Backers and the Community of Support

When Seth Godin decided to finally publish his book The Icarus Deception, his publishers wouldn’t talk to him. To this proud author, blogger and mentor of upcoming writers, this slight was too painful to bear. After years of research, writing, editing and proofreading, he wasn’t about to let his effort come to naught. He certainly wasn’t going to let the opinions of some self-important publishers put a halt to his dream.

So, in an unprecedented move, Seth Godin decided to turn to Crowdfunding to get his book published. It was unprecedented because the year was 2012. By then, Crowdfunding was the reserve of tech Startups and charitable causes. It was unheard of for a writer to use it for getting a book published. No writer had ever dared it before. So, when Seth announced his intention, he was labelled a lunatic – among other colourful names.

But Seth had a secret weapon that his detractors didn’t take into account. He fondly referred to as his “tribe”. He already had a successful blog – The Domino Project – that had over 50,000 followers. His tribe consisted of the 50,000 followers of his blog.

So, when the publishers snubbed him, he turned to his tribe and issued a battle-cry: “Please help me to show my publisher, the bookstores and anyone with a book worth writing that it is possible to start a project with a show of support…” [from Crowdfunding Backers].

His tribe responded. Those with the means made a contribution. Those who couldn’t contribute financially contributed in other ways. They posted positive messages about it on social media, sourced for funds from their rich relatives, friends or ex-lovers; wrote promotional articles and generally created a buzz about The Icarus Deception.

Seth had set a target of $40,000 – just enough money to get the book printed and convince a distributor to come on board. That target was surpassed in just a few hours after the launch of the campaign. The campaign ended up raising a total of $287, 342, which was over 700% of the initial target. The Icarus Deception went on to make history as the first book to be ever published through Crowdfunding. And it was all down to Seth Godin’s extremely large tribe.

Crowdfunding is a Numbers Game

Seth Godin’s story illustrates the most important factor in the success of any Crowdfunding campaign – a community of support or – as Seth prefers to call it – a tribe. A community of support is basically a group of people who take it upon themselves to ensure that the campaign achieves its target. According to Seth, it is the most important factor to Crowdfunding success. In an article about Crowdfunding flops, he wrote, “Campaigns fail when the tribe of people who believe in the idea is too small.”

He is certainly right. Successful campaigns first build and engage a community of followers before launching a campaign. Take the case of Popbasic Inc (mentioned earlier), which achieved its target of $20,000 in less than 24 hours of the launch and went on to collect over $75,000. They already had a mailing list of 30,000 women who they had been engaging for 6 months prior to the launch.

A community of support is important even when Crowdfunding for charitable causes. Take the case of Stephen Sutton – the inspirational teenager who raised over £4 million for his cancer charity. Having been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Stephen had decided to raise £10,000 for his charity. He knew well that the money wouldn’t help him – since he had just a few months to live. When his story of selflessness went viral, he surpassed his total easily and his Facebook page got over half a million likes. Realising that his community has expanded, Stephen set a new target of £1,000,000 and ended up raising over £4, 961,352.

But what makes a community of support important? Well, because Crowdfunding is a numbers game: the greater the number of your backers; the higher your chances are of achieving your target. Take a look at Seth Godin’s numbers, for instance. He engaged 50,000 subscribers to his blog, and the total number of his backers was 4,242. Basically, only 8.4% of the people he engaged ended up contributing towards his campaign. Similarly Popbasic Inc engaged 30,000 women and ended up with 641 backers (2.1%).

The bottom line is that not everyone you contact will end up contributing financially towards your campaign. That is why you need to reach as wide a community as possible. But even those who don’t contribute financially can contribute in other ways. They can spread the word, write articles, like your Facebook page and generally help in creating a buzz about your campaign.

Building Your Community of Support

The time to build your community is long before you launch your campaign on a Crowdfunding platform. Once you launch your campaign, it is time to simply call your community to action. If you try to begin creating a community after launching, time may run out before you hit your target. So, how to you begin to build a community? Here are a few basic steps:

Step 1: Your Team

Your primary community of support is your project team. Besides the skills to create your intended product or service, you need skills to promote your project. As such, while building your team, consider including publicists, marketing experts and people with experience in Crowdfunding.

Step 2: Your Family and Friends

It is popularly said that “charity begins at home”, well, so does Crowdfunding. Your first layer of support should be the people around you i.e. your relatives, friends and work colleagues. Even if they may not contribute financially, they can help in getting the word out. Approaching such people may actually give you a hint of the potential success of your campaign – if you have difficulty convincing people who know you to contribute towards your project, what chance will you have with strangers?

Step 3: Your Social Media Followers

Social media is one of the most important sources of support – especially for getting the word out. As such, your social media followers can be critical towards creating a buzz about your campaign. For more on this, you can refer to the chapter on how to use social media.

Step 4: Website/Blog Followers

If you have a blog with a dedicated number of followers, then – like Seth – they can provide support. In case you don’t, then you can consider using guest posts, or other means to get your story out on popular blogs. Most blogs are always on the lookout for interesting content. If your project idea is exciting, they will not only write about it, they may actually promote it to their followers.

Whether or not you have a blog, you will have to create a website for giving more information about your project. If the website contains some interesting content, then you can quickly gather a loyal following. These followers can provide support by sharing your links with others, thereby helping you to get the word out.

Step 5: Sponsors

Sponsors are some of the greatest sources of support for a Crowdfunding campaign. They can bring funds but also influence, publicity and credibility. There is a whole chapter on sponsors, so you can refer to it for more information.

Step 6: The Wider World

In Crowdfunding, there is what is called a snowball effect. This is where, once a campaign begins gathering pace, even people who had no intention of contributing (or who don’t know much about the project) end up contributing. This is because people want to be part of something that is successful. Such people are the main reason why some Crowdfunding campaigns overshoot their targets by up to 700%. The way to attract these impulsive givers is by publicizing the early success of your Crowdfunding campaign.

In a nutshell, for a Crowdfunding campaign to succeed you need a strong community of supporters to back your cause. As such, your responsibility is to not only identifying people, but to get them to believe in your project enough to offer you their support. That support can be both financial and non-financial. Therefore, build a solid community of support, and your campaign may achieve its target within a few hours of launching.