People looking to start a crowdfunding campaign often ask themselves, or others, “Should I outsource this?” That’s a good question with many factors to consider before landing on the answer that is right for you. Let’s begin with what a crowdfunding management company would bring to the table.
How would they help you have a successful campaign? First, they would provide an objective perspective on your campaign. Without the halo bias that comes with devising an idea, the manager could take a step back and look at the project holistically, see where it’s lacking, where it’s doing well, and where the most work needs done.
For example, a manager may help you with your advertising, increasing the number and quality of the content that you put out on Facebook, Twitter, and other locations. A manager might also revamp your campaign page, making it more visually appealing, or work with you to edit your story, to make it more relatable, appealing more to your potential backers’ emotions and emphasizing the problems that your idea will solve.
Bear in mind that different crowdfunding campaign managers have different skills and specialties. Just because Tim from TechStart.net did an amazing job with Francine’s new camera campaign doesn’t mean he’ll have the toolkit to successfully manage your plastic free deodorant. These are two totally different businesses with different target audiences and each campaign requires an approach tailored to its specific industry.
Crowdfunding isn’t a one-trick-fits-all type of industry. Each campaign has its own nuisances and requirements that keeps something that worked for one campaign from working for every other campaign out there. If that was the case, we wouldn’t need campaign managers, and I wouldn’t be writing this post!
Some campaign managers may only work with one platform. For example Jellop only work with Kickstarter campaigns.
If you’re interested in a manager, you need to be looking for a manager who has the skills and knowledge in the field that you’re entering with your idea. That’s the manager who will best be able to help you and best be able to reach your audience through marketing efforts. However, not all managers specialize in the marketing component of your campaign. Some just do the story, some just the campaign page, and some do nothing but the marketing and leave the rest to you.
Now that we’ve discussed the different things campaign managers can do for you, let’s go over the different things to consider before deciding to outsource your project. The first thing to consider is the cost. Crowdfunding campaign managers can cost anywhere between $5,000 and $40,000 plus commission. With this in mind, if you’re wanting to create a crowdfunding campaign $10,000 or less, it’s probably not worth the cost to hire an outside agency to help you with your campaign. You wouldn’t be bringing enough of a profit to really get your idea off of the ground.
However, if you’re wanting to bring in $100,000 or some amount where the cost of a manager would only be a fractional portion, then the decision of whether or not to outsource would trickle down to other decision factors.
After considering the cost of a campaign manager, you should consider where you are in your campaign process. If you’ve got almost nothing done, at least not to your satisfaction, then you have some work ahead of you before you can even contact a management company. Some management companies,require that you have an idea in place that they can get behind and believe will do well in the crowdfunding space. This is reasonable since they are putting a lot of time and effort into you and your idea, however it means that you have to have some stuff done first.
After you’ve got your idea in place and the start of a plan set up, then you can move forward with the decision process. If there are still areas you’re struggling with, or if you’re not confident in your ability to gain traffic for your campaign, then you should look into crowdfunding consultants who specialize in the field that you’re needing them for. For example, the ReadyFundGo team have a very experienced Facebook Ads specialist.
Take stock of where you’re at with your campaign to see if you need a full campaign management service or you would benefit from a crowdfunding strategy consultancy service for example or one of ReadyFundGo’s consultancy sessions “Are You Ready For Crowdfunding?”.
Another thought to consider is how comfortable you are with your backing. Do you know how many backers you’ll have on day one? Are you confident that you have a good amount of numbers and that those numbers will only grow? If so, then you may not need a campaign manager. Getting a list of relevant and engaged backers is the most difficult part for crowdfunding and can often prove to be a daunting task for those trying to do it alone.
