – just sit there lonely….
What Can You Do?
Once you determine that you want to and need to run a FansRaise campaign, grab a copy of our $10,000 Blueprint. It’s a free download and will lay out the template for you so you can be certain you are setting your kids up to succeed.
Another thing you could do is read about how a World Class DCI Drum & Bugle Corps used FansRaise to make $24,000 really fast…
