By Hector Botero (President & CEO at iCrowdNewswire, LLC)
Like him or not Chris Kyle from American Sniper thought us a huge business lesson – understand your target, be laser guided and deliver your message. In this case there is one huge caveat, don’t put a bullet a through his head until after you get his money!
In crowdfunding there in nothing worst, no money less well spent, than a shotgun approach to marketing your project. I have 15 years’ experience shooting cannons, missiles, shotguns and otherwise casting huge nets – but let me be clear, that was on behalf of companies with hundreds of thousands off shareholders, millions of clients and billions of dollars in market capitalization – if you are one of them, this article is not for you.
Wikipedia defines a crowd as: A crowd is a small and definable group of people, while “the crowd” is referred to as the so-called lower orders of people in general (the mob). A crowd may be definable through a common purpose or set of emotions, such as at a political rally, at a sports event, or during looting (this is known as a psychological crowd), or simply be made up of many people going about their business in a busy area (e.g. shopping). Everybody in the context of general public or the common people is normally referred to as the masses.
It really is so simple, what we do is not called “mass funding” but rather crowdfunding. Marketing to, communicating to and selling to a small definable group of people.
A lot of us understand this. Some don’t. And some hope you don’t so you will buy your cannons, missiles, shotguns and misguided marketing approaches appealing to your impulses rather than your senses. Or is it your ego rather than common sense?
Let me give you a specific case in point. Krowdster.co, the big data (wow) analytics service recently announced an email media distribution service reaching Mashabale, USA Today, Wired, The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Los Angeles Times, Forbes and others. Really, do you think your project will be picked up by The New York Times? If you do, then let me suggest you try The Ladders.com and get a job.
My point is whether to crowdfund or not? And my answer is do your homework, plan, think it through, if you have $0.10 in your bank account better try Ladders – but get some help. Get some advice. Look for someone that knows about this. Someone that has experience that has been there and done that. Watch Shark Tank – and if you ask yourself why this guy keeps writing about the program it is because it brings some sense to the early entrepreneur.
Who am I? Fair question: I started out as a newspaper boy delivering the Long Island Times in my neighborhood on Long Island New York. Worked my way to running too international portfolio companies for the world’s richest ever paper boy, Warren Buffett. Then sold my company to one of Canada’s largest private equity group with over $6.5 billion in assets.
But at the end of the day just enjoy my comments and views. I don’t give advice.
OBS: Story originally featured in LinedIn Pulse
(https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/successful-crowdfunding-laser-guided-deliver-your-message-botero)