OK,
#1: I have a very small market, so I try not to "Upset" them
#2; I don't want to annoy my friends.
#3; I'm not asking for a new Kiln, Studio, Medical bills, or Funeral expenses.
This is just the tips that I have discovered, I'm sure that there are Plenty More. While I wouldn't complain, I'm ONLY inserting the campaign as an example. I think Insurance is a better bet.
http://www.gofundme.com/RoundPottery
Tips
#1, Try to Globalize your request. "All Potters need your help"
#2, Hit your mailing list Hard. They are Clients, not Friends. They have proven to buy your stuff, and have money. Suck it up and hit them hard.
#3, Post at appropriate times. My original post was, late night on a Thursday. But my post, 4AM on a Sunday, got 5 times the page views as all previous posts. Evidently people have time to surf FB on Sunday mornings. That way your post doesn't get lost in the shuffle. 15 page views vs 453 page views. Got 30% of my total in one day. Too significant not to share.
I've only done this once, This is what I learned. That is all.
Comments
Good luck, Greg. I funded an ArtPrize entry a few months back using Kickstarter. My goal was $5K but I wound up raising $6K. I did it by shamelessly emailing and facebooking all my friends and clients relentlessly. It also helped that I had some very inticeing rewards for people who helped. I wound up with over 90 backers. The downside to raising money this way is all the work it took in fulfilling all the rewards I promised. Another downside is that it takes an awful lot of work to run a successful campaign. Keep at it.
Again Jacki, I have a small market, and friends of 30+ years, who now have jobs. I saw an Ask for a Wood Kiln, on ONE group, But that was the ONLY place I saw it. Go Broadband, don't be terribly afraid of spamming folks. Lead with an apology "Sorry if this is not appropriate, but I thought you might be interested" Also to the Friends, "Sorry you might get this 6 times, but I wanted to get this out to as many people as possible".
I got a lot of slack from my groups, "No we usually don't..." I haven't gotten a lot of Random donations, mostly Friends, old friends, customers. My neighbors (outside the art community) have not responded. Having limited expectations is good.
My call is mostly personal, so I worried a lot about it, quizzed my friends, then went for it. A call for Community projects, or Health care, or a Specific project (Kiln etc) would do better.
It DOES re-focus me on building a Mailing List of clients. "I'm in town, come see my New Work!". That and having INSURANCE!!! ;-)
I kinda think that the requests have the lifespan of a gallon of milk. They get stale after a while. There is one running locally, that just keeps going, and going.... it IS a big project, but I'm tired of seeing it.
I've tried to avoid that. I posted once, then 2 weeks later, posted a Reminder/ Last Call. It will eventually run a month.
I think that people have more time to surf FB on weekends. I'm sure that you could buy the data from FB, but for me, I have to take almost an hour to get through a weekend's worth of posts on FB. So if it pops up in the first 10 posts, I'm more likely to see it. Not sure how to do the Suggested post thing.
That's a great suggestion about timing your Facebook posts. I have tried to do it when lots of people were online (evenings). But maybe it's better to do it slightly before they get online.
Hello Greg, how long has your crowd funding been up?
I do remember hearing about your stolen van a while ago. Did that happen in front of your home?
Thanks for the tips. I was involved in one of these campaigns in the summer with a group of people. You seem to be doing better than we did. We should have had your list of tips.
Good luck.