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Are you tirelessly saving enough cash to get your t-shirt label kick started? Does it feel like it will take an eternity to get the capital? Or…maybe…you want to take your brand to the next level but don’t have quite enough capital to do what you need to make it happen.

Have you considered crowdfunding?

Thats exactly what one of our clients has done to help him make it possible to see his dreams become reality. So how does it work?

The basic principle to crowdfunding is this…

You have an idea that takes a little bit of cash to make happen. You think that there is a bunch of other people that might think that the idea is cool and would be happy to contribute financially to see it happen. You utilise the services of a crowdfunding website to create a project or campaign. You tell all the afore mentioned interested people about your idea and link them to the crowdfunding website. They contribute cash to the cause just because they love it or because they are rewarded with the end result of the successful project. If the project reaches its funding goal, set at the start, the cash is released to you to make it happen and people contributions are charged to them, or if it doesn’t reach its funding goal, nothing happens and no one is charged a cent.

In the example of our client, Chris Parkin from Robot Car Shirts, he had the dream of creating artwork of Aussie muscle cars as Transformers, and putting it on t-shirts. In order to help fund it he created a project on Pozible. – Robot Car Shirts Pozible Project

In the initial project set-up he sets a funding amount that would mean that he could launch his project. This becomes the target amount the project has to raise. If it doesn’t meet this target by the end of the campaign, the project gets no funding and no one who has pledged is charged. If the pledges total more than the target it is successful and the funding is released and all the pledges are charged.

During the set-up there is also the option to set different rewards for different levels of support. In Chris’ example, for a $5 donation you receive – “No Reward and Our sincerest thanks for helping us reach our goal”

But with a $40 donation you recieve – *** EARLY BIRD SHIRT *** – Holden or Ford Muscle Car & Transformer Style Robot Design With YOUR choice of available designs + Plus 8 Votes for Car Choice. Australian Delivery INCLUDED

So, the higher the contribution the better the reward.

I have seen, for example, where a band has run a Kickstarter (US only) project for their next record, and for a $1000 contribution you get a private show for you and your mates…plus most of the stuff from the previous levels of rewards.

The trick is getting the campaign out to as many people as possible who may have an interest in your brand. If you have an existing database or Facebook fan base then that’s a great start…but you may have to get a little more creative. There’s some great tips here – http://www.pozible.com/help/handbook

Another suggestion I would make is…Make the reward more attractive than you would if someone was just doing business with you. Give people an incentive to help you reach your target. If the reward is perceived as greater than the cost required you will have far greater success.

For example, if you will be looking to sell your t-shirts for $39.95 when you launch, maybe for a $40 contribution they might be rewarded with 2 t-shirts, or, a t-shirt and a cap, or perhaps a t-shirt and a buy one get one free on launch of the brand.

After all that, I hope it gets your ideas flowing. Crowdfunding is a great way to have people willingly help you to meet your dreams and goals for your brand.

For more info and ideas on running a crowdfunding campaign see – How To Run A Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

If you’ve got any tips, ideas or questions, please share in the comments below.