If you’ve built a community through your social media or blog, an online fundraiser would be a natural way to connect with them. Your reputation as an honest, trustworthy human being is the best selling point for GoFundMe. Once they know you and like you, they’re more likely to help you and other GoFundMe users.
It’s better to have users saying, “I’m actually helping this person,” instead of just saying, “Help this person.” When you raise money, it should just be a tool for a personal goal and an outlet for a personal story. You don’t want it to be a trophy for your accomplishments and only show up in searches.
It’s important to be genuine and relevant to your community. You’ll get higher engagement from readers when they can relate to the cause.
Use platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, etc. to promote your campaign. According to Fundable, 64% of crowdfunding campaigns have their website and social media accounts linked together.
Use social media to promote your campaign by using hashtags, including the ones you selected for your campaign.
Don’t forget to promote your Gofundme campaign on Twitter with #GoFundMe.
If your cause is serious, you’ll be more likely to receive press coverage on television, radio, magazines and newspapers.
With that said, don’t expect to be automatically written about with your GoFundMe campaign covered in-depth.
Getting media personalities and writers (especially the right writers) to pay attention to your campaign can be a job in and of itself.
Services like Promo Panda can help you spread the word about your GoFundMe through online media, freeing you up to focus more on other elements of promotion and other ways to perfect your campaign and meet your funding goals.
A crowdfunding campaign should be simple, compelling, and shareable.
We don’t want to have to wade through pages of poorly written text, so make sure that your campaign remains as simple and compelling as possible.
Let us see the photos that you posted and let us understand who you are, and what your goals are.
Don’t just leave it to your campaign to promote you.
Use your Gofundme profile as a way to share interesting stories and experiences from your life with the world, as well as your crowdfunding page.
If you see something that someone else shared on their social media, reach out, and share it with your audience.
A website has multiple benefits including SEO (Search Engine Optimization), traffic generation, and a secure transaction link. If you don’t have one yet, make sure to create one.
With your social media, Twitter, and email marketing lists, make sure you keep everyone updated on your progress.
Send out an email at the end of your campaign so that those who didn’t donate can still help you.
Sending a message to your family, friends, and colleagues is an important part of your campaign too. It’s amazing how a simple message can spread faster than you can even think.
Consider using a mailing list or email marketing to keep donors informed of your progress and to better assist them as they donate.
When someone donates to your campaign, you will need to solicit emails to inform donors of your progress, or you can ask donors to update your contact information.
Donors will generally be more inclined to contribute when they are regularly updated with the latest information about your project.
A welcome page will help you let your donors know about your fundraising efforts. You will need to post your original goal on this page and, as time goes on, you’ll want to introduce new perks or special offers to entice donors.
The landing page needs to be highly attractive to show potential donors that your goal is not too lofty and that their donation will make a difference.
Even the smallest donation amount can make a significant difference when you’re soliciting your own community.
Simply put, people are less inclined to give in cash than they are to donate via the power of the phone. If you know who you’re contacting is a household that could help you get your campaign off the ground, take advantage of this feature.
For smaller dollar amounts, use a script. This way, you don’t have to remember the nuances or go back through your own notes to remind yourself of things.
It’s also important to make sure that whatever you’re saying is easy to understand.
People’s brains aren’t always active when they hear a persuasive message, so make sure it’s simple.
After you’ve made contact with your friends and family, you need to ask for help from new people. One of the most important things you can do when soliciting donations is to call potential donors a “clean slate.”
You don’t always want to start off asking for a large sum of money.
Instead, explain what your goal is and why the money will be used in your favor.
If you’d like to ask for as little as $10 to help cover your expenses, and your goal is to raise $500, try saying something like:
“I’m raising money for a personal cause. The money will be used to help pay for this new laptop. But I’m just starting out and need a couple of thousand dollars to get started.”
When it comes to promoting a GoFundMe, you don’t always need to overthink your promotional strategy.
Even just doing a few of the things on this list is a great way to ensure that you’re putting your campaign in a position to raise more funds than it otherwise would.
In the end, so long as you’re honest and have a compelling reason to ask for money, promotion is going to be relatively effective, even if it is hard work!
