How you can make the most out of your crowdfunding campaign as an emerging and independent artist.
With grants and funding in general for artists being super competitive in Australia, it’s no wonder that we see so many creative campaigns coming through our virtual doors to fund new and wonderful projects, such as albums and tours, books, podcasts, and magazines, artworks, art exhibitions and so much more. Plus, crowdfunding allows artists to remain truly independent.
Over the years we’ve learned a lot about crowdfunding from these incredibly diverse and vibrant campaigns. So, the team at Pozible thought we would take this opportunity to give you all the 101 checklist on how to make sure you are ready to launch your next artist project as an emerging creative.
These days you don’t have to be a techno-savvy millennial to have a great social media presence. All you need is consistency!
Social media is the most effective way to reach new and old supporters. Allowing quick updates directly to your community, as well as those newbies most likely to be interested in your project.
However, different social apps serve slightly different purposes for crowdfunding campaigns:
📱 Personal Facebook pages are about sharing with family and friends. Whereas, public/company Facebook pages are important for targeted advertising and branding.
📱 Twitter is the stream of consciousness talking to like-minded people in your particular industry or community, and Instagram is all about the aesthetic and great branding.
📱 Tiktok and Youtube are great for a quick and easy way to explain your cause or project. As sometimes a post or witty text can be hard to translate the nitty-gritty of the why and how people can support your campaign.
Buzz words and trending hashtags are a great way to stay relevant on social media. However, taking a quirky and different angle can set you apart from the crowd.
Take Hayley Marsten for example- her quick and quirky wit shines across her Instagram and campaign page. Hayley was aware that a majority of her supporters are a younger and local crowd. As a result, Marsten tailored her humour to reflect Aussie pop-cultural references. By doing this her supporters were more aware of the progress of the campaign and looked forward to supporting and promoting her latest projects.
When you write from the heart, your community feels the pulse of the project. Creating an element of personalisation makes pledgers feel like they are making a world of a difference by supporting an emerging creative’s endeavour. When you use words like ‘myself’, ‘we’ and ‘together’ it lets pledgers know how grateful you are because of their help and how your community can truly help launch a project.
Personalisation can be through the form of the content writing expressed, as well as the selection of rewards, such as a handwritten thank you note or social media shout-out.
One of the greatest things about the creative community is how close-knit it is. Not only can your community help repost your stories, or share your content, but creatives can also help one another out by collaborating on a crowdfunding campaign.
A common thread we also see with marketing artistic campaigns in this community- is coming together to promote each other’s campaigns. As this is a fantastic way to reach like-minded audiences.
You can even take this a step further like Melody Moko (from above) did with Hayley Marsten and team up for a Facebook live event to help bring in some more pledges.
A successful campaign generally offers 5–7 different rewards with a mix of experience-based, tangible and recognition rewards being ideal. The majority of rewards in creative campaigns will offer a variety of pre-order, merch and experience lead rewards. This can include copies of a new EP, the latest novel or magazine (either in a digital download or hard copy form); Or even tickets to an opening night at an art exhibition.
One of our hot tips we give creators when it comes to rewards is to offer something that doesn’t cost you much in the long run, but can still be valuable to your community. The below rewards are spot-on examples of this. Whether it be one-on-one lessons with your favourite guitarist or scoring BTS access to the latest horror movie — these rewards are special as they can’t be bought anywhere else and create a unique connection with your supporters.
Merchandise and creativity go hand in hand- like two peas in a pod. With merchandise so ingrained into experiencing creativity to the fullest, it’s no wonder these rewards (think t-shirts, totes, stickers and patches) tend to be popular within crowdfunding, but the key is to be smart about it.
Our recommendation is to either reuse some old merch lying around or not print any new merchandise before the campaign. This is purely down to the fact that you don’t know how many supporters will choose a certain reward, so it would be a waste if you printed 100 t-shirts and only 10 got chosen. On our platform, you can set an estimated delivery date which allows you to set it a couple of months down the track so you have time to order and print the correct amount of merch.
Another thing to think about when offering merchandise as a reward is how to make it as visual as possible. Visuals are important as not only do they give supporters an idea of what to expect, but they also help to break up the page and make the campaign seem more professional. Chances are you wouldn’t buy a shirt from an online store without knowing what it looked like, so this is important to keep in mind. If the design isn’t final, artists will often include mock-ups of what their merch will look like.
Pre-orders work really well as they allow fans exclusive first access to an album or book launch which they can’t get anywhere else, plus it helps artists remain independent and in creative control.
Many creatives have run Pozible pre-order campaigns for their next EP or album release, such as Eskimo Joe, to Milk! Records.
Check out more about why you should run a pre-order campaign here.
Most importantly- have fun with your campaign! Be true to yourself and watch your community grow 🌱! After all, the best campaigns are the ones that are authentic and truly grateful to their community.