At DNA we have 15+ years of experience specializing in marketing, start-ups, and business development. Our marketing philosophy for successful campaigns is to optimize, scale, and test. We want to give you the rundown on the best marketing tactics right now for reg A+, CF, and D!
Reg A+
Reg A+ is a relatively long process. It's essential to set up legal, financial, audits, acknowledgments from SEC, etc with your portal or legal group. You always want to ensure compliance.
You want to focus on audience building. Communicate with your marketing team about internal, external, and multiple external groups. These groups will make up your audience.
Why is this important? The more buzz you create, potential investors spot the deal flow they're looking for. When people see a top-notch investment opportunity, they will pay to be a part of the existing audience.
Don't sell your brand short on marketing! Momentum is investible.
Word of mouth is highly beneficial for your campaign. Tech, industry-specific, financial, and investor publications have been instrumental amongst podcasts and blogs. Additionally, landing pages can capture every single person that enters the campaign funnel. It's an important tool to stay in touch, segment data, and make ad dollars count.
Keep in mind that no matter where these individuals are in these campaigns, they are relationships that can be developed. They may not be an investor right now, however, they can be an advocate or early user!
That's what is amazing about Reg A+. Businesses have the opportunity to communicate with a large mass of people. Crafting conversations helps to become accustomed to the audience segment they are speaking to.
For example, let's say you have a large group of institutional investors. You begin to notice they're spending time on your blog and/or webinars. Crafting emails that speak to their interests, strategies and goals in life can help raise traction.
Never neglect your resources. You're going to want to throw everything at it. Utilize any and every resource you can attain. You want to speak with every marketing agency, broker-dealer, transfer agent, lawyer, and expert. Opening a door for larger involvement.
So if you want to change the world and have a 75 million round open with $75,000 in investment raised. Realistically, that doesn't look dependable. Let's say you have 7.5 million raised and you're on the path to 75 million in month one. Although not guaranteed, that is what you want to shoot for.
Reg CF
For Reg CF there is a $5M cap. It is a small pool of investment, however increasing in interest for commercial estate projects and emerging technology companies. Investors can invest in businesses for as low as $500.
For advertisement conversions, it sets the space for a stronger return on ad spend. Smaller minimum investments results in more people signing up on their portal. For example, there may be 3,400 investors on a Reg CF campaign that reaches 1.07 million. Concluding that smaller increments resonate for the right verticals.
Different ways to pre-launch a Reg CF campaign.
Up until last year, businesses were not able to mention their deal before it was live. Now, deals can be mentioned before going live, businesses can attain reservations, and use an official test the waters program.
So previously, the issue was how can I bring attention to my deal if I’m not allowed to speak about it? Businesses are now allowed to put their campaign in a private mode. All you have to do is follow the rules and there are email templates to help.
For example, in a private mode you can contact 200 people in a list that you, your partner, and employees have. You could enroll your agency, consultants, or whoever else is involved to do the same thing.
Reg D
Reg D allows startups to raise an unlimited amount of capital for accredited investors only.
That means individuals who have over $200K for income over the past two years, $300K household income through a joint filing, or the other route is a million dollars net worth outside of your primary home.
Please make note that there's a KYC, and know your client process issuers can get in trouble if they don't perform the KYC accurately.
Additionally, Reg D contains rules providing exemptions from the registration requirements. This allows some companies to offer and sell their securities without having to register the securities with the SEC.
Reg D minimum investments are $10K to $25K. A $250K minimum investor may want to speak with the team. That's when the investor relations process comes to play. You can use digital marketing tools to run advertising on a 506 C.
Additionally, you have a marketing funnel talking about the same content marketing programs with email and social media marketing.
The higher the transactional value, the longer the sales cycle will for be Reg D. This could be three weeks to three months and can easily be multi full months.
Thank-you For Your Time!
We hope this provides a more clear understanding on the best way to market your campaign. If you want to watch a more in depth explanation you can view our webinar recap here!
Feel free to contact us about any questions you may have on beginning your equity crowdfunding campaign journey!