A succesful Crowdfunding campaign in 9 steps

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STEP BY STEP GUIDE CROWDINVESTMENT CAMPAIGN

description

Want to start your crowdfunding/ crowdinvesting campaign? But don't know where to start? Follow the 9 steps in this guide to get funding for your project or business. PREPARE 1. Finalize investor proposition & rewards 2. Create a pitch story 3. Visualize your story 4. Find your investors 5. Choose your channels 6. Get your campaign team & plan your campaign LAUNCH 7. Update on progress 8. Learn and adjust FOLLOW-UP 9. Deliver what you promise

Transcript of A succesful Crowdfunding campaign in 9 steps

Page 1: A succesful Crowdfunding campaign in 9 steps

STEP BY STEP GUIDE CROWDINVESTMENT CAMPAIGN

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

GET STARTED Congrats! You have a strong investment proposition and are ready to get started with rallying your network to invest in you. To help you on the way we have compiled this step-by-step guide containing tips & tricks to succesful crowdfunding. We’ve done it ourselves as well, so we are happy to share our learnings with you. We’ve identified 9 steps to help you on the way to create a succesful campaign. Enjoy spreading the word! The ImpactCrowd team

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

CROWDINVESTMENT CAMPAIGN IN 9 STEPS PREPARE

1.  Finalize investor proposition & rewards

2.  Create a pitch story

3.  Visualize your story

4.  Find your investors

5.  Choose your channels

6.  Get your campaign team & plan your campaign

LAUNCH

7. Update on progress

8. Learn and adjust

FOLLOW-UP

9. Deliver what you promise

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PREPARE

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

INVESTOR PROPOSITION & PERKS

Your investor proposition is the prerequisite in your first step to a succesful crowdfunding campaign.

Projects that add extra rewards next to an impact return on investment are more succesful than the ones who don’t.

It is amazing the power behind giving away something unique or getting access to the next must have product before it hits the shelves. Have a good think about what people are likely to find compelling and tier your rewards to entice people to invest more.

For a product this is easy. For services it can be more about involvement. The link should be logical between the product/service you are offering and the reward that the investor can recieve.

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

2. CREATE A PITCH STORY

People are more likely to invest in a business that they are already passionate about or a story that is too compelling to ignore. Your pitch should be one, or both, of these things. What makes your business unique? And how will you take advantage of this opportunity?

A good story is:

ü  Clear

ü  Easy to understand

ü  Articulate & professional

ü  A way to build trust with your investors

ü  Visualize by using images and a video

ü  Use references

ü  Cite your track record and past succeses

ü  Who is on your team?

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

You can visualise your story is by using strong images on ImpactCrowd as well as in your own promotional efforts.

A promotional video can be a powerful tool to communicate what you are trying to do. It will help bring your pitch to life, show that you are serious and adds credibility. As investors generally don’t have the opportunity to meet you face-to-face, a video helps instil trust in you and your company. Keep it short and simple (2-3 min). An storyboard for a good video pitch could look something like this:

1.  Introduce yourself

2.  Introduce your product/services

3.  Show the ways someone might use your product/service

4.  Explain why this product/service matters to you and why you are looking for investments

5.  Say thank you ;-)

3. VISUALISE YOUR STORY

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Who are your investors? Your community As you probably know, it all starts with your own community of friends, family, neighbours, fans, followers – everyone you know – to not only inform them you’re seeking capital but why they should invest in you. Your community is also your professional network of suppliers and customers.

Even greater is when they want to be your brand ambassador and help you spreading the word in their network.

The likeminded crowd Who’s next? The people and organsiations who are interested in your proposition because they have affinity with your product/service. Or they share the same passion as you. Identify them, add them to your distribution list and reach out to them with your pitch.

The impact investors The investors who are looking for the next impact investment gem on ImpactCrowd. It could be you, especially when you already have some crowdinvestors on board.

4. FIND YOUR INVESTORS

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

ONLINE

You can choose from a variety of online channels that have their own dynamics. We’ll help you on the way with some tips.

1.  Email / mailings

2.  Your own website

3.  Social media channels

4. Influencers (bloggers, journalists, brand advocates)

OFFLINE

5. Events & Meet-ups

Most of the crowdinvesting efforts take place online. However, don’t forget to pitch your proposition at events and meetings that you attend.

5. CHOOSE YOUR CHANNELS

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Email is still a very effective tool for telling your personal and professional contacts about what you are doing.

•  Ensure that your email contacts are up-to-date.

•  Segment your email database to create targeted messages

•  Make the mailing personal

•  Make a planning to send regular updates (once a month) throughout the campaign period

•  Add your crowdinvestment message to your email signature

•  You can use Mailchimp – A service for easily creating email newsletters.

5.1 EMAIL / MAILINGS

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Do you have own online channels that you use such as your website and/or a blog? Don’t forget to add them in the mix and refer to your opportunity on ImpactCrowd.

Write news articles and blog postings about your project and crowdinvestment progress and post them online.

You can use your newsletter & emailings to refer to these articles.

5.2 YOUR OWN WEBSITE

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

ImpactCrowd offers easy sharing options to share your opportunity with your network. Encourage others to do the same, by creating messages that suit the channel they are posted on. Vary and repeat the campign message during the campaign period.

We have collected some tips for you that can be useful.

Twittter Twitter is limited to the use of 140 characters. It’s quick and easy to use

•  Use hashtags to create traction and make it easy for people who are interested to find your investment opportunity

•  Write texts that are short and make people curious to click on the link that guides them to your investment opportunity

•  Ask for a retweet (pls RT)

•  Reach out to influential people on Twitter

5.3 SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Facebook Facebook works well when you use strong and appealing visuals and make it easy and inspiring for people to share your content.

•  Use visualisations, post your pitch video or pitch image

•  Ask your facebook friends to share your post

LinkedIn LinkedIn is the business network where it’s easy to spot groups around your area of interest.

•  Join and post relevant contents in groups that are in your area of interest

•  Use the message option in LinkedIn to send personalized messages

•  Use your linkedIn status update to post a link to your investment opportunity

5.3 SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS CONTINUED

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Target influencers – bloggers, journalists, brand advocates to name a few – as part of your campaign. These people will be key when helping you to get your message out there and encourage people to invest.

•  Use Google search to identify online hotspots (news sites/blogs/forums) with a lot of activity around your area of interest

•  Reach out to the editors of these hotspots. Ask them if they are willing to write about your opportunitiy. The more relevant you are for them, the more willing they will be to spread the word for you and encourage others to invest

•  Use twitter search to identify influencers on Twitter

•  A famous brand ambassador doesn’t hurt either. So if you have a famous friend, now is the time to let him share your passion

5.4 INFLUENCERS

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Crowdinvesting is all about collecting a crowd of investors. You can reach out to them through online channels, but don’t forget the power of face-to-face contact.

Make sure you have your elevator pitch ready for network events, meetings and conferences. Collect their contact info and quickly follow-up with your investment proposal.

Tools

Other useful tools to make personal contact with your community: •  Free Conference Call – Free service to set up conference calls

with potential investors •  Fuze meeting – A webinar-hosting service 

Of course, you know your community better than we do. These are just techniques to give you some ideas.

5.5 EVENTS & MEET-UPS

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Engage in every way to get investors on board. It’s about being passionate and bringin that across. It’s also about having bursts of activities planned throughout the time frame of the campaign period.

A crowdinvestment campaign plan consist of:

1.  A campaign team (employees, colleagues, brand ambassadors)

2.  Campaign materials (content, visuals, video’s, social media blurbs, t-shirts etc)

3.  A distribution list of contact

4.  Distribution channels

5.  Planning of activation impulses in a timeline: when are you going to say what and where?

6.  Extra events planned

6. CAMPAIGN TEAM & PLAN YOUR CAMPAIGN

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LAUNCH

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Make sure to keep your followers up-to-date with the progress of your project and the investments. You can easily post updates on the ImpactCrowd that will be visible to the followers and everyone who visits your investment opportunity online. By engaging in lot’s of activity you send the message out there that things are happening and that you are working hard on getting things done.

Followers can also ask you questions on ImpactCrowd. Try to respond as soon as possible as you build trust by doing so.

Remember that your followers and community are already highly interested and sometimes need an extra impulse to start investing. Don’t be afraid to repeat your request, but make sure to add the latest status update of your project and the investments.

By keeping them updated they will be more willing to spread the word for you. Use your emailings and social media channels as a tool to send these updates.

7 UPDATE ON PROGRESS

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

You’ve got a great campaign plan, you reach out to your possible investors and followers and the money keeps pouring in. Right?

If not, there is still some time to learn and adjust. Do your campaign efforts evoke a response? If they don’t, find out why.

Do people respond enthusiastic to your proposition, but they don’t invest? Ask them why they are not investing.

It’s all about listening and learning. Reguraly test the response to your efforts. Use these insights to adjust your campaign strategy.

 

8. LEARN AND ADJUST

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FOLLOW-UP

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Congratulations! You’ve reached your crowdinvestment goal! Done?

Well, you’ve got yourself a group of shareholders.

•  Send your promised rewards quickly

•  Decide on how you want to engage with your new shareholders. Are you going to send monthly or quarterly updates?

•  Send an update to your new crowdinvestors explaining the next steps and with which frequency you will be sending them updates

•  Arrange an annual shareholder meeting

9. DELIVER WHAT YOU PROMISE

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•  Environmental: physical units (i.e. Kwh, CO2)

•  Social: number of people affected by the solution

•  Economic: profit generated in year 3

Contact: http://www.impactcrowd.com Vibeke Helder, PR & Communications [email protected] Or send a tweet to @ImpactCrowd

QUESTIONS? WANT TO KNOW MORE?