Project Preparation

[Funding Guidebook for Practitioners #8] How to Succeed with a Small Advertising Budget

와디즈

2025.01.16

PlanBro, an official partner of wadiz, has published
<FUNDING Guidebook for Practitioners>we’ll
we’ll show you how to promote your project on a low budget

Be sure to check this out!

Every point of contact with your supporters can be a marketing opportunity.
Take on the role of the media yourself and reach out to your desired target audience.
By utilizing wadiz News and the Community, you can convey your authenticity to supporters.

For some makers, running digital ads and analyzing their performance can feel daunting. If you’ve been wondering, “Are there any other marketing methods besides ads?” for various reasons, please pay close attention to this post.

Give it a try yourself

When we pay an advertising platform, it does the following for us:

✅ They find the customers we want to reach. (Targeting)
✅ They show them the creative content we’ve created. (Message)
✅ They quantify and report the ad’s performance. (Data)

What if we tried doing this ourselves?We could find the customerswewant directly, tell our own story, and track the results in our own way. It might not be as sophisticated, but wouldn’t it actually leave a deeper impression on customers who are utterly exhausted by the flood of digital ads?

In fact, among the makers who’ve worked with Planbro on projects, there are those who left digital advertising entirely to us and set out to find customers on their own. Here are two anonymous case studies from these makers.

Maker A, who headed to the subway station every morning

A food maker with a limited marketing budget decided to actively leverage the ample supply of sample products they’d already secured, along with their own outgoing personality, for their marketing efforts.They left the digital advertising to us and spent about a week heading to subway stations to personally meet office workers (i.e., potential customers) on their way to work.

I headed to a subway station on the morning commute to meet working professionals in their 20s and 30s who had skipped breakfast. (Targeting)
Since we couldn’t stop them for a long conversation, we handed out cards with a brief product introduction and our key message along with samples, and offered them an energetic cheer. (Message)
The maker decided to include a QR code on these cards that allows for performance tracking to measure the results of this outreach. (Data)

Of course, this approach makes it difficult to precisely target “wadiz supporters.” However, it can create an impact on a whole different level compared to advertising. In fact, about 5% of the customers who received samples participated in the main funding campaign. While it wasn’t a huge number, it demonstrated the potential.

Maker B at an Offline Expo

A pet product maker launched a project for a cat-friendly appliance. Since there had been a major recall of similar products at the time, the maker was eager to show pet owners the actual product in person to build trust—specifically ata pet expo where pet owners with purchasing power tend to gather. So, how did Maker B leverage the expo?

To meet cat owners with purchasing power, we participated in a pet expo. (Targeting)
We set up the booth as a product experience area and encouraged visitors to sign up for wadiz project alerts. (Message)
We plan to measure the results of the offline expo based on the banner featuring the QR code. (Data)

The result was a success. The average number of notification subscribers over the three days of the expo was more than seven times higher than on other days when the same daily advertising budget was spent. As an added bonus, positive comments from customers who had seen the actual product in person remained visible throughout the project period.

The Most Important Marketing Strategy: Communication

Funding is a long-term project that typically runs for about four weeks. For supporters, a long project duration means the following:

✅ They have plenty of time to consider their purchase.
✅ They have plenty of time to cancel after making a payment.

This also means that genuine communication can take place over the course of those approximately four weeks. Fortunately, wadiz is well-equipped with features that allow you to communicate continuously with supporters interested in your project. Among these, the “News” feature is one I highly recommend, as it lets you share stories that didn’t quite fit into your project story.

You don’t have to offer giveaways or host events to drive conversions. Try sharing honestly about what inspired you to create this product, the process behind its creation, and your brand’s perspective on the world.

Kib Maker’s News / Source: wadiz

Kib Maker, who launched a rollator for seniors, shared the reason behind starting this business through a heartfelt story in their “News” section. Could a maker creating a product for their own mother possibly cut corners? This was the decisive factor that made many supporters feel the maker’s authenticity and, in turn, place their trust in the Rewards.

Loroskini Maker News / Source: wadiz

Driven by a desire to offer customers high-quality products at affordable prices, the Loro Skini maker shared the product’s development process with supporters. With such pride in their product and brand, how could their next News item not be compelling?

Customers aren’t just on Instagram. They’re everywhere—at subway stations on weekdays, at weekend expos, and from our project’s News feed to the Community section.

Therefore, every point of contact with customers is a marketing opportunity. Sometimes, a maker’s small, sincere gestures can move supporters’ hearts even more deeply than technical marketing tactics. If you’ve only thought of digital ads as marketing up until now, why not broaden your perspective to include the genuine actions and conversations you can have as a “maker”?

Makers, check out the services you need!

Post PlanBro Edited by Jung Yu-jin

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