Crowd funding is a compound word that consists of two words and the first word is not there because it is a prettier word; it is there because it is an important word. You cannot get funding, without a crowd to your support. Many filmmakers make the mistake of taking crowdfunding as from where you get the resources, but it’s just a phase. People who are crowdfunding are levering it with only funding in mind rather than distribution in mind. The end game of crowdfunding is not to raise money, but to get people to watch your movie.

You have to start interacting with the crowd, or more so your target audience. Stay focussed for your ultimate goal should be to get total strangers to click on the stuff that you are offering. Crowdfunding is just another story telling tool, which is why you should really plan about your distribution before crowdfunding your films. Sometimes there are scripts which have a smaller audience reach. But if there is added meaning to which your audience can relate you sure have done it right!

Now let’s look at these few steps which would help filmmakers make a successful crowd funding campaign:

1. Travel your online space: We are not saying you need a million people, but you still need a larger sum depending upon how active they are. The next question which arises is how much money you can raise? Well, it doesn’t depend on the followers because there is a huge correlation between lookers who never participate and people who will actually take out money from their wallet to help. So, you should better be when you are looking at your stats. But thanks to the power of smart phones, you can reach everyone via email. What’s really important is to try to grow your email list primarily. Make sure to get the texts conceivable point. Emails should also include the Twitter and Facebook links so as to make the customers social media followers hence turning them into amplifiers.                              
2. Let’s Get Social! Even if you have 10,000 followers you can only expect a 100 to show up and do anything! It’s indeed a jarring idea. What you really want them to do is to take action. So, get really specific about who your audience is, what they are looking for because that is where you succeed. Your twitter feed needs to be in and around the idea of the film for which you want to raise money. If it is about social justice send a clear message, get your customers involved; show them that these are the topics we are going to focus on in our film. But always have a plan; keep it fresh and interesting because crowdfunding is all about identifying, engaging and moving a crowd!                                                                        
3. We Are Back With Video Pitches: These days making videos does not involve a large amount of money. Simply take your smart phones in the dark alley in the middle of the night or anyplace exciting which makes attracts the viewers to the project you want to execute. It gives them a perfect reason to trust your work and they are satisfied that they are giving their money in right hands.Video pitch should send out the message loud and clear that “we are going to take the spaceship to the moon, do you want to be the fuel?” rather than bluntly putting out on their face “we want to make this film but we are broke”. By the way this is what 90 percent of what filmmakers do. The pitch video should always offer something that is so exciting that people want to get involved in the journey. Make sure that the delivery should be ancillary to the movie.                                                                                                
4. Perks, Wanna Have Some: Epic perks include ingenious incentives like promising tickets to the premier. Inspire evangelism during the campaign, relate to people and to connect to them. It sure is a little bit of sweat activity, but you will be amazed seeing the results. People do not like special video chatting perks with the director, because who cares about the director? Aim for the cool and glamorous ones!                                                                                             
5. Set the date: You need to prep; after ticking all the boxes in your checklist you still need to continue with your marketing. Don’t become irrelevant and invisible after the launch of the campaign, in between the time of your video pitch and the movie launch you still have to keep the people engaged.

After all the hard work it still doesn’t end here. We are yet required to set some realistic crowdfunding goals .Your crowdfunding goals should be directly related to what you are promising in the pitch. Always know your strength like where the funds are coming from? It is important because momentum shows the inevitability of success, and people like to pick winners, so the key is to cultivate the crowd in advance so it is easy for you to carry out the latter steps.

Now that we are done with the planning, what you should also know is the main reason why people would invest in a crowdfunding movie?

Usually because there is a well articulated why? Like why do you need to make this thing that speaks to the person’s heart? Because the pitch video made you laugh your ass off or the pitch makers are making a movie on some social justice issue that matters to you. It could be that you are following the filmmaker for a very long time and you finally get a chance to interact with him this way .So it is all about a ‘why’, which only the contributor understands and believe in.

We at Dreamwallets think you are well armed now to crowdfund a movie. It does take a lot of work but it is worth the effort. So if you didn’t know how to crowdfund before, we hope you know it now. Happy crowdfunding!

Source: https://dreamwallets.com/blog/love-crowdfunding-films/