Articles on: Marketing Your Campaigns

The #1 Secret for Good Crowdfunding

You’ve set up your campaign (optimally, we hope) and your Stripe account and you’re ready to accept donations for your campaign. Now comes the important part – sharing your campaign.

Very few people visit thechesedfund.com just browsing for campaigns to donate to. Most people only come to the site because they received a link to a specific campaign page. Therefore, it behooves you to share your campaign link as much as you can.

Consistent and assertive sharing will help your campaign get more exposure which will bring in more donations and get you closer to meeting your goal. We cannot stress enough how vital it is to share your campaign link. It’s so important that we wrote this article on some of the ways you can publicize your campaign. Best part – all of these methods are completely free!

Facebook Timeline


You can share your campaign onto Facebook directly from your campaign page (click on the “Facebook Share” button) or you can copy/paste the link into a new Facebook post. Include a short anecdote about your connection to the campaign (e.g. “This campaign is for my friend and I can personally vouch for how deserving she is. Every dollar counts!”). When your friends read your personal plea to contribute to the cause, they will be more inclined to donate since they will want to help you out.

Encourage your Facebook friends to share your post on their wall as well – this will help spread your campaign to exponentially more people than you would have been able to reach on your own. Just make sure sharing is enabled on your post so that others have the ability to share directly from your timeline.

Email


Sending the campaign link via email is similar to Facebook just with a slightly different modality. You can share directly from your campaign page or copy/paste the link into a new email. Send an email to everyone on your contact list (just make sure to BCC everyone so that you don’t accidentally reveal your contacts’ personal information if they don’t want you to). As with Facebook, it is a good idea to write a short blurb about your connection to the cause and to ask people to forward the email to their contact list as well.

WhatsApp Groups


WhatsApp groups are a great place to post the link to your campaign since it will reach a lot of people with just one message. Send the link to any family WhatsApp groups or any groups with a high membership rate. Just make sure that you post it in a group that allows individual posting. And try to avoid posting in groups where this kind of request is way out of place. For example, it may not be appropriate to post your campaign (or any campaign) on a work-related chat. Ask yourself if you would bring up the topic of your campaign with the group members if you saw them in person. If you would feel comfortable mentioning the topic to the entire group if they were assembled in one room, then you’re most likely safe to post in that group.

Email or Facebook Groups


There are many email groups (such as Google Groups) or Facebook groups where people can post freely. If you have any sort of Facebook or email group comprised of locals in your community, that is usually a great place to start. Some Facebook groups have strict rules about what you’re allowed to post (for example, only sharing ride information on a ride-sharing group), so be sure to check any relevant rules before you post.

Friends


We’ve mentioned this above, but it’s so important that it’s worth mentioning again. Whichever avenues you choose to spread your campaign, always ask your friends/family members/contacts/acquaintances to share as well. Not everyone who comes across your link will donate to your cause (in fact, probably only 15-25% of people will), so the more people who are exposed to the link, the more donations you will receive. And asking your friends to share the link is a really gracious way to respond to someone who tells you that they cannot donate right now. It is understandable that there are people who are not in the position to give right now, but you can mention that there is a lot of value in sharing the link so that others will donate.

All of the Above!


This is the best option you can do! Share the campaign across any and all platforms for the most exposure! The more exposure you get, the more donations will come in. So keep sharing that link until your goal is met!


A Word about Anonymity


If you are uncomfortable sharing the campaign in your name, you can either have someone else post/share the link for you or you can post/share the link as if you’re sharing it for someone else. For example, you could write something like, “I know the details of this cause personally, and I can attest that the story is true and the family is very deserving. Please join me in helping this family.” However, we find that campaigns where the beneficiary is kept anonymous have a much harder time reaching their goal because all of the donors are essentially strangers. If the family/friends/community knew who the campaign was for, they would probably donate, but since the identity is kept hidden, potential donations from those people are lost.

Updated on: 06/24/2020

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