Equity Crowdfunding Marketing Insights

I’ve been sharing equity crowdfunding marketing insights and just plain old crowdfunding on my crowdfunding public relations website.for years.  I don’t keep it a secret I’ve studied under John Carlton and Dan Kennedy and other sales & marketing grandmasters.  Heck, I’m proud to the point of bragging about my studying the works and the wisdom of The Great Ones over the last 20something years.

Usually I translate what I learned into the crowdfunding language and – to this day – most people walk away skeptical or stumped.  The email below from John Carlton landed in my inbox this morning – May 9, 2023 – and it perfectly summarizes what’s really happening in any crowdfunding promotion effort.

I am proud to pass the mic to Grandmaster Carlton to give you solid gold equity crowdfunding marketing insights…

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From: John Carlton <johnc@john-carlton.com>
Subject: A little known secret of all great marketers…

Howdy,

Budding copywriters and marketers are sometimes intimidated by the fact that you’ve got to persuade.

Cuz isn’t trying to convince people to do stuff they don’t want to do hard? But here’s the thing:

Great marketing is, and always will be, a numbers game.

(Note: If writing to sell is something you struggle with, be sure to read to the end for a monumental announcement.)

But first, let me tell you about this massive game-changer I discovered early on from the street-wise salesmen I mentored under, including Gary Halbert and Jay Abraham.

In any campaign, always go after the easy sales first.

In direct mail, for example, scoring a 2% response can translate to a verifiable success. Goose that to 5% and you’re talking about Big Bucks.

Which means you’ve NOT persuaded 95% of that group… On a winning ad.

So there’s no need to exhaust yourself trying to change a hard “no” into a “yes.”

Your biz and career can thrive simply by going for the “already there” and “almost there” prospects first.

Once you get really good, then you can work on the maybe’s and the “I dunno’s” and the “lemme sleep on it” types.

Ironically, the most enthusiastic “get the f@#k outta here” prospects often can be easily flipped, when you understand you’re dealing with a group that says “no” to EVERYTHING first.

They will often become your best customers, in fact.

We are such a perverse species sometimes.

Just remember that the majority of any group will pass on even your best offer.

Marketing has never been a “flip the true believers” contest.

Okay, now get back to the mines, you slackers.

Stay frosty,

John

P.S. I mentioned earlier that there was a huge announcement so exciting that you wouldn’t want to miss it. Exciting for you, that is.

My buddy and biz partner Stan Dahl is freaking out. Why? He’s just decided to test a whopping 6 month coaching program for the Simple Writing System. If you’ve ever thought your copy could just get a tiny bit better by having a professional A-list copywriter walk you through every step, now is your chance.

Six months of coaching. Wow. I’m still trying to let that sink in.

Find out more details right over here.
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Did every word John said penetrate? Expanding on these equity crowdfunding marketing insights you need to understand when you are running a crowdfunding campaign you’re selling. You’re selling investors a piece of your company. With selling comes marketing.  That’s the core concept that explains why crowdfunding promotion is so damn important. Essential. Required. Advertising a crowdfunding campaign is giving it the oxygen it needs.

Perversely, you can and should expect 98% of the people you reach will pass on your proposition no mater how brilliant, how life changing, how profitable and/or how epic it might be.  That’s the norm. That rejection number can go all the way to 100% for any or all of the following reasons :

• Your market valuation is so high investors will be convinced you’re either a scam artist or a stupid clown. Either way, they’re not buying. More about that here.
• You’re pre-revenue and there’s little to no confidence that you can deliver.
• You don’t hold any patents.
• You and your founders have little to no experience in the field, a criminal record or just plain old put people off.

This is not a complete list.  Yes, some items on the list might sound funny and you could be laughing right now but I’m not kidding.  I’ve seen all of the above.

The real entrepreneur understands that there is risk to be taken so reward can be scored.  Your crowdfunding marketing dollars are at risk.  The fraidy cats pretending to be an entrepreneurs have asked me a thousand times in one form or another – “How will I know if this will work?”

That question makes me cringe, laugh and/or shake my head every time I hear it.  In the digital age we live in, advertising and public relations works every time it’s tried.  The purpose of marketing & PR is to reach as many people as possible with the promotional budget provided. That’s it. That’s all.

Do you find a ValPak coupon envelope in your mailbox every month? I do.  And every time I do every advertiser in that envelope knows that ValPak works; they did their job.  The advertiser paid ValPak to notify every single US mail recipient in a given zip code of a swimming pool maintenance company, the Stanly Steemer carpet cleaning service,  Joe’s Pizza, etc. The advertiser hopes more sales will come of the ValPak mailing but they know they can’t or shouldn’t demand or require ValPak itself to produce sales results.

That’s just not how it works, grasshopper.

Ditto the publicist who fires up a blistering PR campaign that blitzes radio, TV and print with resounding success,  The founder/owner/spokesperson is seen and heard everywhere.  But nobody cares.  The PR firm did an incredible job, worked pure magic and reached huge numbers of disinterested people. Here’s the case study in case you missed it.

Let’s repeat the question as asked by the fake entrepreneur: “How will I know if this will work?”

That’s the beautiful part; you don’t,  Conversions, KPI, etc all start becoming measurable after you pull the trigger.  We just took a deep dive to the very heart of equity crowdfunding marketing insights which are actually insights into advertising itself.

Nobody can buy what you’re selling if they don’t know it’s for sale.  Once they do, they have every right to say no, and as John Carlton said, 95% of them say no in a best case scenario.  Deal with it and suck it up, buttercup.  That’s just the way it is. Your education on equity crowdfunding marketing insights is now complete.

Over ten years ago Tim Ferriss built failure into the crowdfunding equation in his seminal Kickstarter blog article.  That’s exactly right.  He spelled out what every true business person knows; the risk of failure is very real, very high and very much the only way to the rewards you seek.