Crowdfunding Tip-of-the-day: People Buy the “Why”
Listening back to Simon Sinek’s talk on the law of diffusion of innovation. People do not buy what you do but why you do it. Because it’s easy to outline the features of your product or service, to ask your customers to rank them by order of importance. But. It’s not telling you why they buy or more to the point, why they’re not buying. The “Why” is linked to the emotional part of our brains and hence, difficult to quantify or measure. But it is what differentiates those who raise successfully from the others.
As a crowdfunder, have you asked yourself why you launched this campaign. It’s not to raise funds, that’s the end result. Ryan Grepper’s Coolest Cooler campaign has raised nearly 9M$ dollars in just a few weeks. His video is all about the why’s in our lives. “Why should the party stop when the sun comes down?”. He provides a clear-cut answer as he presents the LED feature integrated to the cooler.
Taking Simon’s example, Martin Luther King’s speech drew 250 thousand people. Why? Because he was black and he understands his brothers? No. 25% of the crowd was white so that cannot be it. They joined him in this movement because they believed in the “why” .
“I believe” that we can all have the same rights. Certainly, Dr King was charismatic and driven but that was not the only reason why many joined in on the movement. They shared his dream of social equality.
I applied this thought process to my own services. “Why” do I help companies with their social engagement? I believe that social networks are not another advertising channel. I believe that customers are humans first and foremost. I also believe that when customers understand that we are not out to sell but to inform and educate in the most authentic way, they will eventually come to trust the company and show loyalty. What company does not enjoy loyalty? This has caused me to turn down clients that were looking to do publicity stunts without nurturing their fan base or engaging at a human level. Thankfully, I have also had the good fortune of working with companies that are driven by the same belief and saw both their followership and customer satisfaction increase as a result.
So let me ask you. In your campaign, your mission statement, you value proposal, are you able to explain “why” you are doing what you do and do your crowdfunders, customers, partners, share those beliefs along with you?
Photo credit: https://www.biography.com/people/martin-luther-king-jr-9365086
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