Sheri Candler's Tips for Crowdfunding

Expert film marketing consultant Sheri Candler knows that "a successful [crowdfunding] campaign starts with proper research on what has worked for others, assessing your advantages in this now crowded donation centric landscape and figuring out how to motivate people to choose your project to back."

If you're thinking about using Kickstarter (Sheri Candler's preferred platform for microbudget films) or indieGoGo - here, in summary, are Sheri Candler's 6 essential crowdfunding tips:

1) BE TRANSPARENT: "Say what [you] have already accomplished, what resources [you] have and what else [you] need to move forward. Transparency goes a long way in getting people to invest in your work."

2) BE REALISTIC ABOUT YOUR WHERE YOU'RE STARTING FROM: "If you don’t use social media very often and you don’t have a strong base of support, the amount you can realistically raise is going to be small."

3) TEAM UP WITH EXISTING ORGANIZATIONS: "[E]ncourage them to tell their members about the campaign."

4) BE PERSISTENT AND KEEP GENERATING CONTENT: "[R]egularly keep [your audience] up to date on how the campaign [is] going, both in email and in video. It’s like having a Youtube channel, you can’t only have your trailer on it. Once someone has seen it, why go back?"

5) GIVE YOUR CORE AUDIENCE THE TOOLS TO SPREAD THE MESSAGE TO STRANGERS: "Remember that crowdfunding isn’t just about raising money, it is equally about building an audience for our work. Backers provide encouragement, support, and public validation too... [W]e need to arm them with the knowledge on how to help us widen the circle"

6) CONCENTRATE THE TIMEFRAME OF YOUR CAMPAIGN: In general, "the shorter the campaign, the more successful because momentum and enthusiasm slows down the longer it goes on."

Please read Sheri Candler's entire post to get the full benefit of her experience.