In this article you will find the interview with Donato Cremonesi, CEO Factory Communication, published in La Repubblica and concerning Marketing Strategies for Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns.
Digital transition. An imperative, rather than a possibility, for all Italian companies that want to gain or maintain ground in an increasingly advanced market.
Equity Crowdfunding: Raising capital is an important goal, however, it is only one element of business growth!
Many SMEs, in particular, struggle to make this transition with internal resources alone.
They need those who can navigate the Web very well: because this is where the game is played.
From market positioning to customer trust to revenue growth-a company today must know how to communicate.
To this end, a targeted marketing strategy must be built according to the objectives, but above all, it must be forward-looking.
Thus growth in sales will only be a consequence of the most important outcome: the growth of a small medium-sized business, in other words, the success of an entrepreneurial project.
Here then, alongside those who want to believe in their company and thus make it grow, stands Factory Communication, a web agency specializing in online positioning.
With her, an entrepreneurial design will find people eager to invest not only their funds but also their trust in her Vision and products.
Equity Crowdfunding: The Innovative Strategy
As Donato Cremonesi, Founder of Factory Communication, explains, among the ways for companies to grow is to raise capital from the market of small or large investors interested in the project they have started.
This is known as Equity Crowdfunding, which in Italy is mostly undertaken by startups.
Those who decide to invest in a project do so by sharing not only the idea, but also the risk; consequently, it is necessary that they can transpose a solid analysis of the prospects, however much one may never know how it will go.
In addition, raising capital is an important goal, but it is only one part of business growth.
For these reasons, the Equity Crowdfunding strategy prepared by Factory Communication, with the partnership of CrowdInvest Italy, is different.
While the common vision of all platforms in the industry is to structure a campaign with the sole objective of raising capital, Factory Communication’s is to bring to life a marketing and communication strategy that positions the company in the market and increases customers and sales right away.
As a result, small and medium-sized enterprises in the area that need to raise capital to increase production, build a marketing strategy, increase sales, or purchase new equipment will get these results right away, and the capital raised eventually translates into a concrete consequence.
Strategy must aim at integral business growth
This is because Factory Communication’s action aims at integral business growth, and not aimed at the need for turnover: the people
intercepted by the campaign first and foremost become customers interested in purchasing products and services.
The Equity Crowdfunding campaign is successful in this way, since, on the one hand, the investor will be faced with an already solid reality-if one considers that an adv lasts an average of two to four months-and the enterprise will immediately find benefit on the operational costs-tens of thousands-of the campaign.
In this sense, through the tool of the sales funnel, the valuable information that is communicated by the company is the means so that, in fact, the investor is a potential customer, and the customer a potential investor.
Equity Crowdfunding, HubSpot and Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing represents the strategy that puts the person at the center of all relationships with the company.
The goal of this innovative business strategy is to provide useful and valuable information to meet the needs and wants of the person who connects with the company, otherwise the only data the person has to make a purchase decision remains price.
Let us return to our previous example. Let’s imagine the 1,000 users coming to our site.
They do not know our Company and do not know whether we can solve their problem.
Inbound Marketing: what benefits can you get?
Generally, filling out a form expresses a very high degree of interest.
That is why so few people do it.
Offering the opportunity to sign up for a newsletter or chat with an operator through the site is, for the user, an easier way to request information.
For this reason, integrating these channels into CRM makes it possible to increase the number of saved users, the famous, LEADs.
Thus, we have achieved an important goal: to gather more people interested in our products and services.
The next step is to send them a structured newsletter with useful information: how to make a recipe with our products, how to best use our software, how to maintain our PC.
In many cases it means “giving away our know-how,” it may sound crazy, but only in this way can we create a bond of trust and enter the minds of our potential Clients as experts in our subject matter.
In HubSpot it is also possible to activate a workflow, an automated luxury called Marketing Automation, which sends specific customized and targeted information to the user.
We can say: the right message, at the right time, to the right person.
Only in this way can we score goals and increase our market share, winning over the competition.
Factory Communication: its innovative Vision leads SMEs to integral business development
The first step: getting to know the audience well
Except in special cases, an Italian SME does not enjoy the visibility of large companies. It is known by a small audience.
When it decides to go online, it enters a decidedly large market, most likely already manned by its competitors.
Therefore, it is crucial to define a strategy that first captures the user’s data and then builds the right trust relationship to turn the user into a customer.
This strategy is called inbound marketing.
Equity Crowdfunding: Investors or Customers does not have to be an alternative
Factory Communication is HubSpot Partner Agency, the company that brought the concepts of Sales Funnel, Inbound Marketing and Marketing Automation to the world.
The introduction of the Sales Funnel concept means that the person who comes into contact with the company through the communication campaign can be transformed from simply being interested in the specific project for which the company is raising funds into a potential customer.
Through the communication of valuable information, “why” it is worth investing goes hand in hand with “why” to refer to that company for the products it sells.
Equity Crowdfunding: generating interest and converting it into value
Equity Crowdfunding is the latest frontier in the field of capital raising, regulated by Consob in 2013.
Startups or SMEs find in crowdfunding a valuable ally to generate interest, in a project, in many people.
Often, however, when people talk about crowdfunding they think it is enough to simply create a campaign on the Internet.
But in fact reaching so many people, and “earning” them to the entrepreneurial vision we are promoting, is not so immediate: it takes a precise, integrated strategy that leads to full business development and not just short-term goals.
This enabled her to analyze, understand and acquire all the information, technicalities, issues and activities, which are the basis of an Equity Crowdfunding campaign.
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