Over at ENGAGE, we are no strangers to crowdfunding. As these campaigns become more prolific, you should be sure to do everything you can to make yours stand out. We came across this article by Catherine Clifford of Entrepreneur.com featuring Clay Hebert, the founder of New York City-based Crowdfunding Hacks. This helpful list of tips for crowdfunders seemed too good to keep to ourselves! Check out the first three tips here, and don’t forget to check out our own crowdfunding post, Crowdfunding 101.

1. Start working on your campaign six months before you want to launch. “Crowdfunding projects get funded before they launch, not while they are live,” says Hebert. By the time the buzzer goes off, the game is already decided. When your crowdfunding campaign begins, you should already have done the lion’s share of the heavy lifting in terms of getting the word out, sharing your news and collecting email addresses.

2. Research similar projects. Neither Kickstarter nor Indiegogo take down campaigns once they have ended. Both the successful and unsuccessful campaigns are still left up on the websites. That makes Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other platforms “a goldmine” of data, says Hebert. There is a huge amount of information available for free for you to research. For example, if you are running a campaign to raise money for your startup that will make wallets for men, you would be shooting yourself in the foot to not look at the bevy of wallet campaigns already out there in front of the public. Crowdfunding, as an industry, “is super transparent,” says Hebert. “Everything is up there for you to look at. It’s very lazy to not look at what’s worked and what hasn’t.”

3. Create a video with two endings. When producing a video for your campaign page, shoot two different video endings: one for before the campaign launches and one for when the campaign is live. The first ending should invite people to sign up for email updates on your upcoming crowdfunding campaign and should be posted on your company’s website six months before your campaign launches. The second ending should be used when you post your video to your campaign site; it should invite people to contribute.

Read full article here. For more information on crowdfunding, check out our article, Crowdfunding 101.