Financing / Crowdfunding : Making yourself heard above the noise by Daniel Lyddon

I'm going to start crowdfunding for a new long-form short in January and wondered what people are doing these days to to make themselves heard above all the noise in the crowdfunding space. I haven't crowdfunded in a while, and have yet to have any great success with the method, but I remain hopeful. Last time I attempted crowdfunding for a project I was inundated with messages from people/companies offering services to boost my ranking/get on the front page/get more views etc. I was also told that these days you have to speculate to accumulate - set aside a few grand for the promotional video, in-site advertising, off-site advertising, offline advertising and all sorts of marketing methods that I really didn't feel necessary. Long question shortened, what methods are people using these days to gain traction for their campaigns? And, if you don't mind saying, how much money are you investing in your campaign (not including the cost of producing perks) ?? Many thanks :)