Equity Crowdfunding Best Practices

No two investment campaigns are exactly the same, but here are some best practices to improve your chance of success.

For most campaigns, we would expect to see majority of the below completed and sent to us for review 2 weeks prior to the pre-campaign starting. We of course expect occasional adhoc posts and marketing items to be sent/approved during the campaign.

Remember, all ads, posts, or marketing content, including emails that mention the raise need to be approved by Equivesto for compliance prior to posting.

Key Concepts

• Marketing for investments is not the same as marketing for products, it is a harder sell with a longer process that requires more touch-points

• Social media ads do not work like they once did and are only effective if used in combination with other marketing

• Email Drip Campaigns and Webinars are critical

• Build organic community with consistent, quality content that adds value before asking for anything

Drip Campaigns

Well designed drip campaigns are essential to crowdfunding success, and help build trust with your potential investors. Emails provide you the necessary time to share key information about your business, your opportunity, and the investment process, that other mediums do not. Making an investment decision is not, and should not be, as simple as purchasing a book on Amazon. Potential investors require time to review materials and ensure their is a fit before moving forward.

Example Drip Campaigns:

Drip campaign 1 – Brand awareness (no discussion of capital raise or Equivesto)

1. Introduction to company, thank subscriber for joining the community

2. What does the business do

3. The Why of the business

4. Details on company product or service (even if under development)

5. What are the next steps for the business (this is the time you mention the upcoming raise & Equivesto Coming Soon page, if they are interested)

Once this drip campaign is completed, all individuals should be added to a monthly or quarterly newsletter that provide an update on the company, its goals, and recent achievements.  All community members should get this newsletter. 

Drip Campaign 2 – For people who have already signed up to your Equivesto Coming Soon page

1. Recap of What you do & Why you’re impactful/different

2. Who is the Team behind your business

3. Details of Why you’re raising capital

4. Intro Equivesto as a partner

5. How to get ready/ Pre signup now - Investment process (you can include our walkthrough links and signup steps)

6. Keep warm  – Invite the lead to your next upcoming webinar and/or you can put them on some sort of basic monthly reminder sequence where you can update them on the business / upcoming campaign depending on how far launch is out.

People should be finished this sequence at least 1 week before the campaign launch to not interfere with the countdown emails in Drip 3. 

Drip Campaign 3 – Campaign Countdown – for people signed up on the Equivesto Coming Soon page in the week leading up to campaign launch

1. 7 days from launch – don’t forget to sign up on Equivesto in advance

2. 5 days from launch, here’s how to sign up

3. 3 days from launch

4. 24 hours from Launch, here is how to sign up

5. Launch day!  Here is the campaign page

Drip campaign 4 – During the live campaign – for people signed up on the Coming Soon page & anyone who has invested

Milestone based:

1. Hit 25% of goal, thank you & excitement

2. Hit 50% of goal

3. Hit 75% of goal

4. Hit 100% of goal, thank you and reminder that we are continuing to raise

5. Hit 125%, and details of next raise milestone

6. Hit 150% ….

Time based:

1. 2 weeks left in Campaign

2. 10 days left in campaign

3. 1 week left in campaign

4. 5 days left in campaign

5. 3 days left

6. 48 hours left

7. 24 hours left

8. Campaign is closed & thank you + when to expect your next update (ex. Quarterly, Annually)

Other:

• Milestones of your business if they occur during the campaign

• Upcoming webinars & events

• Key facts about your business and offering (always navigate investors to you campaign page to learn more and avoid stating any terms of your deal in your marketing material. Acceptable to include Investment Minimums, progress, and days left.)

• Investment Perks (if you have them)

Social Media Posts

We recommend at least 3 non-campaign focused posts per week on all social channels to build content for at least 1 month before campaign launch.  Focus on quality content (ex. educational), and work on providing value to your community before any ask. 

Social Media Ads

Social media ads should be focused on brand awareness for 1-2 months prior to the campaign, and should be directing people to your coming soon page and sign up to the email newsletter to learn more (Drip 1).

Content Marketing

Webinars, AMAs (Ask me Anythings), Podcasts, and Instagram Lives are all excellent and should be planned out in the content calendar both 1 month before the campaign and during the campaign.  Focus should not only be on the campaign but also on overall brand and providing educational value to community.

Waitlist (Coming Soon Page)

The Waitlist (Coming Soon Page), also called the Express Interest page, is a co-branded page Equivesto creates for you (on the equivesto.com domain) so you can start to gather interest for your campaign prior to launching. The page will contain basic information about your company and its leadership, as well as some additional info about your business. It’s typical to see companies place pitch decks and videos on the page, but these are not requirements. Given this is not your official campaign page you will need to avoid mentioning any specifics about the terms of your offering.

The main feature of the Waitlist (Coming Soon Page) is the on page form. The form will ask for key information from the potential investor including but not limited to: Name, Email, Phone #, Level of Investment Interest (ex. $500+, $1,000+, $5,000+, etc.), Where do they Reside, If they are an Accredited Investor (optional).

Where to Spend my Time

The majority of your marketing focus, even during the campaign should be about collecting new leads, specifically their emails. During the campaign, ads or posts about the investment should direct people to provide an email address to learn more, and then start them on Drip 2, but now featuring a direct link to the campaign in all emails.

1/3 Rule of Thumb

Equivesto typically does not want to put a campaign live until 1/3 of the campaign raise goal is listed on the coming soon page. This is based on what we have see with historical campaigns and how best to improve your chances of success. The 1/3 milestone is also a great litmus test to see if your community is ready for your campaign to launch. You can however launch without this step, but it is highly recommended.

Gather 100 Names

Successful campaigns look to have 10% of the goal raised in day 1, and 1/3 of the goal raised by the end of week 1.  Founders should look to ideally build a list of 100 names who they think might invest, gathered at least 1 month before the campaign.  These people should be spoken to directly and if they are interested, asked to sign up on the Equivesto coming soon page.  Early traction is critical, so having personal relationships that will invest right away on day 1 when the company is showing $0 invested is important.  A graph of a crowdfunding campaign typically looks like a bathtub: investment at the start & end, but not much in the middle. 

Segmentation

Once you have gathered your Waitlist, we suggest separating your investors into different bucket and developing specific processes for each group. For example, having your leadership give every lead that said they would invest over $10,000+ a phone call. Or, sending investors who indicated a certain geographical location a specific drip campaign.

Tracking

We can include most tracking codes on your campaign page to help track the investor flow. Common ones include are a Facebook Pixel and Google Tag. We can also embed tools like HotJar, but we would only suggest that if you are finding you are getting a lot of traffic to the page and no conversion.

Campaign Page / Offering Page

This page is different form your Waitlist (Coming Soon page) and will reside on our investment portal: portal.equivesto.com. The configuring of this page is done by the Equivesto team and has more limitations on design given the added functionality of the portal. Most companies choose to simply spread their pitch deck vertically on the page, others get more creative and provide us detailed requirements. It is our advice that focusing more time and energy on lead generation and nurturing is better spent than overdesiging your Campaign Page.

Timeline

Pre-Campaign

Pre-campaign is really the time to build the investor funnel.  Drive people to a community newsletter/drip campaign, and use that newsletter/drip campaign to drive people to your coming soon page.

During Campaign

During the campaign, use retargeting ads for people already on the regular newsletter and also the coming soon page.  Even people who invested already should get the retargeting ads.

Post-Campaign

Keep your investors in the loop and provide them regular updates (ex. quarterly, annually). Even if your don’t always have positive news, it’s important to be direct with your investors and involve them in the journey. This in the long run can help support the case for future investment rounds from the same community.

Top Tips:

Don’t Wait - Start marketing well in advance of the campaign.

Value then $ - Focus on providing value to your community first with no ask. 

Get known - Build brand awareness & respect. 

Get Emails - Drive people to provide email. 

Drip Campaigns - Use email drip campaigns, with other areas to support & retarget. 

Webinars - Host webinar to help build trust in the lea

Reach 1/3rd - Only launch campaign once over 1/3 of raise goal is gathered on the coming soon page.

Organize yourself - A content calendar can help plan out and prepare in advance all your marketing items. 

Consider hiring professionals - As you can see, there is a lot involved in an equity crowdfunding campaign that could take you away from your core business. Equivesto has a wide range of experience marketing partners for all budgets. Let us know where you need help and we can connect you with the right team. If you want to do it yourself, that works too!

Be Active & Involved - Host webinars, do direct followups, book calls, pitch at events, network - running an investment campaign online does not change the core fundamentals of capital raising. It simply allows you to share your information faster and to a wider audience.