If you’ve ever watched an ASPCA commercial and immediately wanted to donate money or had a Nike commercial pull at your heartstrings a bit, you understand what it’s like to be motivated by a well-told story. All of a sudden, you wonder if you should not buy those shoes and instead help those poor puppies sleeping on concrete floors, or if you should skip the extra cookie and go to the gym to get into the best shape of your life…right this very instant. This sudden rush of emotion is the exact reaction the marketing team behind the advertisement wanted to evoke through this well-developed story. These may be established brands with a huge following already, but that doesn’t mean startups in crowdfunding shouldn’t utilize the same technique. No matter the company, brand or product, if your story is powerful, people will be ready to buy. Try these tips to strengthen your story for your crowdfunding campaign.
Develop a thought-out story
In order to ensure you have a well-thought out story on your crowdfunding page, rather than random thoughts strung together, it needs to have a plot, characters and a captivating theme. This lets your potential backers feel like they can be a part of your story and help you move on to the next chapter with their pledge. By creating these feelings of empathy with your potential backers, they become more motivated to back the project because they want to feel like they are along for the journey.
Keep it relevant
The number one question your audience is going to ask when reading your crowdfunding page is “why?” Why is your product beneficial to them, and how is it different than products already on the market? What do they have to gain by taking a chance and backing your project over anyone else’s? Always keep your backers in mind in order to keep your stories relevant, relatable and captivating. At the end of the day, make your crowdfunding story relatable so that people understand why they need to back your project.
Use stats to raise credibility
Having an emotional appeal is great to capture someone’s attention, but when it comes to money, especially if it’s a large sum of money, people are going to think logically. In order to appeal to their logical side, use stats and figures to back up your story and help improve its credibility. For example, you can say “child hunger affects a large amount of the United States’ youth,” which is a sad statement and it might catch the attention of some. But you could also say “15.3 million children under the age of 18 in the United States are unable to consistently obtain enough nutritious food needed for a healthy life.” This puts the amount of children going to bed hungry every night into perspective- it is not only an emotional statement, but the statistics help it appeal to the reader’s rational side as well. Use facts and figures wherever you can to help establish your story’s credibility.
Make it worth sharing
Sharing is one of the best ways to spread the word about your crowdfunding project- people tend to listen to the recommendations of those they know more than advertisements. For this reason, it is important that the story you tell on your campaign page resonates with your audience enough that they want to share it with their friends and family. Using experiences that potential backers can relate to or sympathize with can help them identify with your brand and want to share it with others. Audiences are often moved to action when they become emotionally invested, and by creating content that triggers this emotional response, your audience will remember your story and want to share it.
The story you tell through your campaign page and video is the only thing potential backers have to make the decision on whether to back your crowdfunding project or not. It is extremely important that you tell your story so that people are drawn in and want to share it with others.
For more information on tips for your crowdfunding campaign, check out our blogs and podcasts!
