After getting a lot of positive feedback on my previous post of PR tools to help you manage a crowdfunding campaign, I’ve decided to put together this comprehensive list of tools that you can use to manage a crowdfunding project.
Let me know which you decide to use in a comment below!
Managing Teammates & Documents
Basecamp – Basecamp is a great project management tool created by 37signals, who are also the creators of the Rails framework (web development framework). Using Basecamp, you can create projects, add and assign tasks, upload documents, and more. There is also a calendar feature to coordinate teammates and an activity stream so that you can see what everyone has been up to.
Pricing: $20-$150
Asana – Asana was founded by Dustin Moskovitz, one of the cofounders of Facebook. The tool lets you assign tasks to users on your team, set milestones, and have conversations around a project. The company’s goal is to replace all the email that comes with starting a new project and streamline communications.
Pricing: Unlimited teams of up to 15 members. Unlimited projects and tasks. $50/month and up for teams of 15 or more people.
Google Docs – Google docs are essentially the same office suite tools that companies use (excel, word, powerpoint), except online. Google docs comes free with every gmail account. By creating a doc and inviting employees or partners, you can see in real-time the changes that they are making to documents.
Pricing: Free
Trello – Trello is my personal favorite for project management software. You can create boards of to-do lists, assign those to other members, drag and drop items, set due dates for items, create a checklist for items, and more. I mainly like the visual UI. Like most of the other tools, Trello also has an activity feed.
Pricing: Free + Paid Extra Features
Evernote – I’ve mainly used evernote for my own todo-lists in the past. It has a good mobile/tablet app and browser interface. My favorite part about evernote is the evernote chrome extension, which allows you to copy pages and text from around the web and store it in evernote folders (great for research!).
Pricing: Free + Evernote premium lets you send notes to colleagues for editing (similar to google docs), which starts at $5 per month. Evernote for business lets you collaborate with other members and starts at $10/user per month.
Doodle – You can use Doodle to coordinate schedules with other coworkers to find a time to meet or talk. It’s a pretty straight-forward and easy-to-use interface.
Pricing: Free – $69/year.
DropBox – DropBox is a cloud storage company that syncs your files from your computer onto their system so you can access those files anywhere or on any device. You can also share files or folders with friends (which they can also upload to).
You can get more free space by taking actions on the system like referring a friend or following the company on twitter.
Pricing: Free (2 GB) then $10 – 100 GB/month. The company also offers a business plan ($15/user per month. Minimum of 5 users)
Google Drive – Google drive is probably the best DropBox alternative out there (I know, I left out OneDrive and Box, which has more of a focused on larger companies). It comes free with all gmail accounts and then you need to pay depending on how much data you’d like to store.
On price, Google Drive blows DropBox out of the water, but I still like DropBox’s UI and easy syncing.
Pricing: Free (15 GB) then $1.99/100 GB or 1 TB/$9.99
If you’re interesting in learning more about cloud storage, I’d recommend checking out CNET’s article comparing DropBox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Box.
Automating, Scheduling, and Analyzing Social Media
Buffer – Buffer is my personal favorite tool for analytics, scheduling, and automating certain aspects of social media. The software allows you to schedule messages, links, and photos to be sent out on various social networks at specific times (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, G+).
In addition, it provides analytics on click-throughs, re-shares, and popular posts. Finally, there is a feature called “feeds,” which lets you add RSS feeds to your buffer so that you can easily pick great content to share, like the RSS feed from this blog :). Buffer also recommends content for you to share from around the web.
Pricing: Free – $10/month. Business plans are also available to manage multiple users.
Hootsuite – Hootsuite is another tool that lets you schedule social media and helps take the burden off consistently pushing out awesome and engaging content. On the free plan, you can connect up to 3 social media profiles and get basic analytics and reporting for how your social media posts are doing (click throughs, shares, etc).
Most people that I speak with prefer Hootsuite over Buffer (though I’m not sure why).
Pricing: Free – $10/month. Business plans are also available.
Klout – For those who don’t know, Klout recently pivoted to being a content scheduling and discovery platform. You can now schedule social media posts using the software and also find content that your followers might like to see.
They have a bit of a different take on analytics, putting the “Klout score” at the center, which is a measure of your influence or how your followers engage with your content. I’m not a big fan of their analytics. I’d rather just see which of my posts are doing well, rather than get an “overall score.” However, I do like their “suggested content,” which can be filtered by keyword.
If you consider yourself to be an “influencer” or expert in your niche, you can also take advantage of Klout perks, where you get free stuff (Example: $10 to spend on business cards at MOO.com). Learn more about it here.
Pricing: Free.
For more tools to automate social media check out my previous post. I also recommend the First-Time Entrepreneur’s Guide to Social Media.
Handling PR and Blogger Outreach
InkyBee – I’ve written a comprehensive review of InkyBee, a tool that you can use to create a media list, find bloggers and journalists, make notes (CRM) for each individual, and also create reports on your progress.
The alternative is to keep track of your outreach process with excel spread sheets or google docs. InkyBee does a good job of easing the workflow between teammates and recording all of your PR efforts in one place.
Pricing: $79 – $249 per month (free trial, no credit card needed).
BuzzStream – BuzzStream is another CRM tool that helps coordinate media outreach. You can import existing media lists and then use the CRM software to make notes on particular individuals. You can also use BuzzStream in coordination with other tools like BuzzSumo to create a media list, using the “scrape” feature (will scrape the links from a page and save it for later review).
Pricing: $29 – $249 (Unfortunately you must input your credit card to try it).
BuzzSumo – I’ve also written a complete review of BuzzSumo, a free tool that you can use to discover content that is going viral for certain keywords and social media influencers in your niche. BuzzSumo is a good tool to develop a media list that you can reach out to about your new product launch. It doesn’t have any CRM functionality, so it’s best used with another tool like InkyBee, BuzzStream, or a CRM like HighRise.
Pricing: Free
Streak, Bananatag, or GetSignals – Not going to lie, these last tools are a little creepy. You can use Streak, Bananatag, or GetSignals to track when people open your emails. I’ve tried out the three different tools and have found mixed success with them. Each one of them took a while to report when a user viewed an email, and sometimes they weren’t always correct. That’s why I’m bundling all of them together. Worth testing out, but I don’t like the inconsistency.
Pricing: Free + Paid options.
For more tips on how to do PR outreach, check out these PR secrets for a successful crowdfunding campaign.
Creating a Landing Page Before Your Campaign
Unbounce – Unbounce is a tool that you can use to create a landing page and A|B test visitors. You can use this to test wording on your visitors or the landing page layout to optimize conversions (like signing up for an email list).
I have used Unbounce in the past. It’s pretty easy to use, but if you know how to create your own landing pages with wordpress + google analytics (conversion goals, and click-map tracking), I think doing it yourself is a better option.
Pricing: $49 – $199 per month.
LaunchRock – Of all of these tools, I’d say LaunchRock is probably the easiest to set up (though with less functionality). In a few minutes, you can set up a launch page with an email signup for visitors interested in your project. You can also connect the page to your own domain, install google analytics, and customize the code of the page.
Pricing: Free
PitchFuse – (Bias: I am a founder) PitchFuse is a great way to create a page for your crowdfunding project where you can get feedback, monitor social shares, gather interested backers, and more. You can also do a giveaway for your campaign. We’ll be adding more functionality in the future. Check out this tutorial guiding you through how to set up a project.
Pricing: Free
Prefundia – Prefundia is another tool that you can use to begin to gather a crowd before you launch a project. The platform also provides stats on page views and lets visitors enter their email address to be added to your notification list.
Pricing: Free + Paid Enhancements
If you are thinking of creating a landing page for your project, I highly recommend my 3 reasons why you should make a landing page for your Kickstarter or Indiegogo project!
Creating a website for your company
Domain Name Providers – I use 1and1.com for my domain name purchasing, but you can also use GoDaddy or NameCheap.
Website Hosting – I use Bluehost to host all of my websites. Other hosting providers include HostGator and DreamHost.
Design/Functionality – Many of the domain name providers will also have basic website-creating software. You can also use these tools which include Wix, SquareSpace, and more.
Communicating with Supporters and Backers
Aweber – Aweber is an email ending tool that you can use to communicate with campaign supporters who have subscribed to your newsletter from your landing page. Unfortunately, it’s not free, but is more affordable if you have a large subscriber list.
Pricing: $19 – $149 per month.
If you’d like to learn how to get the emails of all your Facebook friends and begin building an email list, check out this post.
Post-Campaign Fulfillment and Sales
I’ve already put together a complete list of 22 websites to help post-crowdfunding that I think you’ll find helpful.
Conclusion
What tools do you plan to use for your campaign? I’d also love to hear if I missed out on any key tools. I didn’t mention it in the post, but I think that these tools to coordinate a giveaway would be helpful as a way to gain likes/subscribers/followers leading up to a project.
