Kickstarter is the biggest player in the crowdfunding scene, but it failed to identify needs of creative community. So, there is much need of crowdfunding sites that redefine how creators like YouTubers, musicians, writers, and webcomic artists find support and earn money.
Websites like Patreon, Flattr, and PubSlush has already proved that crowdfunding platforms for artists carry great potential. FATbit Technologies analyzed unique vision and business models of popular artist funding portals to learn how they achieve crowdfunding goals and generate profits as well.
For entrepreneurs planning to launch the next big crowdfunding platform, we have crucial lessons. Read on to discover website features that will make your crowdfunding site stand apart from other platforms. But before anything else, let’s learn a bit about the unique business model.
Your crowdfunding site should aim to fix the broken content monetization system that depend on ads. The website must enable its fans to support their favorite artists for every artwork, project or on the recurring basis. The business model is rather simple, artists share their project with crowdfunding community and get financial support from fans.
Your crowdfunding platform should have a strong monetization machinery in place. The website’s primary source of revenue can be based on the commission charged on every pledge.
Additional features can be added to help creators generate hype around their music, videos and artwork. FATbit team is sure this will further increase profitability of your crowdfunding website.
In case you don’t want to take a share from funding money as commission, go for an ad based revenue model. Let’s move on to website user types to get a better idea about groups that will be using the platform:
The potential in online crowdfunding industry is so huge that there is enough space of many players. While some cater to the artistic community as a whole, others focus on a particular niche. Here are the major players of artist crowdfunding that we came across while creating this post:
While crowdfunding platforms are quire vast in nature, our team spent time in gathering the most crucial features for our readers that will help them build their crowdfunding clone.
Have a look at the unique features and also design approach:
Flattr, Patreon and Centup also help people support artists through small payments, but your crowdfunding site must differ from them with the content-first approach. The site design should put the spotlight on content & creators. Homepage should be simplistic in nature with focus on following sections:
Let’s have a look at the crucial ones:
Impressive header will help you catch visitor’s attention after landing on the homepage.The brand message must be very clear and don’t forget to add action buttons.
A simple explainer video can be added to the header that tells what the crowdfunding site is all about and why it makes more sense as compared to other similar platforms.
Takeaway – Go for a simpler header and consider including explainer video to your crowdfunding clone
Keep your focus on content but make space for featured works of artists. Highlighting artist name, number of supporters, goal funding, and real image makes perfect sense.
If your crowdfunding website is catering to makers from a vast range of creative fields, then, it must list all of them in different categories. By making space for so many creators, the crowdfunding platform can widen its appeal and profitability. Skip this section if you are focusing on just one community.
FAT Tip – Offer variety of categories in your crowdfunding clone to get similar benefits.
Try to make art search easy with clearly defined categories and integrating a powerful search script for further simplification. Search enables a user to locate artists, businesses and organizations seeking support for their work. Autosuggest feature should work smoothly and generated relevant results.
Design dedicated pages for creators so that one who is interested in the work of a particular artist can learn more about him without much effort. These pages can include following features:
All the posts made by the creator also needs to be discovered from this very page. All in all, creator pages should be extensive and need to be carefully dealt with.
FAT tip – Pick a crowdfunding clone script that comes with creator pages optimized for search engines.
Make it easy for creators to join your crowdfunding platform. The steps involved in the process should aim to gather information that will encourage funders to support. Following points can be taken into consideration:
Step 1 (who you are)
Step 2 (Crowdfunder page)
Step 3 (Creator goals)
Step 4 (Rewards)
Whether you are creating a crowdfunding clone or working on some other crowdfunding idea, it is critical to introduce projects and artwork. Hence, your crowdfunding clone should be optimized from UX point of view and mustn’t leave the visitor exhausted.
To create a sense of belonging amongst crowdfunders and keep them engaged, your crowdfunding site should empower them to manage their own pages. These pages should include:
Insert a Follow button on the page to track the activity of the crowdfunder. The process of account creation should be simple, with provision to connect your social accounts.
Simplifying payments is crucial to make a crowdfunding website succeed. Opt for PayPal and direct payments through credit card. Integrating secure payment gateways to your crowdfunding portal is critical to build a user base and reputation. So, search for a script that promises the same.
Besides supporting creators financially, your website should also help them in building strong relationships with funders. Interactions play an important role in this task. Empower supporters to comment on artwork, posts, and also have personal conversations through messages.
Unique aspects worth considering for inclusion:
Non-registered users must not be able to post comments or like artwork. This will help in checking spam. Patreon has done this, and is reaping the rewards.
FAT tip – Invest in a solution that brings advanced interaction options. Socially enabled commenting system can work as well.
To simplify the task of sharing their work and project updates, your design and development team must opt for a very neat interface. Multi-format support can make the task of sharing extremely easy for creators. Other notable features to add:
Giveaway – Social sharing options can be added to further optimize the process of post creation.
There is a fair chance that new users can encounter a problem with some feature or detail. To help such populace, your design and development team should create a Help Center where answers to queries can be searched or sought from team. Pozible has done remarkable work in this regard.
Fund transfers and rewards can make management difficult for creators. To handle this herculean task, create a Crowdfunding Manager. The feature will help creators keep track of:
Besides saving time and effort, Crowdfunding Manager can also assist creators in planning their work, patron communication, and delivering on promises. This will make the feature extremely value from building relationships.
The organization of posts and arrangement of pledges should look impressive. Opting for turnkey scripts doesn’t bring the promise of unique design. So, think twice before choosing the same or keep a separate budget for custom design. Don’t let design discrepancies spoil overall experience of your crowdfunding clone. Flatrr has done impressive work in terms of design.
Plan the URL structure properly to benefit from search engines. Some clone scripts will promise rich features but will not bring the search engine advantage. Stay away from such ready solutions as it will only turn out to be a bad investment in the long run.
Get your website checked for SEO issues
On visiting a blog, users expect to learn about product, company culture, and team updates. Our UX and content team suggests a simple blog with informative posts. Posts helpful to artists can also go a long way in building platform authority.
Lastly, invest in a creative explainer video if you can afford it.
We are done explaining the most impressive features of popular artist crowdfunding platforms. For those who are only interested in features according to user groups, here is a list created by our team of website analysts!
Guest visitors have access to following features:
Artists have access to following features:
Supporters have access to following features:
Admin have access to following features:
All email notifications will be sent on basis of email settings preferred by artist and supporter.
Kickstarter, Flattr, Pozible, Salted, and PledgeMusic are some of most popular crowdfunding sites. To start a similar website, you either need a clone script or require experienced developers to build it from scratch. Whatever you choose, make sure you pay attention to our list of crowdfunding features and suggestions.
Want to know how much crowdfunding clone will cost you? Ask our team about website design and development cost.
Consult experienced developers for your crowdfunding venture
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