Crowdfunding for Independent Print Media: E-Commerce, Marketing, and Business Development

Peter Konhäusner, Marius Thielmann, Veronica Câmpian and Dan Cristian Dabija
Additional contact information
Peter Konhäusner: Department of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babeș-Bolyai University, 400591 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Marius Thielmann: Section Economics and Business Management, bbw Hochschule-University of Applied Sciences, 10625 Berlin, Germany
Veronica Câmpian: Department of Communication, PR and Advertising, Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University, 400001 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-17

Abstract: Crowdfunding, as an alternative method to fundraising, triggers increased awareness in society, while it is also an effective marketing tool for campaign runners. The production and release of independent print media poses significant hurdles in terms of financing. Including the community in raising funds through crowdfunding seems like a good possible alternative. This paper examines which types of crowdfunding the independent print media use, and why, and also focuses on the possible types of crowdfunding that are the best fit for organizations. The study applies a case example approach on a total of thirty independent print publications that have relied on crowdfunding. We found that independent print media focus on reward-based crowdfunding for the launch of publications, the method being not used solely for fundraising, but also specifically for community building. Practitioners benefit from the insights by being enabled to draft campaigns that are better-suited to the specific needs of the independent media target group, and to secure financing for the start of the operations. The approach of this study is of special value, as the research and empirical insights into the independent media sector are limited.

Keywords: crowdfunding (CF); marketing; media; independent media; E-commerce; business development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/11100/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/11100/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:19:p:11100-:d:651668

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().