How to advertise on Facebook: Call-To-Action

What is the first thing you see when you visit a Facebook page? Usually it’s the cover image and the buttons featured at the top of the page. You should take advantage of this viewpoint by changing your cover image to a promo image to ensure your campaign gets the most online impressions possible. Another promotional tool you can use is Facebook’s new call-to-action (CTA) buttons.

Here is an example of the visible buttons on your Facebook page, notice the CTA “Shop Now” next to the “like” button.

Why use a call-to-action?
CTAs are used in marketing to provoke an immediate response or action; they can be an effective tool for increasing conversions (in our case, conversions would be selling campaign items) because they clearly indicate to your audience what you want them to do. Using a CTA button like “shop now” tells your audience exactly what you want them to do…go shopping!

There are a variety of different call-to-actions available for Facebook pages including:

• Shop Now
• Book Now
• Contact Us
• Use App
• Play Game
• Sign Up
• Watch Video

For Fabrily campaign purposes “shop now” will be the CTA of choice; by selecting this CTA you can encourage Facebook followers to purchase an item from your campaign.

How to create a Call-to-Action on Facebook
Creating a CTA on Facebook is very easy can be done in just a few minutes.

Step 1: Select the “Create Call-to-Action” on your Facebook Page

Step 2: Select what type of CTA button you want to use. We will select the “shop now” button because we want people to purchase an item from our Fabrily campaign

Step 3: Enter your campaign URL (or campaign store URL) for the “Website” link

Step 4: Select “website” as the destination for iOS and Android mobile users (so they are taken to your campaign page when they click the “shop now” link). Make sure “website” is selected for iOS devices and click the “next” button on the bottom of the page. Do the same for Android devices and select the “create” button on the bottom of the page.

That’s it! You’ve now got a visible “shop now” CTA on your Facebook page. You should test the CTA  to make sure it works by clicking on the “Shop Now” button and selecting “Go to link”; this action should bring you to your Fabrily campaign page. You can monitor how many people are clicking on your CTA using the display menu on the right side of the screen where it reads “THIS WEEK”:

Visit our Free Promotional Tips page for more info on sale-boosting campaign descriptions, post-campaign promotion and more! We’ll be exploring more Facebook store options so check the free promo tips page for more content!

Click here to launch your own Fabrily campaign today!

Questions? Email campaigns@fabrily.com

Create FREE promotional images for your crowdfunding campaigns

Promotion is key to the success of your crowdfunding campaigns. Having eye-catching and informative promo images can help boost your campaign sales…the problem is, many of us aren’t too savvy when it comes to programs like Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. Not to worry though! The Fabrily Team has discovered a useful graphic design site that makes creating promotional images easy. The best part about Canva is that it’s free to use and you don’t need to be a graphic designer to create great promo images!

Canva enables you to create flyers and cover images for Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, as well as Facebook ad images, business cards, and much more!, There are tons of pre-designed layouts and you’re able to create completely custom images too.

The importance of using promo images:

• Updating your Facebook or Twitter cover image enables you to make an impression as soon as someone visits your page.
• Promo images provide the opportunity to showcase the various items available within your campaign
• They’re an easy way to give supporters all the info they need, like what’s available and where to get it
• Promo images are easily shareable; your supporters can also help you promote your crowdfunding campaign by sharing the promo images you have created; more shares can equal more purchases!

What to include in your promo images:

  

There are 3 things you should aim to include in all of your promo images:

1. Call to action: “Reserve your limited edition item today!”, “Reserve today!”, “Get yours today!”, “Support our cause!”
2. Campaign URL: Include the campaign URL so people know where to purchase your item
3. Showcase items available in your campaign: feature mockups of the products available within your campaign so that people can see there is a variety of item types to choose from

How to use Canva to create promo images
Below is a short video in which Fabrily Campaign Manager Anna explains how to use Canva to create promotional images yourself.

Now that you’ve learned how to create free promotional images for your crowdfunding campaign…you’re ready to to get started!

Optimize item mockups for promo images – how to create transparent background for mockups!

In the video you might have noticed that the garments featured in our promo images and the video tutorial have transparent backgrounds; as most of us aren’t familiar with photoshop or adobe, we’ll explain how to make the background transparent using a free website called Lunapic.

1. Go to your Fabrily campaign page
2. Right click on the garment image you want to feature in your promo image and “save as” a PNG to your computer.
3. To remove the white background go to 166.lunapic.com
4. Select “BROWSE” where it reads “edit a photo” on the homepage and select the garment image you saved from your campaign page
5. Once the image is uploaded, click on the ‘scissors’ icon ()
6. In the center of the screen where it reads, “Tool:”, click the dropdown menu and select ‘Magic Wand’ . Make sure to reduce the “Threshhold %” to 8.
7. Trace/Click the outline of the garment with the magic wand, until the entire outline of the garment is highlighted in red
8. Once it’s highlighted, click ‘Cutout’, which is located towards the top center of the screen. The image will then reappear with a transparent background.
9. Save the new image to your computer by selecting “Save To: Your Computer” which is located in the lower, center part of the screen. Now you’re ready to add it to your promo image!

There are other websites  you can use to create eye-catching images for your campaigns. If Canva’s templates do not include the colours/designs/images you have been searching for, check out PiktoChart instead.

Don’t forget to visit our free promotional tips page and the Fabrily YouTube Channel for more helpful information on campaign set up, promotion guides, crowdfunding tools, etc.

How to use Bitly: Free Promotional Tips for Fundraisers & Crowd-funding Campaigns

When promoting a campaign, fundraiser, online content or website what is your main objective? Clearly it’s to get people to engage with your content by donating to your cause, purchasing an item from your campaign, or for them to help you spread the message right? But before any of this can happen the first step is to get them to click on the content you share!

Most of us have heard of Bitly…but you might not have realized just how useful this tool can be for optimizing promotional efforts for your crowd-funding campaign or fundraiser. Bitly is a URL shortening service that also provides free data on your URL clicks. It’s a very intuitive and convenient site to use (not to mention it’s FREE) and is a great tool for individuals who want to know which channels are the best for promoting their campaign.

Why use Bitly.com?
There are several benefits to using Bitly to monitor your promotional efforts:

• It’s a free service that provides you with insightful info
• Using Bitly will help you save time – once you know which channels are the most effective you for getting clicks on your campaign you can focus your promotional efforts on that channel
• You can use Bitly to see what kinds of tweets are helping you generate the most clicks – it tells you what type of content gets you the most clicks!
• You can also use Bitly to specifically compare different channels like Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Email/Newsletters
• It also provides geographical info on where your clicks are coming from – it tells you who’s interested in your content

How to use Bitly
Below you’ll find a short video featuring Kate, a Campaign Manager at Fabrily, wherein she explains how to use Bitly to monitor your promotional efforts and how to create a Bitly link yourself. 

Please visit our Free Promotional Tips page and the Fabrily YouTube Channel for more helpful information on campaign set up, promotion, and product options.

Mel Langton: Artist and ‘roller derby girl with no mercy’ raises funds with Fabrily

Mel Langton, artist, illustrator and roller derby enthusiast decided to put her skills to the test by creating this wonderful “Roller Derby With no Mercy” tee. Despite this being her first campaign Mel was able to surpass her campaign goal and sold over 30 items!

Since the success of her last campaign Mel has gone on to create her own campaign store to showcase more designs and fund her personal projects. Currently she has several edgy and one-of-a-kind designs available:

Mel found that Fabrily was an ideal tool for artists to be able to showcase their work, and was kind enough to share her experience with us.

Can you please tell us a bit more about the “Roller Derby with No Mercy” campaign – how you came up with the design idea and how the funds raised were used?
As a freelance Illustrator in my spare time, I wanted to try and create a campaign where I could showcase my artwork and get it out to a wider audience, along with raising some funds to create new work for a couple of art shows I’ve taken part in recently. As I’ve also been playing Roller Derby with the Lincolnshire Bombers Roller Girls for coming up to 6 years, the theme of Roller Derby features quite heavily within my artwork, and so the ‘Roller Derby With No Mercy’ design was a natural choice for me to create, not only to show my artistic skills but also to help raise the awareness of the wonderful sport.

How did you initially hear about Fabrily? Why did you decide to use them to promote your artwork?
I had seen some of Fabrily’s t-shirts advertised through Facebook, targeting specific audiences, and as Roller Derby is such a fast growing sport with a strong fan-base I thought my design could potentially prove quite popular to trial. With a little more research in to Fabrily I decided it seemed like the perfect way for me to get my design printed on a range of garments whilst having no set up costs or stock to try and cover and without the hassle of running to the post office to deliver orders or deal with the customer payment side. It just seemed like the perfect solution with nothing to lose. I just needed to give it a go! 

How did you promote the campaign so that it reached its goal? Did one social media channel work better than another?
I promoted my design primarily on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but also added it to my website and Pinterest pages. I asked my friends to share my posts, which was a great help. The experience really became a great learning curve for me in discovering how to try and market myself as an artist, along with creating my own little adverts and interesting images to show off the design on different social media sites, so I really felt I have gained some useful tools to my belt! I even ended up doing a series of different little Instagram images for the last 10 day countdown to keep the momentum of interest. Since going through the process it has had the bonus effect of increasing my social media fan bases, which in turn has lead to further commissions and, most excitingly for me, a collaboration is now on the cards with a Roller Derby company in the USA, who spotted my designs on Twitter!

Overall, how was your campaigning experience with Fabrily? Would you recommend the platform to other artists?
The Fabrily Team was incredibly helpful with any queries I’ve had throughout the process and I’ve been greatly impressed with them and also the amount of advice you can find about creating campaigns through their online tutorials. They have also helped by sharing my tweets on Twitter.

Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?
You really don’t know unless you give it a go. Try not to be disheartened if things don’t take off straight away and keep at it, as you really have nothing to lose 🙂

For more art from Mel Langton visit her website and connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Want to launch your own Fabrily campaign? Register here and click “start a campaign”! Find easy and quick video tutorials on using the TeeMaker here, and visit our success stories page for promotional guides & tips!

Fundraising with Fabrily: How to write the perfect campaign description

You’ve got your design idea and are in the process of setting up your first Fabrily campaign…now what? It all starts with a great campaign description! Below we’ll offer tips and examples on writing a great description and explain why it’s so important to the success of your campaign.

Campaign Description DO’s and DON’Ts

Your campaign description is more important than you think! Having a good campaign description adds creditability to your campaign, provides people with a way of contacting or connecting with your organization, and offers you the opportunity to ask your supporters for help promoting the campaign. Here are the DO’s and DONT’s of writing your campaign description:

DO:

• DO write 1 – 2 paragraphs about the organization & how funds raised will be used
• DO include inks to your website, social media accounts, etc.
• DO make sure to thank people for their support and ask them to help you promote the campaign through their social media accounts

DON’T:

• DON’T make your campaign description too long – this is something we see a lot and it is a big NO-NO! When your description is super long it makes viewing different styles/colours very difficult. Also having the “buy now” button clearly visible increases the chances of people making a purchase.
• DON’T leave out links to your website or the website of the organization where the funds will be sent – the absence of this information can make a campaign look less credible; people want to know where the funds raised are going.

REAL CAMPAIGN EXAMPLES:

1. Marie Curie Fundraiser

Vicki wrote up a great description for her campaign – she explains why she is raising funds, how the funds will be used, included links to her social media accounts, as well as asked supporters to help her promote the campaign via social media. Also notice the shirt styles and colour options are clearly visible.

2. Blackfish Brigade

Blackfish Brigade is a perfect example of a good campaign description – all the information is clearly visible, they have included links to their social media accounts, and they thank their supporters as well as explain exactly where the funds raised will be sent.

3. MSA Awareness

This campaign description by MSA Awareness is short but it tells us the main things we need to know– who the fundraiser is for, how the funds will be used, and where we can find more information about the organization. Notice the colour options are clearly visible as well as the green “buy now” button.

For more tips please visit our Success Stories page where we provide video tutorials, campaign insight, advice from past campaigners, and promotions guides for Facebook, Twitter, and post-campaign promotion.