I advised Collusion on their $158K Kickstarter raise and know the LIFX ($1m) guys well, so I know what I'm talking about.
You don't need an expert or a consultant to project manage it for you - it's not rocket science. There's a whole industry of self-serving "crowdfunding experts" who charge for their services; they are a complete waste of money in my view. Just like "social media gurus" of a few years ago.
1 - Use Kickstarter. If you can't get onto Kickstarter, then your product isn't good enough to be crowdfunded. Kickstarter won't bring you a whole lot of traffic per se, but it does have credibility and brand-awareness with journalists.
2 - Remember that crowdfunding for a business is about pre-sales. Don't believe any of that crap you read about "telling a story" - show your product, show how people are using it, tell people what they get for their pledge. That simple.
3 - Make sure the video is professionally shot and treat it as a product demo. If you can, make it funny.
4 - Create a list of journalists you want to write about you. Crowdfunding is all about press. Reach out to them and ideally meet them face-to-face to build a relationship before you tell them about your kickstarter campaign.
5 - Before you launch your campaign, go and spread the word. Collusion spent months demoing their product at Silicon Beach, the main tech meetup in Sydney. Considering your typical Kickstarter backer is usually a tech-savvy early adopter, this is a good place to start. They gave these guys business cards with a special password written on it that gave early access to the kickstarter page (that is, they didn't announce anything publicly until day 2 of their campaign)
6 - Structure rewards properly. Some good ideas are to offer a limited quantity of discounted products as your lowest tier - this encourages people to pledge immediately, rather than waiting to see what other people do. Fear of missing out is crucial. Don't do T-shirts - that's pretty mundane and boring now. At the upper-end, get creative - invite to launch party, lunch with founders/advisors/investors/celebrity evangelist, get the product or part of it named after you (especially a character or item in a game), limited-edition versions that are a different colour or have better functionality, early access to beta etc.
7 - Exclusivity and fear of missing out are your friends. Make the lower reward tiers limited in quantity. Make the very top tiers only available to one or two people. It will help build momentum and get press if some of your reward tiers sell out early.
8 - If day 1 is about giving people you know the opportunity to jump in and grab the discounted rewards, day 2 onwards is about press. Don't waste money on Adwords or Facebook ads, it's all about getting press coverage.
9 - Learn how to write a press release properly. I can run you through this, and how to deal with journalists if you want.
10 - Make sure you have a plan for what to do after your project ends. I've seen some companies run their own follow-on crowdfunding campaign on their own website successfully; I've also seen a lot of companies set up an online store and then stick a link in their Kickstarter page saying "Our Kickstarter campaign has ended - if you want to buy a [name of product] head over to our online store."
