This is a guest post by Janelle Pierce, a writer and small business owner interested in providing advice to small business owners. She has a background in internet marketing and likes writing about crowd funding, online storefronts, sales, shipping, and merchant accounts.
Here are a few examples of successful crowdfunding campaigns. What if I told you that one of the most important aspects of running a successful campaign wasn’t a flashy video or an emotionally charged back story? What if I told you it was something you’d never see unless you backed a project or were contacted directly by the project founder before the project launched? Would you be interested to know what it is? I’d be too! That’s why I am going to tell you, it’s the outreach templates. If you’re sitting there scratching your head and thinking “outreach templates?” don’t worry. I’ll explain.
Outreach templates are templates you use when contacting various people, whether backers or bloggers, VIPs or members of the media. Each person you contact presents a unique opportunity to get some much need publicity and even another backer, which makes campaign outreach extremely important.
The first thing you need to do is keep track of all your backers and the rewards they earned. Second you’ll need to make a list that includes the name, URL, and contact info (e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter) for the backer, blogger, media person, or VIP. This will help bring order and make sending templates quick and easy!
That being said, here are a few of the templates you’ll want to create before you launch your crowd funding campaign.
Backer Template
Backers are your bread and butter. They’re not your sugar daddy or your bling machine, they’re investors, and investors like to stay in the know. Consider making a “thank you” template that thanks backers for their initial support. Use this as an opportunity to tell them about what they can expect as the campaign proceeds. Also alert them to the frequency at which you intend to e-mail them.
The backer template should also include all the ways they can stay in touch with you (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and it should encourage them to share their backing with friends and family. Make it easy by including share buttons. It’s important to note that this e-mail should have consistency from backer to backer but you should always include the backer’s first name in the subject, a personal greeting, and at least one sentence tailored specific to them. A cookie cutter message here could mean the difference between success and failure.
Blogger Template
Bloggers are your marketing machine. They’re not your spam bots. They provide information and entertainment to their readers; this means if you give them something good they’ll more than likely share it on their blog. It’s important to note that bloggers receive a ton of e-mail per day and most of it is usually spam. To combat the spam bloggers routinely delete e-mails that seem vague or unoriginal. It’s extremely important to figure out as much about the blogger as you can before you reach out to them. Start by sending one e-mail and follow-up with another a week later if you don’t get any response. Be sure to include as much information about yourself and campaign as you can. Unless your campaign offers some form of value to the blogger (like interesting content, entertainment value, etc.) chances are good they won’t run a post about you for free.
Media Template
Media members are the go to source for fact. They’re not your soap box. They provide news and updates that are important to the lives of those who watch or listen to their shows. If you want to be featured by someone in the media you have to provide a clear value. Members of the media will most likely steer clear of your campaign if the content isn’t in line with what they normally cover or discuss. The best approach is to reach out to members of the media that are already involved in the areas you are. This means if you’re doing a project that can benefit local school kids; the media will most likely be interested, however, if your project is very personal and of little interest to the masses, it most likely won’t be picked up. Keep in mind that you’ll want to keep your contact with media members as professional as possible.
VIP Template
Very important persons are people with a platform. It’s their platform, not yours. They are usually actors, musicians, film makers, or celebrities. These people usually have large fan bases and know other very important people. When reaching out to a VIP it’s important to make a personal appeal. Unless the project or campaign directly affects them in some way they most likely won’t respond to you, much less mention you on their Twitter or Facebook. However if your project exists in the same niche they do they may be thrilled at the opportunity to help with a shout out, or better yet, backing it themselves. Keep e-mails professional and direct them to the VIP themselves unless an agent is specified. Your e-mail may not even be read, but if it is you’ll want to have as much information as possible before sending any contact their way.
Conclusion
Templates are one of the best ways to keep things consistent while reducing the work load on you at the same time. The middle of the campaign is not the time to discover that you’re not able to keep up with e-mails, or that you need a template made. Do it before hand and spend enough time on it to do a quality job. While it may not seem that important, the contact you send out can literally be the difference between a successful funding, or yelping all the way back home with your tail between your legs!
Janelle Pierce enjoys writing about various small business issues like how to increase the likelihood your business’ merchant account application is approved.
