Promoting a crowdfunding campaign with social media and email

A great campaign that nobody sees raises nothing. But promoting it doesn’t mean posting the link everywhere and hoping: the research is clear about which channels bring in backers and which only bring in “likes”. This guide puts email, social media, the press and communities in order, with a practical calendar.

Where backers come from

Kickstarter says it plainly in its handbook: the platform is a great way to get noticed, but most of your support comes from your closest networks and from people who already know your work.^[1] That doesn’t mean only your friends will turn up. In a study of Dutch cultural projects, more than one backer in three in successful campaigns was a stranger to the creator, compared with fewer than one in five in campaigns that failed.^[4] The campaigns that win are the ones that start from their own network and manage to reach beyond it.

Platforms bring people too: on Kickstarter, more than a third of those who have backed a project have backed others.^[10] But the main engine is you.

Email beats social media

The most useful data comes from a study published in 2022 of 370 campaigns on the music platform PledgeMusic. Before launch, the researchers counted each artist’s email contacts, Facebook likes and Twitter followers. The result: there is a clear hierarchy, with email the most effective channel, followed by Facebook; Twitter followers had no measurable effect at all. The weight of email was even greater in the campaigns that did best.^[2]

One email to someone who knows you is worth more than a hundred shares to people who don’t.

• Write personally, to small groups: a message with the person’s name works better than a flyer.^[11]
• Ask for one thing at a time: pledge, or forward this to someone who might be interested.
• Share some news, don’t repeat the same request: a milestone reached, a new reward, the final days.
• Only write to people who have given you permission or genuinely know you. Bought lists aren’t allowed, and they don’t work.

On Campagna Crowdfunding, emails to your followers are included in the price: with Piccione you prepare the messages and the communication sequences for each stage of the campaign, without opening any other accounts.

What social media really does

Social media helps, but not in the way people think. Across more than 23,300 Indiegogo campaigns, social shares had a real effect, but a much weaker one than simply seeing how much had already been raised and by how many people.^[3] A study of GoFundMe found that social media helps above all in the first ten days, and flagged a risk: the “like” and the share taking the place of the donation.^[5] Other studies find that promotion matters most at the start and when it comes from several sources at once.^[7]

• Show that the campaign is moving: how many people, which milestone, who has just pledged.
• Post content, not just links: behind the scenes, the prototype, the people in the project.
• Ask people who have already pledged to share: for social causes, shares within close-knit communities go further.^[6]

On Campagna Crowdfunding there is Picchio, which publishes on social media for you, like a social media manager would: you approve, it publishes.

A content calendar

The press and communities

An article in the right place puts the project into the conversation and brings it to new people, writes Kickstarter, which recommends always sending the essentials: who, what, where, when and why.^[8] Local papers, radio stations, trade magazines in your field and the websites of associations are easier to reach than the national press, and they are read by the people most likely to back you. The same goes for communities: clubs, community groups, faith communities, sports teams, enthusiasts’ forums.

Don’t do it alone

According to Indiegogo, people who work as a team raise more than three times as much as those who do everything alone.^[9] It’s a correlation, but the point is clear. Kickstarter recommends involving collaborators and friends and preparing ready-made messages for them that are easy to pass on.^[8] Give everyone a job: one writes to the papers, one looks after social media, one calls the associations.

What to avoid

• The same message to everyone, every day: it wears people out. Too many social media posts can even reduce pledges.^[4]
• Services that promise backers: “if a marketing offer seems too good to be true, trust your instincts”, writes Kickstarter.^[11]
• Like-for-like swaps and groups that automatically support each other: they inflate the numbers, not the funds raised, and social platforms ban them.
• Going silent after the campaign: the people who backed you are your first community for the next project.

If your campaign is for an association, a team or a local council, you’ll find ideas and examples in Crowdfunding for associations, sport, culture and local councils.

Frequently asked questions