10 Ways to Grow Your Crowdfunding Campaign Email List
Since you’re reading this, I’m assuming you recognize the impact having a strong email list will have on your campaign. Newsletters are the biggest driver of sales for crowdfunding campaigns across any channel, period. Building a strong email list of targeted potential customers is the single best way to de-risk your crowdfunding launch. In fact, it’s one of the most reliable factors Indiegogo uses to gauge how well a campaign will perform.
Two words to emphasize from the last paragraph are “targeted” and “big” (and of course, “email,” but that’s rather obvious). The purpose of creating your list is to find a big group of targeted customers who will be the first ones to back your campaign, thereby unlocking the magic behind crowdfunding: social validation, exclusivity, momentum, and urgency. Without this first wave of orders, it’s incredibly difficult to get to the magic.
Your goal is to create a big enough list in order to comfortably hit at least 30% of your internal goal (not your public facing goal) within the first few days. Assuming an average 5% conversion from emails (more or less depending on your price, desirability, and awesomeness of your emails), you can do the quick math to determine how big your list needs to be.
Now, let’s get to the good stuff. Here are 10 proven ways to build a strong email list:
- Run digital ads on Facebook.
I’ve included this in the #1 spot for a reason; it’s the most reliable, scalable, and widely used strategy to build your list. Through Facebook ads, you can hyper-target your potential customers, test your messaging and audiences, then scale your outreach accordingly. (Most campaigners will try to get their cost to $1–2 per email.) You’ll direct these potential customers to your beautifully created and optimized pre-launch page, which I’ve conveniently placed as the #2 strategy :)
2. Create a high-performing pre-launch page.
Your pre-launch page is where you should be driving all your traffic in an attempt to convert visitors into newsletter subscribers. This page should quickly highlight the amazing benefits of your product using professional imagery (and possibly video) with language that emits urgency, exclusivity, and a bit of scarcity (i.e. “First 200 orders get 30% off, sign up to be one of them”). Your call-to-action (email collection box) should be front and center. You should be continuously A/B testing your messaging and images on this page in order to optimize your conversion. This information will also be valuable as you begin to build your crowdfunding page and determine your title/tagline, which hero image to use, or how to lay out your page.
3. Activate your personal network.
This should really be your first step toward growing your list. Take a few minutes to export your email contact list (you’ll be surprised by how many people you’ve emailed in the past couple years), then break them up into various groups for outreach (friends, family, colleagues, random acquaintances, etc.). Send a targeted email to each group that tells the story behind your project and invites them to do two things: (1) go to your pre-launch page to subscribe and (2) send to 2–3 friends that may find this product interesting.
*One caveat here to consider is this initial group may not be your target audience. It will, however, give you a nice base of potential customers that you can leverage to find your actual target customers.
4. Convert your social following.
Many startups do an excellent job growing their social media communities but haven’t focused so much on growing their email list. Social followings are great but it’s getting harder and harder to reach your own followers. I’d encourage you to think of ways to convert these followers into email subscribers so you can reliably reach their inbox. What incentives can you offer for those that join your list? Are there things being shared to your email following that aren’t shared elsewhere? Will your email followers be notified of the launch first?
5. Reach out to the press.
I hesitated putting this one on the list since getting press for a product/campaign that hasn’t launched yet is tricky. At the same time, we have seen it done effectively. If you have a truly innovative product, something totally fresh, the press may want to cover it in advance of your launch. Look out for publications that have done this with other products in your industry and reach out to them. (Tip: If you can get your prototype in their hands, your chances of getting covered go up significantly. This also goes for getting press during your campaign.)
6. Create shareable content.
Can you create a captivating video, a training guide, or a series of helpful blog posts that people will want to share organically? The key is to create something that people will actually want to share (without you asking them). This will inevitably bring a significant amount of eyeballs to your pre-launch page.
7. Attend and exhibit at industry events.
It may seem old school to collect emails with pen and paper but events can be target rich environments to promote your product. There are hundreds of events out there for kitchen products, toys, home improvement, coffee, and every other industry. You can oftentimes create deeper connections with your potential customers by meeting them in person, making the emails from this type of list more valuable (aka: it will convert higher). You can also solicit in-person feedback and make them feel like part of your story, which is what many customers are looking for when supporting a crowdfunding campaign.
If an industry event isn’t happening in your area or within your desired timeframe, create your own!
8. Leverage the email list of a partner.
Once you have a decent list, another tried and true way to grow it even more is to borrow subscribers from another (the good news is you don’t have to return them when you’re done :). Search for other products in your industry that are targeting your ideal customer. These could be soon-to-be crowdfunded products, local restaurant chains or stores, or hardware companies further in their development. These partners are going to want to reach your customers as well.
Imagine bringing a new coffee mug (maybe it keeps your drink hot, or cold, or stirs in the milk?) to market. Here are a few examples of potential partners you can leverage:
- A startup that recently launched the latest coffee maker sensation — you can cross-promote each others products/websites through your respective email lists.
- A local coffee chain — you can run a giveaway with them for free mugs and a month of coffee. Since the coffee chain most likely has a larger list, you should offer to pay for the cost of the giveaway.
- A more established company in your space — pitch the idea of offering an exclusive perk for their customers and agree to promote their products alongside your own in future newsletters.
9. Provide an incentive on your pre-launch page.
Increase the email conversion on your pre-launch page by providing an incentive for folks. Many pre-launch pages will have some sort of instant incentive to get you to input your email. This may come in the form of a spinning wheel game offering a variety of perks or a way for you to join a raffle. The caveat to this is while your page conversion may increase, which is great, the overall quality of these leads might be lower since they are incentivized in exchange for something other than notifications about your product launch.
10. Use your current list to grow your list.
Your current list is an amazing asset. Make it insanely easy for your subscribers to share with their friends by putting a share button or an equivalent call-to-action at the end of each newsletter. If you can track how many people each of your subscribers refers, give them an incentive to share, like a heavily discounted perk (or a free something!) when you launch. Additionally, just by virtue of sharing quality content with them along your path to launch, they’ll want to share with their friends, so make sure to keep them engaged.
While we’re on the topic of keeping your list engaged, this is a nice segue (pronounced “seg-way,” it’s ok, I didn’t realize how to spell it either) to mention that growing your list is not always enough; you have to keep them active, excited and engaged. In order to get the most out of the list you’ve worked tirelessly to build, make sure to bring your subscribers into your story full on. Give them updates, send surveys out about color options, and remember, most importantly, to give them a heads up when you’re going to launch. Your goal is to make sure that the highest percentage of those subscribers convert into paying backers.
Happy (email) hunting!
