Everything Needed to Launch Crowdfunding Portal For Artists – Site Features, Business model & More

Everything Needed to Launch Crowdfunding Portal For Artists – Site Features, Business model & More

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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.

crowdfunding industry growth stats

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.

Crowdfunding Website 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.

artist crowdfunding portal business model

How to Make Money?

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:

Crowdfunding Website User Groups

  1. Guest : Guest users can review featured artists; search artists and posts; view FAQ; access CMS pages; and review career opportunities. However, they need to sign up for supporting artists and using other website features.
  2. Artist: There are the users that will bring the traffic with their creative creations.  Artists can manage their profile; setup goals and rewards for supporters; manage payments; and view or post comments.
  3. Supporter: Supporters pledge financial support to artists so that they can carry on their work. They can follow artists; manage payments; review messages; and manage their email settings.
  4. Admin: Administrator can manage all the artists, supporters, posts, CMS pages, FAQ, payments and commissions etc.

Popular Artist Crowdfunding Players

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:

  • Patreon
  • Flattr
  • Centup
  • Pozible
  • RocketHub
  • PubSlush
  • PledgeMusic

Success Features for Crowdfunding Site

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.

crowdfunding website flow process

Have a look at the unique features and also design approach:

Homepage

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:

  • Header
  • Featured artists and their work
  • Artwork categories
  • Footer

Let’s have a look at the crucial ones:

Header

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

Featured work and creators

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.

Artwork categories

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.

Search

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.

Creator pages

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:

  • About section
  • Areas of activity
  • Pledge options
  • Social media links
  • Milestones
  • Image gallery

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.

Creator signup functionality

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)

  • Name
  • What are you creating?
  • Payment option
  • Area of work

Step 2 (Crowdfunder page)

  • Video URL or image gallery
  • Fundraising reasons

Step 3 (Creator goals)

  • Define goals
  • Add funding details

Step 4 (Rewards)

  • Reward details

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.

Crowdfunder profiles

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:

  • Crowdfunder details
  • Following
  • Feed
  • Posts and Likes

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.

Payments

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.

Interactions

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:

  • Option to upvote and downvote comments
  • Option to reply
  • Tagging

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.

Creator posts

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:

  • Option to charge from crowdfunders or post for free
  • Save to drafts option

Giveaway – Social sharing options can be added to further optimize the process of post creation.

Help Center

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.

Crowdfunding Manager

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:

  • Payments in process
  • Rewards to be fulfilled
  • Crowdfunder details

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.

Impressive design

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.

URL structure planning

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 Consult Experts

Informative blog

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!

Key Features of artist crowdfunding platform

  1. Responsive website
  2. Login and sign up via email and Facebook with email verification
  3. Ability to mark artists as featured from admin panel and review requests submitted for same
  4. User friendly search with auto suggest of posts and artists
  5. Help and support center with answers to queries differentiated on basis of user type
  6. Ability to follow artists
  7. Like/comment/reply on posts of artists and supporters
  8. Convert profile into supporter and vice-versa
  9. List multiple goals and rewards (for artists)
  10. Export list of supporters in CSV with their email address
  11. Individual and group messaging to supporters from artists with attachments
  12. Add new paid/free posts for artists
  13. One time/monthly/any amount pledge as desired by supporter
  14. Auto deduct of pledges from supporters account
  15. Auto/manual withdrawal of funds from artists account
  16. Email and profile visibility settings
  17. Marking profile of artist as NSFW (Not Safe for Work )
  18. Manage Payments section to manage all payments and review outbound/inbound pledges
  19. Payment options & settings for artists and supporters
  20. Unique public profile URL setting for artists

Features related to Guest User

Guest visitors have access to following features:

  1. View featured artists posts
  2. User friendly keyword search with auto suggest of posts and artists with list of categories
  3. Artist’s complete details of goals and rewards
  4. Details of post with option to pledge by becoming supporter
  5. Help and Support Center with answers to queries differentiated on basis of user type
  6. CMS pages – About Us, Terms and Guidelines page, Community guidelines page, press releases, Build, Launch, Growth, Stats, Media pages
  7.  Career Section
  8. Contact Us
  9. Easy sign up with Facebook and email ID

Features related to Artist

Artists have access to following features:

  1. Email verification of account
  2. Profile creation with multiple goals & rewards option
  3. Ability to make your work for NSFW (According  to terms and conditions)
  4. Ability to submit your creation to become featured
  5. Add monthly/ per item campaigns
  6. Setup multiple rewards for supporters which will be sent via email or to their shipping address
  7. Email and profile visibility settings
  8. Change your artist profile to become a supporter and vice versa
  9. Preview of profile before publishing and launching
  10. Review account balance and payment details
  11. Download mailing address of all supporters in CSV format to send group messages
  12. Ability to revert account to supporters only
  13. View all your created posts
  14. View all the posts made by Supporters on their page
  15. Add, Edit, Delete, draft  and update your own created posts with work URL /drag and drop media file/attachments
  16. Change visibility of posts- everyone, supporters only,  paid supporters
  17. Like, comment, reply and edit comment/ reply on posts
  18. Ability to make free and paid posts in artist posts section
  19. Set custom URL of profile
  20. View monthly summary of changes in pledges
  21. View list of all current supporters
  22. Payment settings
  23. Manage outbound/inbound pledges and pending pledges
  24. Ability to send individual or group messages from pledge manager
  25. Ability to send rewards to supporters and mark complete
  26. Ability to delete supporters from any particular post or delete permanently.
  27. View latest tax and payment information
  28. Receive payment via PayPal
  29. Option to link Twitter and Facebook profile with account

Features related to Supporter

Supporters have access to following features:

  1. Follow artists
  2. Ability to posts comments on any supported artist profile/ like any artist posts/delete and edit own comments only
  3. Review all messages posted by supporters
  4. Supporter can become artist and vice versa
  5. Ability to take a pledge for any artist post with desired amount/ predefined amount
  6. Ability to manage pledges on posts
  7. Transfer pledges to a new or existing payment account
  8. Set up and edit monthly limit campaign for artist
  9. Review rewards status for different posts
  10. Ability to update email ID and shipping address
  11. Manage profile
  12. Manage all type of payment settings and payment accounts
  13. Review payment history with account balance
  14. Ability to cancel pledge any time
  15. Option to link Twitter and Facebook profile with account
  16. Email and profile visibility settings

Admin features

Admin have access to following features:

  1. Manage CMS
  2. Manage FAQ categories
  3. Manage FAQ
  4. Manage homepage slides
  5. Manage CMS blocks
  6. Settings
  7. Manage payment gateway/tax/VAT
  8. Manage users (supporters & artists)
  9. Manage payments
  10. Manage pledges
  11. Manage rewards
  12. Manage featured artists requests
  13. Manage posts
  14. Manage messages
  15. Manage email templates
  16. Manage job opportunities
  17. Manage withdrawal requests
  18. Manage country/state/city
  19. Manage artists categories
  20. Notifications
  21. Email notification for account confirmation
  22. Payments received by artist

Email Notifications

  1. When new comments and likes done on artist posts
  2. Email notification for account confirmation
  3. Payments received by artist
  4. When artists will post their rewards to supporters.
  5. When supporter will cancel any pledge on artist post.
  6. When a new post is posted by artist.
  7. When artist goal is reached
  8. To supporter when artist update their profile

All email notifications will be sent on basis of email settings preferred by artist and supporter.

Crowdfunding clone – A profitable investment

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.

Some Focus Areas to become Successful

  • Verify your creators carefully, even if needed to communicate through external mediums. Fake creators bring negative publicity.
  • Share success stories. Tell creators and supporters about people who achieved success due to funding from your portal.
  • Provide 24X7 support to creators and supporters to solve their queries immediately.

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 Get in touch

Disclaimer: The Blog has been created with consideration and care. We strive to ensure that all information is as complete, correct, comprehensible, accurate and up-to-date as possible. Despite our continuing efforts, we cannot guarantee that the information made available is complete, correct, accurate or up-to-date. We advise - the readers should not take decisions completely based on the information and views shared by FATbit on its blog, readers should do their own research to further assure themselves before taking any commercial decision. The 3rd party trademarks, logos and screenshots of the websites and mobile applications are property of their respective owners, we are not directly associated with most of them.


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