Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies for crowdfunding campaigns. In this blog post, we’ll explain how to set up a successful email marketing campaign, so you can nurture a relationship with your crowd and improve the chances of successfully funding your campaign.
Why does some email marketing not work?
Some people say “email marketing is dead,” but research shows that 72 percent of people are more receptive to promotional content via email over other types of marketing channels.
If your email content isn’t working and It’s not generating the results you desire. Then this could be due to a few things:
- A poor quality email list
- Poor email content
- A Poor call to action
If you are sending emails to a list of people who aren’t your preferred target audience then the campaign is starting on the wrong foot. Poor quality, non-original or salesy content is a big turn off. As are campaigns that push readers to low-quality products or an offer that isn’t as good as your competitors. It may seem obvious to you, but you’ll be amazed at how important it is to tell your audience what you would like them to do. Use a call to action and encourage your audience to act.
What we experience?
From our experience, email marketing is an effective crowdfunding marketing technique that when implemented correctly encourages your crowd to support your campaign. Campaign data shows there is a correlation between sending out an email to your list and then seeing more donations or sign-ups take place. However, there are some crucial points that you should follow to increase the probability of your campaign’s success.
Before Pre-Launch
Before you launch your ‘prelaunch’ campaign you and your team should use your existing networks to build a list of contacts. Take the completed list and upload it to your email software of choice, for example, MailChimp. Connect your landing page’s ‘email sign up form’ to MailChimp. So any leads that sign up through the form are added straight to your main contact list.
You are now ready to start emailing your contacts.
Welcoming Email
It’s best practice to have a ‘Welcoming’ email, which is sent out to someone when they join your email list. On signing up, an automated email is delivered to them straight away – welcoming them to your community. The ‘welcoming’ email is an ‘overview’ of your campaign and a chance to recap on the messaging included on the landing page or elsewhere.
Points to include: reintroduce your project vision, explain key benefits, highlight links to any related groups e.g. Facebook community group and give a good CTA at the end of the message. For example, information about the launch date.
During Your Pre-launch Campaign
The emails you send to your list during the prelaunch phase are intended to build and nurture a relationship. Use the opportunity to create interest and intrigue in your cause or offer and get people excited to be part of your project’s community.
How many emails you send during prelaunch depends on how long your prelaunch is. If your prelaunch is 4 weeks then we’d recommend sending an email every week for the first 2 or 3 weeks and then as you get closer to the launch date you can send a few more emails.
Wondering what you should talk about in your emails here are a few ideas:
Chat about your back story, your project’s history and your reason why highlight features and facts and keep your contacts notified about the launch date.
Reminder Email – ‘Launching Tomorrow’
As you get closer to launching you can send out more emails (every couple of days) to encourage backers to support you when you launch. The most important email is the ‘reminder’ email sent out the night before your launch. As people will join your email list at different points throughout prelaunch the ‘reminder email’ helps to put everyone on the same page. Notifying you are launching tomorrow.
Launch Day Email – ‘We are Live’
On the day of launch send an email to your list to let them know that your campaign is now live. Encourage your list to support your campaign straight away. For ‘rewards’ campaigns where you are offering a product at a certain price you can encourage your list with an ‘Early Bird’ discount offer which is available for a limited time. This strategy will help to encourage your list to support you straight away.
Live Campaign
During the live campaign, it’s important to keep messaging your main contact list. Keep them updated with the latest campaign news, the milestones you have achieved, for instance when you hit your funding target. As the campaign draws to a close you can send 3 or 4 emails counting down the final days and hours of the campaign.
Generally, you’ll find the most amount of action for your project is in the opening and closing days of the campaign.
Important Things to bear in mind
When creating a list, keep in mind where your emails will go. Will, they hit your user’s inbox, promotion folder, or spam folder? All of these are dependent on your IP credibility and domain history, and credibility.
The best way to make sure your list is receiving your emails is to remind them when they sign up to add your email to their ‘contact address book’.
Their email client will then know to trust your email and you can relax knowing they are receiving everything you send out.
Make your emails come to life
Whether you need help with designing your email marketing or other areas of your marketing campaign or even Kickstarter Video Production then get in touch with us at Wow Your Crowd. We’d love to hear about your big idea and help your campaign to get funded.
