Case Study
Yardball by Sandlot Goods
The Background
The Sandlot Goods Team came to us to help crowdfund Yardball, a baseball and leather glove in one.
Already an established baseball-inspired leather goods company in Kansas City, Sandlot Goods had an existing fan base for their wallets, hats and apparel, but this was a bit of a departure from their norm. They wanted to leverage a new market by using crowdfunding and turned to Enventys Partners to help.
“I didn’t think on day one, hour six, I would be like, ‘Oh my gosh, are we going to be able to make all these?’ You know what I mean?”
Chad Hickman
Yardball
Our Approach
The Sandlot Goods team had an internal goal of $55K.
We more than doubled it.
As a lower-priced product, Yardball needed to sell a lot of units to backers to raise a lot of money. So we set out to market Yardball broadly and showcase its wide appeal. Our ads team ran a number of campaigns bringing in more than $24K. We also leveraged third-party promotions and newsletters to bring in revenue by tapping into other networks of backers.
ProductHype brought in more than $8K, and that gave the Sandlot Goods team the confidence to engage other promotional services. This placed the project in front of a variety of audiences.
For public relations, we leveraged the availability of media samples and secured a giveaway partnership with the senior editor for Sporting News and also coordinated a promotion with MLB’s New York Yankees reporter on social media.
One of the unique challenges we faced with this project was a communication one. Initially, we communicated a stretch goal announcing a new color scheme for Yardball. The announcement was not well received, as the language was confusing. Because the stretch goal was a new product offering, that needed to be purchased separately, we crafted additional updates to clarify the language.
The Results
Yardball surpassed its funding goal in less than 6 hours.
We went on to raise $131,635 with the help of more than 2,200 backers. Once the initial funding goal was reached, the Sandlot Goods Team chose to focus on a consistent ROAS instead of aiming for a max campaign raise. We achieved a 1.87 tracked ROAS and a 2.8 ROAS when adjusted for attribution loss.
Our Public Relations efforts yielded hundreds of social shares and more than a dozen media placements. This included excellent coverage in the creator’s local market and inclusion in a piece for Newsweek.
Backers
Raised
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