A crowdfunding platform today does not only help people raise funds for their endeavors but also, it’s a potential business for the platform owner. Here’s a win-win situation. If you have a crowdfunding idea, think how wonderful it would be to make money while helping people raise theirs. But launching a crowdfunding platform is not as easy as it sounds if you don’t have a proper plan and knowledge to go about it. There are a few certain things you must consider before launching a crowdfunding platform. We will discuss some of those key things in this article.
10 key factors for a successful crowdfunding platform
Your crowdfunding site is just a platform to those who will raise funds using it. But to you, it could be a potential business where people depend on for their crowdfunding campaigns. The entire success of all those campaigns largely depends on how you make it. So there’s lot you need to do for this crowdfunding platform. Here’s what you need to consider before starting out.
Prospects analysis
Starting a crowdfunding platform without knowing much would be just like jumping into water without knowing how to swim as well as how deep the water is. Crowdfunding can come in different types. The type of your platform will be the area what you think as high potential. You can generalize it if you want people with different ideas to show up. Understanding the prospects would be a great help here. This analysis will not be limited to just knowing how far it goes, but you also need to analyze the cost, time, target people, marketing strategies and so on. It’s about setting plans and executing them properly.
Crowdfunding platform technologies
The most challenging job is to build a platform that has all modern facilities. There are lots of ways you can build your crowdfunding platform. You have to decide on the technologies that provide all modern crowdfunding facilities for both you and the crowdfunding campaign runners. You can build everything from the scratch which is going to be hard for sure. There are WordPress themes and plugins for you to give all the necessary functionalities all at one place. If you go for WordPress then you can try WP Crowdfunding plugin– one of the most used fundraising plugins on the WordPress directory. On the other hand, if you want everything set up from the beginning, then try Backer– the ready to launch WordPress crowdfunding theme. You will not miss any crowdfunding feature if you go for either of the options.
Payment methods
If you use trustworthy WordPress themes and plugins, you don’t have to think about payment methods that much. Make sure your target users have their suitable payment methods. In fact, the entire success will largely depend on the payment methods. Just having an international payment method does not help sometimes. So, having a system where you can accept local payments like WP Crowdfunding’s Native Wallet would an added advantage. Even an inspired backer will not invest if he/she does not have his way to pay!
Money management
People care about how you manage the money that is raised. How much you keep out of each campaign? Also, how and when you distribute the rest? PayPal Adaptive and Stripe Connect systems of some WordPress plugins like WP Crowdfunding let you distribute money instantly to the users’ account according to the amount you set before. It is a great way to distribute money to multiple accounts at a time. Such system helps you build trust in your users too.
Rewards
Inspire people to run a campaign or invest on them to maximize the number of the campaigns and investments. People love to grab offers rather than going for flat packages. Giving rewards for successful campaigns thrives fundraising goals and stimulates the people to engage more. Make sure you reward your users on such accomplishments so that they become more willing to come here and engage again.
Transparency
Crowdfunding is all about money. If the process is not transparent enough, people will not be convinced to run a campaign or invest here. Don’t leave any stuff in a way that leads people to doubt. Your transaction system should be clear. You can offer refund for certain anomalies on your platforms.
Community
What do you think crowdfunding is about? Just look at the name you will find “crowd” there. Yes, without people you cannot run such platforms. You must need crowd to do crowdfunding. Make a large community, have people discuss your services. Inspire more people to run campaigns and invest. Arrange webinars, seminars, and post blogs to reach more people.
Policy for the campaigners
Just having the systems will not be enough, you need to have things written. It will help users have a clear idea. Briefly specify the payment policy, money distribution, rewards, and other terms on a policy section on your platform. This will help you avoid unwanted misunderstandings and arguments with your users.
Building trust
Trust is one of the key drivers of a crowdfunding site. People will not care to visit your site let alone invest if you can not build trust in them. Being clear with the payments, refund policy, addressing issues quickly are the main factors for you to build trust with. Once you earn people’s trust, they will come to your crowdfunding site repeatedly and run their campaigns or make investments.
Branding and marketing
It is just not having people to run their crowdfunding campaigns. You have to make sure that people are willing to invest. Without promoting your crowdfunding website, you are less likely to have those people on your site. Once your crowdfunding platform is a hub of crowdfunding campaigners and investors, you will get the best possible result out of it. Making your crowdfunding platform available on different social media is so important. Make sure your crowdfunding website is in the discussion of people who are looking for such platforms.
It seems there’s a lot to consider before you launch your crowdfunding site. Building such platform could be easy if you really research it. This is why we recommend you to visit similar kind of crowdfunding websites to have ideas and also consider all those 10 key things we discussed above. Click here to know how to create a crowdfunding website on WordPress.
