This is a follow up to the checklist for the pre-campaign. If you haven’t read that one, I would recommend you to start there. During the campaign, things are going to be so hectic that you won’t have time to react, so it’s just better to have everything ready to go!
It’s now time to start getting those investments through the door. The campaign will have two phases, so let’s look at the tasks on each one of them:
Private live
Your equity crowdfunding campaign will start in private mode. This means that the campaign will be hidden for the general public and only people with the link will be able to see it and invest. This is a great idea, as you really want to go public with a good percentage raised – that will give your pitch credibility.
It’s the old ’empty restaurant’ analogy – if you’re looking for somewhere to eat, you’ll go to a restaurant that has a few punters, not to the empty one. The same psychological effect applies to an equity crowdfunding campaign.
You can agree when to go live with the platform, but they will require at least 20%. My recommendation is to go live with at least 40% of the money raised, if possible, more.
In this stage these are the main activities you need to be focussing on:
- Ask your network to invest, starting with the bigger tickets and continuing with the smaller ones.
- Publish your first update on the platform.
- Approve any requests to download the restricted documents.
- Start answering any questions on the forum, using the pre-written answers you’ve prepared during the pre-campaign. Do reply as soon as possible and always in the first 24 h after the questions!
- Continue building relationships with business angels and other potential investors.
Public live
Once you’ve reached you’re agreed threshold, you’ll be able to show your pitch to the wider community in the platform. At this point, you should be focussing on executing by:
- Reminding your network to invest if they haven’t done so yet.
- Shout on social media about your pitch, following the plan you’ll have designed during the pre-campaign.
- Continue publishing updates, as per your pre-campaign plan.
- Reply promptly on the forum, personalising the FAQs answers you’ve written on pre-campaign.
- Reply promptly to restricted document requests.
- Follow up with emails to investors that have requested the documents but haven’t either downloaded them or invested.
- Search for new media opportunities.
- Reach to new potential investors, especially after reaching certain milestones.
- Thank your investors and ask them to share your campaign.
- Use the platform marketing tools to your advantage: automatic emails will be sent at 50%, 75% and 90%.
- Ask the platform to appear in their on-line and off-line events.
- Track your campaign KPIs such as visits to your page, conversion rates, average investment.
- Brainstorm with your platform contacts ways to increase your reach and conversion.
Wrapping it up
During the campaign, there will not be much time to improvise. It will be all about the execution of what you’ve planned in pre-campaign. Keep calm and check your KPIs, adjusting as you go along. And don’t forget to promptly reply to your document requests or questions on the forum! Do let me know if you have any questions or need any support by contacting me.
Again, by popular request, I will also be creating articles for each one of the checklist points. Watch this space.
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