We look for meaningful and memorable imagery to create the feeling we want to convey to visitors. When we connect, the next steps to information sharing and ultimately purchase move along a lot quicker.

• Ask the right questions
• Make it simple to find information
• Make it even easier to become a customer

Too often times, price is the big concern. While having competitive market pricing is important, educating prospects so they become willing customers is far more important. Placing information on your website that helps to educate prospective customers, lowers sales resistance and provides more opportunity for profitability, additional sales, and referrals.

Design is the starting point and should never be far from functionality. The two must work together to inspire and deliver results. Getting the WOW factor is a certain triumph in its own right. However, we all still need to pay the bills. Getting to the heart of what you want to convey in a manner that strikes a chord is the best pathway to a sale.

• Inspire
• Get to the Point
• Make it easy to do business right from your website
• Be mobile friendly

Keep in mind that creating new websites is not only about conveying an exciting impression of your company and your products or services. It’s also about making sure you are not ignoring the growing population of people down the street and across the planet that are using mobile more than desk top computing and for some, it’s all they use today. Be mobile friendly, it pays!

3. Education Tools have started to appear in an ad hoc fashion over the last half of 2014. The new year will see dedicated and more professional trainings and tools that help individuals and companies learn how to navigate and maximize advantages across Crowdfunding platforms. Many tools will come at a nominal cost, but they are designed to leapfrog entry into Crowdfunding. A company that reaches market 4-6 weeks faster due to these options will often benefit from such tools and services many times over. The fact that trainings will be available 24/7 on demand and linked to specific platforms will further accelerate entrepreneurship and access to investor pools (ready-to-launch).

• Platforms with responsive designs are key for mobile
• Working with deal sharing Aggregators is becoming a must
• Every deal has its strong points – get them up front
• Be prepared to put some money behind your deal’s public outing

4. Integrated Platforms using all three of the above innovations as well as cloud interfaces, partnerships with brokers, accountants, lawyers and other ancillary (yet key) services will ultimately be the norm. RAZR Ventures is pretty unique with their integrated services launch on January 1^st. Investors see such services as bringing credibility to offerings and entrepreneurs like the value and positioning such integrated services provide them. Creating the right deal at its first attempt saves time, money and builds enormous good will across stakeholders. Flattery will follow as other platforms rush to mimic such services.

1. Dr. Rickel is a Senior Advisor at RAZR with executive experience across multiple industries. Member of CFIRA, NLCFA. Todd can be reached at $Doctor@razr.com.

4.  Warming up the crowd: By talking and communicating with all those who expressed interest in backing the campaign, the team can make sure they are engaged, excited and ready to pledge funds at launch. Tell your crowd what day and what time your project goes live. You want your crowd to be pledging funds as soon as you launch and excited enough at the launch to publicize and keep publicizing on your behalf.

5.  How to reach your target: With your campaign offered through Crowdfundingpays.com™, you receive funding with the greatest advantage when you meet or exceed your target; so being realistic is very important towards achieving success. 

Identify your targeted backers and calculate how much each backer is going to contribute, always making sure that this total exceeds your target.

• You Must Have – Support From Family, Friends and Associates
• You Must Start Promoting Ahead of Your Campaign Launch
• You Must Have Daily Activity on Your Campaign
• You Must Provide Frequent Updates

6. Line up your first few pledges: Finding the first backer of your project is often the most difficult task, so arranging a few backers to get behind you to validate your crowdfunding pitch is the initial step.

7. GET FUNDED: Successful fundraising is only the tip of the iceberg. Once you are funded, the real project work starts, and you are taking another important step toward realizing your hopes and dreams.