7) How to Manage Your Campaign After Launching?
After you have spent a lot of time and effort in launching your campaign, you still need to make sure to keep the momentum going. But how to do that?
Building and maintaining momentum throughout your fundraising campaign is essential. Investors like to follow one another. This statement is true in almost every form of fundraising. Knowing that someone has already taken the leap and backed your business makes other investors feel more comfortable doing so too.
“Investors do not fear losing money as much as they fear solitude.” — Michael Lewis
This is why we recommend finding a Lead Investor to lead your round and give other investors that reassurance. Once your campaign is live and you have your lead investor on board, you then need to shift your focus to maintaining momentum.
Many investors will follow your pitch for at least a few days to see what kind of reaction you are getting before committing their own funds. If your pitch remains stagnant over this time then investors are likely to start questioning why other people aren’t jumping at this opportunity.
Crowd dynamics are manifested in your progress bar at the top of your campaign page — this will be the first thing investors look at on your page to judge how likely they think you are to succeed before moving on to watching your video and requesting your slide deck. Just like your video, this visual aid will paint a picture worth a thousand words.
Your marketing outreach and efforts will now come into play.
In addition to driving traffic to your campaign page, you should also be regularly updating investors on the fundraising site with information on how your campaign is going. But also any relevant company news such as new hires or large contracts won — anything that will show your company is advancing all the time is a positive thing.
Communicating with Investors
Communicating with your investors or potential for investors is fundamental to the success of your campaign. You should think of your investors as customers and respond to all questions and queries on your campaign promptly (within 24 hours, preferably 12 where possible).
Communicate with your investors with regular campaign updates.
By not doing so investors can lose interest quickly — there are plenty of other businesses out there they can invest in. Therefore you want to make sure they invest in you.
You should also think about who is going to be responding to investors. We highly recommend that all emails are personally responded to by the CEO or a member of the founding team. This shows investors that you are taking your fundraising seriously and haven’t outsourced the work of your campaign to an intern or external consultant.
When answering questions about your business and pitch, you should also ensure that you actually answer the question and don’t avoid the topic.
Answer investor questions promptly and thoroughly.
Maintaining Momentum
It can be very tempting once you have seen a certain amount of success in your campaign, to take your foot off the gas with outreach and marketing.
However, this is a mistake. Once a campaign has reached between the 40–60% funded mark, you can plateau for some time. The initial excitement has worn off, you may no longer be the new pitch on the site.
Maintain marketing momentum and consistency throughout your campaign.
Which is why it is so important that you leave no stone unturned and you keep up with your marketing efforts in the same way you did when you were launching your campaign and looking for your Lead Investor.
If your campaign remains in plateau…
If your pitch isn’t maintaining the momentum even when you are marketing heavily, then it is time to consider what is going wrong and make adjustments.
Take a step back and analyse your campaign activity. If possible look into the traffic of your campaign page. If there is not much traffic, you should work on getting your campaign more out there. But if there is enough traffic but no conversions, you need to work on that instead.
If your pitch isn’t converting then meet with your Lead Investor and consider re-evaluating your offer or if there are other ways you could incentivise investors to come on board.
You can also consider drawing in some reserve money your Lead Investor may have decided to set aside to give your pitch a mid-campaign boost.
Analyse which of your outreach activities are doing well and focus your efforts there. This may seem overly simplistic but it can often be overlooked when fundraising. Did you send an email or post an update that saw an influx of funding? Did you host a webinar or a live event?
If nothing you are doing seems to be working particularly well then revisit your marketing plan and see if you really are doing everything you possibly can to promote your campaign. Remember to leave no stone unturned, now is not the time to think, “That would never work for our business” — it might.
Evaluate what is working and what isn’t in your campaign.
Spend time analysing what works and what doesn’t, getting to know your investors, listening to them and updating your campaign page regularly with news, are all vital parts of maintaining momentum in your fundraising campaign. Be prepared to work hard throughout your campaign and focus all of your energy and efforts on making it a success — now is not the time to be launching a new product! For the duration your campaign is live, it is the most important thing.
The Funderbeam Guide for Raising Funds
In case you missed the previous chapters in our series and want to know more, check them out here:
About Funderbeam
Funderbeam is a platform that combines the three most important pillars of investing: Access to data, capital, and liquidity.
Raise money from local and global investors, without the usual hassle of cross-border deals. Only one new entry to your cap table.
Our vision is to provide everyone in the world with equal opportunities, whether you are building a company, or looking to fund the next big thing. What if the next Silicon Valley is not a place, but a platform?
> FIND OUT HOW TO RAISE FUNDS ON FUNDERBEAM.COM, OR WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW:
