You chose a cause to fundraise for, created a campaign, shared it with friends and family and asked them to open their heart and pocket. But now - what's next? How can you promote your campaign to the next level?
Here are a few winning techniques to upgrade your campaign and transform it from "Family and friends campaign" to a real crowdfunding campaign:
1. Transform your friends and family into "Good Will Ambassadors"
After you shared the campaign with friends and family, ask them to help you a little bit more for your cause and become your "Good Will Ambassadors".
Ask them to share the campaign with their own close family and friends and social circles. Ask them to promote the campaign and share it on their Facebook pages and other social networks. This will help you boost the campaign exposure tremendously. You can never know who may see their post – it might be a significant donor.
2. Post a personal word about the campaign on social media.
In the past, word of mouth was a main marketing tool. These days, when everything is digitalized and being communicated via computers and mobile devices – social media became the new word-of-mouth. Interesting and touching content alongside a capturing image may go viral on social media and boost your campaign - all for free.
Each platform has its own type of suitable content.
For Facebook:
Create an authentic post which best describes the campaign. Tag friends and family in it and share it in relevant groups. Think wide and creative while searching for such groups. Wider exposure will lead to more donations for your campaign.
For YouTube:
Shoot an original clip from your own mobile device which best describes your campaign. Upload it to YouTube. Don't forget to post the campaign page link at the end of the clip so that people will be able to donate.
For Instagram:
Choose a picture which best represent the campaign story. Colorful and eye capturing. You can also tag here people you know.
For Twitter:
Tweet the campaign briefly combining keywords and hashtags (#). Each tag will also boost your campaign's exposure and present it in front of a wider audience.
3. Send Emails
Sending Emails is free of charge and is proven to be one of the most productive ways in marketing to maximize results.
Create as wider as possible recipients list. Choose carefully the subject line so it will capture attention and bring people to open your mail. And most important – don't forget to attached the link to your campaign so people can donate easily.
Send such Emails frequently with updates about the progress of the campaign in a reasonable timeframe. Don't sent too many Emails so you won't spam be marked as spammers by the recipients.
4. Talk about your campaign at any given opportunity, to anyone at any time and place.
On your lunch break, at the grocery store, while in a soccer game, on the elevator, at the gym, taxi or the bus. Talk about the meaning of the campaign and how much it is important for you. Most important – share how one can donate to your campaign online.
Be aware that there are a few proven techniques to ask for donations in a way which maximize your results. Here's a sample guide.
5. Contact journalists in person and ask them to write about your story.
Media exposure can boost your campaign fast and significantly. Even though sometimes it may seem that there is a distance and difficulty to reach journalists directly, it is actually pretty easy: journalists' email addresses and contact info are published online for the public as part of their role to be accessible for the public in order to collect interesting stories to write about. It is highly reasonable to assume that a good story that will reach their desk on time may win press coverage.
Don’t hesitate to send them a direct email. Tell them why it may interest them and what an impact press coverage can bring to your campaign. In many cases this may capture their eyes more than any Public Relations office.
Here are lists with contact information of high profile journalists in Israel (in addition, you can search their public Facebook profiles or the channels in which they work for):
6. Use your personal connections to reach opinion leaders to promote your campaign
There is a common belief that every two people in the world can be linked through 6 connections. So for example, between you and the singer Beyoncé or the Prime Minister of Israel, there is a distance of only 6 contacts ( this is known as the 6 degrees of separation rule ).
Think about the people you know and their connections. Try reaching through these connections to opinion leaders and high profile people in general such as politicians, celebs, known artists and such. Ask them to support your cause and promote your campaign.
7. Create collaborations
Contact business owners in your area, starting grocery stores, barber shop as well as malls and supermarkets chains. Ask them to collaborate with you and join your cause publicly. Such collaboration can be posting a flyer in the store, talking about your campaign and how one can donate online, share the campaign on their social networks, or even matching each donation.
8. Initiate a fundraising event
Another type of cooperation is collaborating with business owners such as restaurants, venues and public places owners and initiate a fundraising event. You can recruit people to appear at the event voluntarily and sell tickets to the public. The profits from this event will be taken as a contribution for your campaign. In addition, you can sell different products and foods and use the money for your cause.
9. Spread your campaign via WhatsApp groups.
Send all your mobile contacts and WhatsApp groups a short message with a link to your campaign. Ask them (like you did in other social media channels), to share the link with their own contacts on WhatsApp and spread the word out.
10. In case you have a small amount to invest – advertise on Google.
The Google ads platform is pretty user friendly and may help a lot to promote your campaign. There is no minimum budget required in order to advertise and you can limit your daily budget as you wish.
There are many free Google ads guides available for free, as well as blogs, Facebook groups and others that may help you understand how to wisely use this platform. Here is Google ads own official YouTube guidance channel