4 Nifty Tips for Writing an Outstanding Crowdsourcing Brief

These days, crowdsourcing is an effective way for small businesses to get solutions because the power of a crowd beats the power of one person, any day. The crowdsourcing brief is the starting point for your brand & project, and the initial information piece that the freelancers on the crowdsourcing marketplace get about your requirement. So, it’s utmost important to make sure that your brief is written in the best way possible because that only would make sure your crowdsourcing project receives the most applicable submissions. And one of these entries, most liked by you & chosen winner would put you on the ultimate path to success.

To make sure everything goes the way you desire, use the following tips to get the maximum from your crowdsourcing contest.

Inspire the Crowd

You need to ask yourself, “What would inspire the freelancers to take out time to create a piece or dedicate their time for my brand?”. So, the project brief should clearly indicate why talented creatives should participate, and exactly what it is about your brand that they can connect with or relate to. Begin with a short intro, an enticing teaser that pulls in the crowd, by telling them how your brand relates to them. Once they feel that connection, you’ve taken the first step effectively. The next part of the crowdsourcing brief should immediately jump to the main point you’re trying to address. The moment the freelancers form that personal connection to your requirement or the product, they’ll be moved and would want to work on the project.

Challenge the Freelancers

It’s very important to have the crowd put on their thinking hats. Like they say, a challenge usually brings out the best from the other person. If you can make the freelancers relate to your requirement and offer a solution that would play out in their own life, as well as in the lives of your future consumers, you’ve set the ball rolling. You’ve to very smartly provide a crowdsourcing brief that includes an engaging language quoting tangible examples. So essentially you’ve to provoke them, but in a good way. Successfully creating that connection on a personal level would result in amazing, relevant and to the mark submissions.

Don’t Strangle their Creativity

The guidelines of your project brief should never have any narrowing effect on submissions. Think what kind of results you expect from running the crowdsourcing contest and structure your guidelines around that. For eg, if you want a custom design of the packaging for your product and you just want ideas around new packaging design, not form and functions, clearly state in the brief that you’re only looking for new design. Make your guidelines simple and clear, but refrain from adding too many. Guidelines should be broad and not based on personal tastes/subjective information as that can also limit the creativity in results. A brief that restricts the creativity of the freelancers can limit participation thus leading to lesser number of results.

Incentive is the Word

How long do you expect to wait for a winning submission and offering a significant prize money, this would make all the difference. The best engagement would be seen only if you are successful in attracting the freelancers to work on your project. Needless to say, the award prize/money needs to be decent enough because that is what will bring maximum submissions to your crowdsourcing project from the participating freelancers.

So by now it must be crystal clear to you that when designing the brief for a crowdsourcing project, the most important factor is to make that human connection. The creatives will give their best to help you fulfill your requirement once that bond is created, because then it will be “their concern” too. You’ll see a much higher engagement from the crowd if you can get the freelancers to see the job as something they can contribute to.