Building a strong email list is the key to fundraising for every entrepreneur.
But how do you start?
In this episdoe, Netcapital CEO Rob Burnett uncovers the secrets to building a successful fundraising list from scratch, including how to:
*Build landing pages, calls to actions, and compelling content
*Host virtual events
*Leverage social media
Join us as we unveil a blueprint to create, engage, and capitalize on your email list.
If you want to raise capital for your business visit us at https://netcapital.com/
Building a strong email list is the key to fundraising for every entrepreneur.
But how do you start?
In this episdoe, Netcapital CEO Rob Burnett uncovers the secrets to building a successful fundraising list from scratch, including how to:
*Build landing pages, calls to actions, and compelling content
*Host virtual events
*Leverage social media
Join us as we unveil a blueprint to create, engage, and capitalize on your email list.
If you want to raise capital for your business visit us at https://netcapital.com/
Some of the best companies, especially in the right CS space, are. One of their key secrets is being killer list builders, and so we're going to learn some of their lessons. Before we get into that, who is net capital? We're an SDG registered funding portal. We host regulation crowdfunding offerings. We've done hundreds of offerings over the years. We help entrepreneurs raise capital and we help investors invest in private companies. We invite you to come check out the website, check out the deals that are available and make an investment if it's right for you.
Speaker 1:So, first and foremost, what is a list? A list is exactly what it sounds like. It's a list of, in this case, potential investors, and you want to start at the most basic. Some of you watching might be expert online marketers with you know, deep experience in creating lists and then creating audiences on Facebook and Instagram. Some of you might be experienced sales professionals who understand CRMs. Some of you might be doing this for the very first time. So the key is to start somewhere, and for those of you who are starting at the very beginning, I recommend starting at the very beginning, creating a spreadsheet whether it's like an Excel document or Google sheets and just write down the names, and you want names and contact information. So name, email, phone number, any other relevant information you need and start building the list. This is a really good way to start building a community around your business and it feels very basic but it's one of the most fundamental things you can do. So you want to grab as widely as possible right Friends, family, colleagues, former coworkers, current coworkers, people who are maybe first adopters or early adopters of your product, things like that and go as broad as you can. I recommend making this list as broad as possible, throwing people on it and let people opt out later, as long as you know them and know that they'd be interested in hearing from you.
Speaker 1:Once you get a little bit further and you've built your list out a little bit, the next step is to segment it. So if you've got friends and family here and then some potential angel investors here and then customers here, you might want to speak to them each of them differently. So, making sure you create your list, build your list into groups or segments to make sure you're sending the right messaging. That's really important. If you want to get a little more advanced, we recommend using a CRM, so that's sales management software. It's a way to attract prospects and to make sure you follow up. It's a great way to make sure you're making phone calls to all the potential investors who are on your list. It's a great way to make sure you follow up. And you can also use email software like MailChimp, hubspot, klaviyo or any of the big email service providers. Those are a great way to put in email addresses, send mass emails and keep track of things like open rates and things like that.
Speaker 1:But the first secret to building lists is to build a list and start from the very beginning. The next secret to building lists is to build a compelling landing page Landing pages you probably experienced them way more often than you even realize. Most retail online sites use landing page and whether it's a dedicated landing page or a pop-up, you can see a little picture of it right here. If you ever think of the last time you went to maybe an online clothing retailer or any kind of online shop, there's usually something that pops up that says, maybe give us your first order, send it for our list for 10% off your first order, or something like that. That's someone building a list, and so you know. Some of you might be working in direct-to-consumer goods, in which cases lists are great and you can offer things like discounts, and we'll talk about that a little later. But even if you're not, every company's page should have a pop-up or a dedicated landing page that tells a little bit about your company and asks people to join your email list. You should have a clear call to ask action, ask them to join and tell them you'll get to keep up with your company. If people are interested in your business, they'll sign up, and those and you know someone who's opted into hearing from you is a fantastic prospect, not only for raising money, but also as a potential customer evangelist or anything else. So we highly, highly recommend putting a landing page on your website.
Speaker 1:There's website builders these days. Whether you use Squarespace or Wix or WordPress or any of these plug-and-play website builders, we'll have a plug-in that lets you throw in a pop-up or a landing page, no problem and a couple of tips around that. You want to make it super minimalist. Don't ask for a bunch of information, name an email, maybe even just email. Keep it simple. Let people get on your list and then target them from there. And don't forget being mobile responsive. Don't forget optimizing for mobile. Most people are on their phones these days. You want to make sure that it's easy to make lists for people who find you via their phone.
Speaker 1:The next thing to do is highlight social proof. So, whether it's on your landing page or in the emails you're sending, or on your social media or on your website, show other people on your list and use that as a way to get new people interested in being on your list. So you can use testimonials from either investors or customers any endorsements. If you've got someone on your board who's a bit of a personality, you can have them say things like that. Or if you get an e-media presence, you can say hey, check out this article that was written about us. If you'd like to learn more, sign up for our list.
Speaker 1:Using points of social proof as incentive to join a list is a very, very powerful thing. It doesn't cost you anything, you don't have to give anything up, but it gets people over the hump. People are giving you their email address and usually lists are built around email addresses just for the record. So people are giving you their email address and usually it's nice to give them something in return, and one of the easiest things you can give them is the sense of feeling like they're joining some kind of exclusive club or joining something worth knowing about. And social proof is the greatest thing you can do to do that. And, like I said, generating it might take some work, but it's typically free to do. And once you build that credibility, it lets you continue to compound that over time as you continue to talk to your investors.
Speaker 1:The next thing you want to do is offer value to these people. Offer value to your people on your list, and that value can come in a lot of forms. I mentioned earlier that you know, if you're a retail brand, if you're a jeans company, the easiest thing you can do is say join our email list and we'll give you 20% off on your first order. It's great. You give them value. You get contact information which is valuable to you as a business owner. You can email them again and again, try to turn them into repeat customers, things like that. But what if you're not? What if you're not a direct to consumer brand? What do you do then? Then you have to get more creative, but again, you still want to offer value. So things like download our white paper, sign up here for insights into our market, even just calling your updates exclusive is a great way to let people in on a club you can offer them they'll be that these people will be the first to hear about X, y and Z. It's a great way to incentivize people to end up on your list. Once you do get them on the list, you want to make sure you update them. But again, you want to find something, give people something anything to to as incentives and, in rub in rub, anything in exchange for signing you up on their email list. So it's very, very valuable to do that. Again, you know building a list is what's beneficial to you, but you want to make sure you convey to your potential subscribers why it's beneficial to them.
Speaker 1:The next thing I want to talk about is social media. A lot of people maybe conflate things like followers on social media with a list that they've built, and while followers on, let's say, instagram or tick tock or LinkedIn even LinkedIn connections are very valuable, they tend to not convert very well when it comes to sales or investment. You know, someone can have a million Instagram followers but that might not convert into much investment at all. It's important to think about you're following someone on a social media platform. It's typically one click, it typically doesn't take much and it's typically a low it's a low barrier to enter thing, which means people who've opted in Haven't put a lot of time or effort into that often, and so they're not inclined to feel like they need to get much out of it, and so it can be easy to think, oh, I've got 5000 friends on Facebook and I've got 10,000 LinkedIn connections and I've got 100,000 people following me on on Instagram. I'll just post on those social media platforms and everyone will come flock to my offering, and so it tends to not work very well.
Speaker 1:But social media can be used incredibly effectively if you strategically and your social media marketers are often use the term a funnel right. So you have this many people who may or may not be interested, and what you want to do is funnel them down into smaller and smaller but more and more passionate groups, and so you should think of social media as a great top of the funnel strategy. So social media is great to get a wide reach, but it's hard to get people to convert straight from social media into either buying or investing in your product. So what it often works well to do is use your social media reach to say, hey, everybody, come visit my landing page. Or hey, everybody, I'm hosting an event, come sign up. Or hey, everybody, I'm doing X, y or Z, come look at it here and you get them one level below. You can say, hey, here's my landing page, sign up for my newsletter. Or hey, here's the event I'm hosting, which we'll talk about in a second. Sign up here and you can listen to my event. Those are great ways to then build your list and get the email address and go from there. So you know, encourage anyone with a strong social media presence is a fantastic asset for any business, but don't rest under laurels there. Use that asset to build a list as opposed to trying to skip that step and drive straight to sales.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's always important to mention about social media is basically all social media platforms, I think, have ad engines where you can place pixels on on your, your company's website or your net capital page and you can collect data about people who are there, and it's a great way to place ads to those people who have come and visited you on social media come and visit your website, things like that and you can use those ads to direct people to come to your landing page to sign up for your list. Those ads can often be cheaper than trying to buy ads that are trying to get people to convert into sales or investments, and so getting people to sign up for a list can be a cheap and effective way to spend ad money to fixuate your goals of either raising money or driving sales. If anyone has deeper questions about this specific point, about how to use ads, please reach out to us. It's a very complex field, with marketing partners who'd be happy to dive into the details with you. Let's take it into the real world for a second, though.
Speaker 1:You wanna leverage networking events Whether there's no shortage of apps these days, linkedin being the prime one where, if you're at a networking event, you can connect with people. You can collect business cards If you've got a table at any event, you can offer a prize to be able to put their business cards in a fish bowl, or you can have an iPad and, with your landing page, up at an event and invite people to sign up to follow you. Seeing people important is person. One is a great way to create connections, and two, it's very easy to ask someone, shake their hand and be like hey, will you sign up for my list? Will you sign up for my email notifications? I want to keep you informed with my business. It's a great way to do it.
Speaker 1:So in-person events are making a comeback. People are excited to be out in the world these days and you shouldn't miss out on an opportunity to collect as much information from people as possible while you're there Takes a little bit of extra work. You have to have a little bit of extra planning. You gotta do hey, let's connect on LinkedIn. You gotta exchange business cards in a really old fashioned way and then, when you get home, you gotta take all those business cards out and you gotta type people and put them on your list. But it's very valuable because making in this day of digital connections, making real face-to-face connections are very powerful, and this is all about finding high value people to put on your list. And so don't sleep on those network events. Get out there in the real world, talk to people and build your list that way. Then you can do something like this. Reblinars and workshops are great ways to provide value to people and, in exchange, get them to sign up for you. So when we host things like this. Hopefully this is valuable to whoever's here watching and we can then send you emails about the next one. So hopefully you can provide more value and so hosting finding out what you're an expert about, finding out what your network is interested in hearing about, and then hosting webinars and workshops to help them learn more, become experts about it or show off that you're an expert. This is a great way to provide value to your community. It's a great way to get something. You can email your list to come and join and then you can ask those people to invite other people to come and join and build your list. That way. It's a great way to build community and to perfect your own pitching and presenting techniques.
Speaker 1:Presenting doesn't come to everyone. Naturally, a lot of people are quite afraid of public speaking and, as a founder or as an entrepreneur, as an executive, being able to do this consistently will help you get better at your presenting if you treat it like that task, which will help you be better at building lists, and those lists will then be valuable for your business. So something to definitely keep in mind as you go forward. And similar but slightly different no virtual events and Q&A sessions Try to do. Ask Me Anything. Events Try to find other people in your industry or similar industries who might wanna do a joint event with you, with interviews or maybe workshops, things like that. Those Q&A sessions can really help. And when you host events, when you let people hear from you and learn more from you directly, it creates a sense of connection and openness which again, for people already on your list, will make them more committed. They'll open your emails more, they'll be more inclined to feel like they're getting value from that list and they'll feel more attached to that list. And then for new people, it'll convey a sense of trust and openness where they'll say, oh, I liked this person, it was great to meet them. I'm gonna put myself on their list for next time.
Speaker 1:So, thinking about all the different ways you can use events to your advantage to be very, very valuable for list building, if you want to get even the next level work with the experts. So influencers is a broad and popular term these days, always interesting to you know it encompasses a wide group of people. But if someone's an influencer, their job is to create content and to hold sway over people and to provide value to people in the form of content, whether that's video or images or written word, blog posts, things like that. And so sometimes, if you're an entrepreneur who maybe marketing isn't your strong suit, or maybe marketing is your number one strong suit and you want to leverage it, finding people who have lists of their own and collaborating with them, maybe offer to swap lists, maybe offer to host co-events, or maybe just hire an influencer and use that influencer again to push people to a landing page or some other point of value creation where you can collect people's information and get them to sign up. If you ask them to promote you and you're paid them to promote you, that can really amplify your message very quickly.
Speaker 1:One thing to note you want to be careful about what kind of influencer you pick. Obviously, you know, if you are a fitness company and you pick fitness influencer, that's great, but if you're a finance company and you pick a food blogger, that might not be a good fit and there might not be much overlap. So finding an influencer that fits with your message, whose audience might overlap with your target audience, can be a very good way to supercharge that list building. Once you've gone from you know the more hand-to-hand things, this is a great way to really blow up your list. But again, remember, as I talked about in the social media section, social media is a relatively light touch media. So influencers, while they might have a lot of followers, they might not get a lot of engagement from those followers. And so you know, whenever you're talking to an influencer, you want to understand their engagement, what people like about them, and measure them and test them against how you will actually engage versus how many people see whatever they put out.
Speaker 1:And then the final piece of advice for building lists is to engage consistently. You want to make sure that you're getting out there and providing regular updates to your list and providing value to those people you might even invite, because you can use those people to invite new people to your list and you want to provide value consistently. People should hear from you on a regular basis. You should be including regular updates and by doing that you're going to create a lot of trust. You're going to create a lot of engagement, and then, when you finally make an ask, people will feel like they know you and they're ready to go, and so when you ask them to invest in you, they will already be invested in their relationship and that won't be hard. The first email they ever get from you is hey, please invest in me. You wouldn't have to spend the time building the trust, building the excitement and optimizing that feeling of connection for conversion, and so getting used to sending regular, quality content to your lists is a really great way to make sure those lists are sharp and ready so that when it's time to make a big ask, like raising money, those people are ready to go.
Speaker 1:So with that, that brings us to the end today. I hope this is going to help you build a killer list. Start now. It's a long process, keep going, keep adding, even if it's just one email address at a time. And if you need to raise capital, please feel free to reach out to us. Our head of business development emails here on the screen, thomassmith, at netcapitalcom, and you can always reach out to us directly on netcapitalcom. Click the raise capital button. So with that, if there's any questions for the audience, I'm happy to take them now, and if you're watching on a recording, please feel free to comment and we'd be happy to get back to you.