Collecting Leads For Crowdfunding:
How Many Email Addresses Do You
Need Before You Launch, and How
Do You Use Them?

In this guide, we’ll cover:

  • How to determine how many email addresses you should collect before launching a crowdfunding project
  • What to consider when determining realistic email goals
  • How to turn qualified leads into crowdfunding backers

How many email addresses should you collect before launching a crowdfunding project?

If you’ve spent any time researching crowdfunding marketing tips and tricks in order to prepare a strategy for marketing your Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign, you know that collecting leads prior to launch is critical. These leads are who you’ll rely on to help fund your campaign, especially in the first few days after launch. One thing that can be overwhelming, though, is knowing how many leads you will need and when you have enough leads to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign.

There is no set number of email addresses needed to launch a successful crowdfunding project, as there are quite a few factors to take into consideration such as:

Product Price

Public and internal goals

Conversion Rate

And more

However, it’s possible to set a goal for collecting email addresses based on the following steps:

Determine your funding goal.

Remember to set your goal as low as possible but still high enough that you are able to fulfill all rewards.

Determine your product price.

While you’ll likely be offering many rewards at different prices, for the purpose of this exercise, focus on the reward you expect to be the most popular. This is typically the reward level for one product.

Calculate Total Required Backers.

Divide your goal by the product price to determine how many backers you will need to successfully fund your campaign.

Calculate Total Required Launch Day Backers.

Calculate 30% of the number you arrived at in Step 3 to determine the number of backers you’ll need in the first two days. At Enventys Partners, we like to see at least 30% of a project’s funding goal reached in the first 48 hours. We’ve found that hitting this benchmark puts a project on a good trajectory to reach its goal.

Calculate Pre-Launch Leads Required.

Assume that your list of emails will have around a 1% conversion rate. Many campaigns achieve up to 2% or more, but using a lower number means you’ll err on the side of caution. Use this conversion rate to calculate the total number of leads needed to hit 30% of your funding goal in the first 48 hours.

Crowdfunding Pre-Launch Email Calculator

If you don’t want to figure this out manually, use our Crowdfunding Pre-Launch Email Calculator to help you determine the number of addresses you’ll need to collect before you launch.

  • Please enter your total funding goal for your campaign
  • Please enter your the cost of your most popular reward
  • This is the total number of conversions that will be required to meet your crowdfunding funding goal.
  • Enter your day 1 funding goal percentage.
    Please enter a number from 0 to 100.
  • This is your funding goal for the first day of your campaign.
  • This is the number of conversions you'll need for day one of your campaign.
  • Please enter your expected email conversion rate.
    Please enter a number from 0 to 100.
  • This is the total number of email addressed you'll need to meet your launch goal
  • Disclaimers:
    • THIS CALCULATOR DOES NOT GUARANTEE CROWDFUNDING SUCCESS BASED ON THIS FORMULA OR OTHERWISE.
    • We are not responsible for the success or failure of any crowdfunding project based on these calculations.
    • The success of your project is ultimately dependent on a variety of factors such as your product quality, price, marketing budget, and marketing strategies.

A few important disclaimers: no amount of email addresses can overcome a bad project

While it’s fairly easy to calculate the number of email addresses you’ll need for a successful Kickstarter or Indiegogo project based on a few small assumptions, there is one big assumption we haven’t talked about yet.

You need a good project for this formula to work.

It doesn’t matter how many email addresses you collect if your project isn’t something your subscribers want to support.

You must have a product that people need and you must offer it at a price that people are willing to spend.

Launch your campaign at the lowest price possible so that you can gain traction and increase exposure and ranking.

What makes a crowdfunding campaign a good or bad project?

Quite a bit goes into making a crowdfunding campaign a good one. As stated earlier, your project should be something that consumers want, that solves a need, and is made available at a price people are willing to pay.

Additionally, you need a quality campaign page. Use your page to tell your story – explain what the project is, how it came to be and why you need backers’ support. Make your pitch and explain exactly what you’ll be doing with your backers’ money and what your backers will get in return. Go into great detail, making sure to provide enough information that will make backers not only want your product, but also feel confident that you’ll deliver it to them on time.

At Enventys Partners, we have a proven process that works time and time again and we have the numbers to back it up. But even the best, most effective process cant’ overcome a bad product or overpriced rewards.

What makes crowdfunding lead good or bad?

A good crowdfunding lead:

Is interested in the product

Has a history of interest in similar products

Is familiar with crowdfunding and platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo

Has money to spend backing a project

Wants to be a loyal customer who is engaged with a company from the beginning

Has a need for your product

Will share your product and earn referrals

It’s easy to find leads, but it’s much harder to find good leads.

How to turn good leads into Kickstarter or Indiegogo backers

At Enventys Partners, part of our proven process for crowdfunding is focused on finding and nurturing quality leads. We use a number of methods to collect these leads, but Facebook Advertising is our primary tactic.
Prior to launch, the Facebook Ads team at Enventys Partners will run a variety of ads that will generate leads for your campaign. Once we have the leads, they will receive emails about the product’s features and benefits, as well as the story behind the product idea. They will also be invited to participate in a contest.

For this we use a platform called Viral Loops. We’ve found that Facebook leads who participate in the Viral Loops giveaway are more likely to convert than a lead that does not participate in the contest. Additionally, those leads will share you campaign with their contacts, starting a viral process that will result in even more leads entering the contest.

Our goal is to hit or exceed 30% of the campaign funding goal by getting as many of these pre-launch leads as possible to back the project within the first 48 hours.

As soon as the project is live, we notify this group of leads in order to give them first dibs on the rewards, especially limited rewards which may only be available with a limited amount or for a limited time.

Throughout the remainder of the campaign, we continue to email these leads, sharing additional product features and benefits, notifying them of flash sales or referral programs, and asking them to back the campaign and share it with their friends and family.

Bottom Line:
If you have a good project, by correctly calculating how many leads you’ll need to hit your goal, and focusing your efforts on collecting quality leads prior to launching your crowdfunding project, you’ll be well on your way to success by the time you hit the “launch” button on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
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