While execs for the big platforms would never say there’s a guaranteed road to crowdfunding success, most would probably agree there are patterns to success that show you can at least get yourself into the car and onto the freeway en route to your goal.
I’ve been chatting with a few of these folks lately, and one of the interesting things I’ve heard from more than one is that the data shows a fundraiser’s own community is absolutely critical to a campaign, at least up to a point.
And what point is that, you ask? That’d be the 30% point.
Let me explain. Anyone who has watched the recent success of Matthew Inman or Seth Godin have witnessed the power of those with super-communities. But the thing is, while Inman and Godin are crowdfunding extreme cases that easily illustrate the power of community – in part because their fan base is large enough to catapult them close to if not past their funding targets – most of those running crowdfunding campaigns are not so lucky.
And that’s where the 30% rule applies. Because, if you are not Mathew Inman or Seth Godin, chances are you are going to have to at least convince a good number of strangers who don’t know you from Adam to pull out the credit card and, let’s be honest, that’s a really hard thing to do. I know I don’t usually contribute money to complete strangers, especially ones that really haven’t shown anyone else wants to support them.
Read more at Michael Wolf’s Blog