How To Use Email Marketing For Your Crowdfunding Campaign: Turning Leads into Backers

After working on over 2,000 successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns over the past decade, it’s clear that a critical component of a successful product launch starts weeks before you ever press the launch button. Collecting leads, and nurturing them, is important to ensure the campaign enjoys a strong start and continued momentum. How many leads will ensure success? That depends on a few key factors: product price, public and internal goals, conversion rates and more.

The Elephant in the Room

No number of email addresses or leads can overcome a bad project. If the idea isn’t one subscribers will want to support, it won’t matter how many subscribers there are. The easiest way to overcome that is to do your research and market testing before choosing to crowdfund. Make sure the idea and the price point are appealing to your ideal customer.

How Many Leads are Needed?

Once you’ve done your homework, and know that your product is priced at a level appealing to customers, it’s time to attract their attention. Determining how many leads you should collect before hitting the launch button isn’t a perfect science, but there are key factors that can help you get a rough idea.

• Funding goal. Don’t shoot for the stars here. Set a realistic funding goal that is as low as possible but high enough to ensure you’re able to fulfill the rewards for every backer.
• Product price.  It’s okay if you offer several rewards at different price points. When determining how many leads you need, choose the price for what you think will be the most popular reward. Generally, this is a single-product reward.
• Total Required Backers. This one is simple math. Divide your goal by the product price to determine how many backers you’ll need.
• Launch Day Backers: Because launch day is so important, it’s important to try to hit 30% of your total required backers within the first two days.
• Conversion rates: Assume your email list won’t be a unicorn and will see about a 1% conversion rate. Many campaigns do see higher rates, but it’s better to err on the side of caution.

Want a plug-and-play way to navigate this? Check out this: CROWDFUNDING PRE-LAUNCH EMAIL CALCULATOR handles all the math for you. 

Turning Leads Into Backers

Assuming your pre-launch leads attract interest, what you do with those leads will help determine how successful your launch will be. The onboarding series of emails should introduce the leads to your brand and educate them about the benefits of your product. They shouldn’t be a pitch to secure a sale, but rather a conversation to welcome them to your community and help them feel involved. 

It’s important to send emails with enough regularity to keep leads engaged. Before launch, automated drip campaigns can provide information and prepare your leads to become backers. Once the campaign launches, a series of emails will encourage people to back the campaign by showing them the benefits of your product.

Do’s and Don’ts 

• Don’t purchase email lists or data. Put your efforts into lead generation, so that the community you’re building wants to be there.
• Don’t overcomplicate your message. Emails aren’t the time to go into extreme detail or get bogged down in little details. Have a clear goal, one message and one action you wish the recipient to do.
• Do make the emails informative and educational. Show potential backers how your product will help them save time, money, or resources.
• Do deliver on your promises. Make sure that whatever was promised during the ad that acquired the lead is delivered upon.
• Do offer ways for your subscribers to get involved in your community. Encourage them to share content on social or engage with your brand.
• Do include video, animation and personality. Videos and animation increase engagement and can positively influence how your subscribers feel about your brand.

Tap Into Other Communities

If you were ever tempted to purchase email lists, you’re probably looking for ways to get your campaign before a wider audience. There are ways to do this. Consider tapping into networks and communities that are interested in crowdfunding in general. These existing communities might not have specifically signed up to receive your emails, but they do expect emails about crowdfunding projects. A great example of this is ProductHype - the top newsletter for crowdfunding enthusiasts. They’ve accumulated hundreds of thousands of fans who engage with their weekly newsletter featuring exciting campaigns. Seeking inclusion in these newsletters is a great way to reach potential backers that didn’t directly express interest in your campaign beforehand.

To Conclude

Make sure you have a great innovation and have done the work to understand how to price it and how many total backers you’ll need. Acquire leads with thoughtful advertising and nurture them well by staying on message and providing valuable information. If all of this feels daunting, reach out to our strategic crowdfunding marketing partner, Enventys Partners, for help in making your leads convert into backers.