How to Use Indiegogo InDemand

In the last decade, crowdfunding has become a common way for small businesses to get started. Websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo make it really easy to run exciting campaigns, raise funds, and launch a product.

But crowdfunding alone does not necessarily make a business successful. For long-term success, businesses need ongoing sales often through either eCommerce or brick-and-mortar retail. Few businesses can run successfully on consecutive crowdfunding campaigns alone.

Unfortunately, the gap between a crowdfunding campaign’s completion and readiness to launch in eCommerce or retail is a wide one. It takes months to fulfill a Kickstarter or Indiegogo, and it doesn’t make sense to branch into wider distribution until the crowdfunding backers receive their products.

That’s where pledge managers come in. They help bridge the gap between crowdfunding and eCommerce by allowing crowdfunding creators to keep taking orders even after their campaigns end.

The concept isn’t new. BackerKit, CrowdOx, and other pledge managers have been around for a while.

But Indiegogo InDemand is the most promising new pledge manager on the scene. In this article, we’ll talk about why that is and how you can use it.

A Quick Primer on Indiegogo

Indiegogo is the second largest crowdfunding platform, right below Kickstarter. Every month, over 10 million people visit Indiegogo. They’re obviously interested in new campaigns, which Indiegogo sees an average of 19,000 each month. Indiegogo is a huge player in the crowdfunding space with a loyal audience.

The most noticeable difference between Indiegogo and Kickstarter is the funding model. With Kickstarter, if you don’t raise the goal amount within a given amount of time, you get nothing.

With Indiegogo, you can choose at the beginning of the campaign whether you want to receive funds if you only partially meet your goal. This flexibility makes Indiegogo an attractive option when partial funding is still useful.

There are some downsides to the platform. One, it is generally harder to succeed on Indiegogo, with 17-18% of projects succeeding relative to Kickstarter’s 36%. But again, the flexible funding model may be enough to offset this risk, depending on your business needs.

Another thing that sets Indiegogo apart are its top-performing categories:

• Health & Fitness
• Energy & Green Tech
• Productivity
• Home

Kickstarter, on the other hand, dominates the Games crowdfunding market, and has also raised a lot of money for the Design, Technology, and Film & Video sectors as well.

Taken all together, there are a number of reasons why a business may opt for Indiegogo when launching a crowdfunding campaign. But Indiegogo isn’t just for campaigns – it can also be used as a bridge into eCommerce.

That’s where Indiegogo InDemand comes in.

A Quick Primer on Indiegogo InDemand

If you’re already familiar with crowdfunding, InDemand can be described as similar to BackerKit or other popular pledge managers. If you’re not, that’s OK.

The basic idea of pledge managers is that after you run a crowdfunding campaign, you may want to continue selling to your backers or take preorders while you prepare for eCommerce. Kickstarter does not allow creators to do this, so third-party solutions have filled the gap.

Indiegogo InDemand is a pledge manager that also just so happens to hosted by Indiegogo. It allows creators to keep raising funds after their campaigns are complete, stay in touch with their backers, and reach new people.

Here’s what’s really interesting, though. You don’t have to run an Indiegogo campaign to use InDemand. You can raise funds on another platform such as Kickstarter and then switch over to Indiegogo InDemand after the fundraising period is complete.

Benefits of Setting up Indiegogo InDemand After Crowdfunding

Before discussing how Indiegogo InDemand in particular is useful, let’s talk about why pledge managers in general are useful. How exactly do pledge managers help bridge the gap between crowdfunding and eCommerce after all?

There are three main benefits to pledge managers:

1. You can keep raising funds after the campaign is over. Time-limited campaigns are a great way to incentivize people to take immediate action and draw media attention. Still, some people will inevitably miss the memo, so it’s good to be able to take orders after the campaign is over and before the product is available for general sale via eCommerce.
2. You can upsell backers. Pledge managers also allow creators to upsell backers. This is really useful if you are already running an established business and want to draw attention to your other products.
3. Pledge managers keep interest and attention elevated. Nothing can quite top the buzz of an active crowdfunding campaign, but pledge managers can help keep it going. Between a campaign’s end and an eCommerce launch, it’s easy to lose touch with your existing audience and it’s also easy to fall out of the media’s eye. Using a pledge manager gives your existing audience a reason to keep watching your product launch and a reason to keep talking about it.

While using Indiegogo InDemand is similar to using other pledge managers, there is one key difference. The Indiegogo brand name draws more attention and credibility than other pledge managers. While serial crowdfunding backers are no doubt familiar with BackerKit and other systems, the benefit of Indiegogo’s brand here cannot be understated.

Getting a regular eCommerce shopper to buy something from Indiegogo is likely to be easier than getting them to buy the same thing from BackerKit, CrowdOx, or another third-party pledge manager.

In addition to the above, if you plan to run an Indiegogo campaign, then using InDemand after the fact is a logical next step. You can use the same system during and after the campaign – that’s nice and easy!

How to Set Up an InDemand Campaign

Setting up an InDemand campaign is not hard, but the process is somewhat unusual and manual.

First, you will need to go to this page and fill out the “Ready to get started” form. Shortly after you do that, you will receive an email from Indiegogo.

The email will contain a link that you can click on which will allow you to create a campaign draft. From there, setting up the campaign will be exactly like setting up a regular Indiegogo campaign, with two exceptions.

1. You do not launch your campaign draft.
2. You set funding set up to “flexible funding” – not “fixed.”

Once you’re set up a draft you like, you will then send it to the email address that Indiegogo provides in their email to you. Indiegogo staff will then review your draft and convert it into an InDemand page, emailing you once it is complete.

After you receive a confirmation email from the InDemand team, you can launch your InDemand page any time you like!

Final Thoughts

Using Indiegogo InDemand can be a great way to bridge the gap between crowdfunding and eCommerce. Even after the campaign ends, you can keep taking pledges, drawing attention, and chatting with your backers. That makes it easy to go from the initial excitement of a campaign to a successful long-term business model!