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CHALLENGE #1: EMAIL DELIVERABILITY
Emails are not guaranteed to reach a recipient’s inbox. In fact, getting into the inbox is more difficult than ever.
However, there are steps you can take to give your email the best chance of being viewed by your targeted contact.
Recommendation #1: Use a custom domain for your sender address. This means creating or using your own domain for an email address. Don’t use a webmail provider such as Gmail or Yahoo. You want your email address to read Joe.CEO@mybusiness (dot) com. not Joe.CEO@gmail (dot) com.
Recommendation #2: Authenticate your email domain. Email authentication allows receiving ISPs to properly identify the sender of the email. This helps receiving ISPs make appropriate decisions about the delivery of your message. Taking the steps to authenticate your email will pay off in the near future as well as long term.
Recommendation #3: Send emails only to those that request them. This means no purchased lists, no addresses scraped off websites, and no addresses that haven’t provided permission for you to email them. You SHOULD be sending emails to opt-in leads, friends and family that you have emailed previously. It’s also good to email those you have already done business with and have provided their permission for you to email them.
CHALLENGE #2: INACCURATE OPEN RATES
Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) includes a set of features that allows users of the Apple Mail app or desktop email app to hide information about when, where, and how they open emails.
This affects email marketing in several ways, but the biggest issue is that open rates are no longer accurate. This is because Apple downloads images (which includes the pixel image used to track opens) to a proxy server. Email recipients then download the images from the proxy server rather than the originating sending server. Because all Apple mail recipients use the Apple proxy server, we can no longer determine accurate open rates for those recipients.
So unless Apple emails are segmented, triggering emails based on opens (or non-opens) or resending to those that didn’t open the first email is no longer something crowdfunding marketers can do accurately.
Therefore, triggering these same types of campaigns based on click activity is now recommended. You can also change your marketing strategy to be based on actions and goals rather than engagement.
CHALLENGE #3: OVERCOMING PRODUCT ISSUES
Email provides a lot of opportunities, but it can not save a campaign that has bigger issues. Most crowdfunding campaigns that fail do so because the product is either too expensive, not a “need”, or poorly designed.
While email marketing can’t overcome these issues, you’ll have the best shot at gaining backers by taking the following approach.
PRELAUNCH:
Concentrate on educating and informing recipients about your product benefits. Focus on how it will improve their lives. Do everything you can to create a connection between the backer and project creator. Get the lead to commit to purchasing by offering a discount on launch day. Consider using a small deposit as a way for leads to reserve the best price.
LAUNCH:
On launch day and a few days after, your communications should be all about price. With the lowest price being offered at launch, pre-launch leads should take advantage of the deal immediately.
POST-LAUNCH:
If recipients haven’t backed the campaign after several communications about the special launch pricing, you’ll need to move back to product features and benefits. Create emails that show how the product is unique. Emphasize what makes it better than other products in its category, and what benefits it provides.
If it is uncertain why a campaign is failing, survey your email contacts. Ask them about the campaign and determine the reasons they aren’t backing it. Once you know that, you can address the issues through a Flash Sale, new rewards, add-ons, stretch goals, and other tactics.
At Enventys Partners, we provide email marketing services to help crowdfunding project creators achieve their email marketing goals. For those of you going at it yourself, hopefully, these recommendations will help you achieve better results.
If you are looking for email marketing services for your Kickstarter or Indiegogo project, we’re here to help.
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