9 Ways To Grow Your Crowdfunding Promotion Campaign With Gleam

If you're launching a crowdfunding campaign, you already know the importance of building awareness, attracting backers, and keeping your audience engaged.

With Gleam, you can harness a suite of tools to amplify your campaign’s reach, drive funding, and build long-term connections with your audience.

Whether you’re using Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Patreon, or running your own independent campaign, these strategies will help you achieve your goals.

We will cover:

• 1. How to Run a Viral Sweepstakes
• 2. How to Run a Giveaway To Promote Your Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or Patreon Campaign
• 3. How to Build Your Mailing List
• 4. How to Create a User-Generated Content (UGC) Gallery
• 5. How to Partner With Complementary Brands
• 6. How to Host a Pre-Launch Campaign
• 7. How to Use Rewards to Redirect Traffic
• 8. How to Add Exit-Intent Popups
• 9. How to Run a Refer-a-Friend Leaderboard Campaign

One of the hardest parts of running a crowdfunding campaign is getting visibility beyond your own network.

A viral sweepstakes helps you build awareness quickly by rewarding participants for actions that directly support your project.

With Gleam’s Competitions app, you can:

• Add an Email Signup action to collect addresses for ongoing communication.
• Use the Visit action to drive traffic straight to your campaign or landing page.
• Encourage reach with Follow and Share actions on social media.
• Activate Viral Share, which rewards participants for each new referral.

This setup turns every entrant into a promoter.

You gain early traction, traffic, and a list of potential backers you can engage throughout your campaign.

At certain points in your campaign, you don’t just need reach, you need targeted actions that move people closer to pledging.

A giveaway designed around your campaign page is a powerful way to focus attention where it matters most.

This works particularly well mid-campaign, when sustaining momentum is critical.

Entrants engage more deeply with your campaign page, which increases their likelihood of backing.

Gleam provides platform-specific templates:

1. Promote Your Kickstarter Campaign
2. Promote Your Patreon Campaign
3. Promote Your Indiegogo Campaign

Crowdfunding platforms limit how often you can contact backers.

That’s why having your own mailing list is critical, it gives you a direct, long-term channel to communicate before, during, and after your campaign.

With Gleam’s Capture app, you can:

• Add popups or slide-ins that prompt visitors to subscribe.
• Place embedded forms directly on your website or landing page.
• Trigger exit-intent notifications when someone is about to leave.

To increase conversions, pair this with Rewards and offer perks such as early-bird pricing, exclusive content, or discounts in exchange for subscribing.

For best results, start building your list weeks before launch.

Nurture your audience with teasers and updates, then activate them on day one for strong early momentum.

Trust is everything in crowdfunding. Backers want to see real people supporting your project before they commit.

User-generated content (UGC) provides this social proof in the most authentic way possible.

With Gleam’s Galleries app, you can:

• Collect submissions through hashtags, direct uploads, or forms.
• Curate and display them in a responsive gallery that embeds on your site or campaign page.
• Reuse galleries in emails or on social media to highlight momentum.

This not only convinces new visitors but also deepens community involvement.

Backers feel more connected when they can contribute and see their content featured alongside others.

Crowdfunding often requires reaching beyond your immediate audience.

Partnering with complementary brands is a smart way to expand your campaign’s visibility and add extra value to your prize pool.

With Gleam, you can:

• Run a joint giveaway using the Competitions app, where each brand adds their own actions.
• Build a shared prize pool that’s more attractive than a single reward.
• Access each partner’s audience, with Gleam tracking entries across all channels.

For example, a sustainable gadget campaign could partner with eco-friendly apparel and outdoor gear brands.
Each brand benefits from exposure, and your campaign reaches highly relevant new backers.

Crowdfunding platforms reward projects that build traction quickly.

A pre-launch campaign helps you collect leads, build buzz, and ensure strong support from day one.

With Gleam’s Competitions app, you can:

• Gather signups through Email actions weeks before launch.
• Encourage Social Follow actions to grow your presence on key platforms.
• Use Viral Share to spread your pre-launch page through word-of-mouth.

This strategy ensures you don’t launch to silence.

Instead, you begin with a ready-made audience of engaged supporters, boosting your visibility and credibility.

Once your campaign is live, your goal is to get as many people as possible onto your crowdfunding page.

Rewards campaigns give people a clear reason to visit by offering something in return.

With Gleam’s Rewards app, you can:

• Distribute discount codes for early-bird pledges.
• Provide exclusive content or behind-the-scenes updates.
• Offer early access or limited edition perks.

Participants unlock these rewards by completing actions like visiting your campaign page, subscribing to your mailing list, or following your social channels.

Not every visitor will pledge right away, but you don’t want to lose them entirely.

Exit-intent popups give you one last chance to capture interest before someone leaves your page.

With Gleam’s Capture app, you can:

• Detect when a user is about to exit and display a popup automatically.
• Offer an exclusive discount, freebie, or bonus entry to keep them engaged.
• Convert visitors into email subscribers so you can follow up later.

Used sparingly, this can recover lost traffic and turn undecided visitors into long-term supporters.

Crowdfunding thrives on word-of-mouth.

A refer-a-friend leaderboard takes this further by adding a competitive element, motivating participants to share your campaign as widely as possible.

With Gleam’s Competitions app, you can:

• Track referrals automatically using the Viral Share action.
• Display a live leaderboard showing who’s driving the most referrals.
• Reward both top referrers and participants to keep the campaign inclusive.

This gamified approach builds viral momentum and creates ongoing buzz around your project.

It’s especially effective during pre-launch or mid-campaign phases.

Running a successful crowdfunding campaign is not just about having a great idea. It is about keeping people engaged at every stage. From the moment your campaign goes live to the final stretch, momentum matters.

The nine strategies in this guide give you a complete promotion toolkit:

• Use viral sweepstakes and giveaways to build awareness fast.
• Grow your email list so you can keep backers informed and excited.
• Strengthen credibility through user-generated content and brand partnerships.
• Keep traffic flowing with Rewards, exit-intent popups, and refer-a-friend leaderboards.

Each of these tactics works best when connected rather than isolated. Gleam brings all these tools together in one place, so you can manage your entire campaign from a single platform. You can collect emails, drive traffic to your campaign page or landing page, showcase supporter content on social media, and re-engage visitors without juggling multiple tools.

When you promote your campaign, remember that early traction is everything. Invite people personally, starting with friends and family, then expand your reach through social media posts, newsletters, and even Google Ads to spread the word to new audiences.

Whether you are on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or your own website, consistency is key. Keep promoting before, during, and after launch. Build your mailing list early, celebrate milestones publicly, and always reward your community for their support.

With the right promotion strategy and Gleam’s suite of apps, you can turn curious visitors into loyal backers and one-time pledges into long-term advocates for your brand.

Start your campaign with Gleam today and discover how easy it is to grow your audience, raise more funds, and build a truly successful campaign.