Crowd Funding

A few years after I launched The Village Haberdashery I was ready to expand. I entered negotiations with the property developers for a unit in a brand new building in a high footfall area. We would need to fully fit out the new premises from top to bottom and would have to raise financing to bring our vision to life. I partnered with Crowdcube to run an equity crowdfunding campaign that would give members of our community a small share of our business in exchange for their investment. Crowdcube handled the legal framework for the financing, so my role was to create the marketing campaign for our fundraising pitch and activate our community to invest and amplify our message. The campaign was a huge success; we set out to raise £80,000 and ultimately hit our overfunding target of £100,000 with 271 investors.

Strategy:

Activate The Village Haberdashery community to invest and amplify the campaign in order to meet our funding target.

Tactics:

  • Create a compelling and visually appealing business plan that leveraged customer insights, market data and creative storytelling to communicate my vision and passion for growth

  • Create digital and physical marketing assets, including digital graphics for our community to share online and flyers for distribution in store, at local events and in order fulfillment mailings

  • Create a pitch video that told our story, industry & vision, leveraging influencers within the London creative community to provide additional validation for our plan

  • Encourage our customers, staff, suppliers and local business community to share the news that we were crowdfunding to drive investments

  • Share frequent updates with our community and Crowdcube’s investor community via social media, our blog & our newsletters

  • Offer incentives to invest, including loyalty points and an invitation to an opening night party for investors

Pitch Video Production:

One of the most important elements of our crowdfunding campaign was our pitch video. I wanted to create a piece of content that would tell our story, talk about the community we were serving and help potential investors understand the size of the craft market as a whole, so it would create understanding and excitement for potential investors outside of our community. I partnered with a video producer and worked with him to manage all of the elements of the video, including:

  • - drafting the outline, script and copy

  • - scheduling & prepping interviews with influencers in our community

  • - securing permissions for filming at industry & community events

  • - participating in shoots and recording voice-overs

  • - curating & sourcing photos, music & b-roll

The final video and the social media short edit were shared widely in our community and has had nearly 8000 views to date. View the long version here.

Results:

We closed our fundraising round with 271 investors and hit our overfunding target of £100,000 which enabled us to beautifully fit out our shop and invest in expanding our merchandising & events strategy.