How Bodbot Launched the Fastest Crowdfunded Fitness App

When Bodbot founders Eddie Laux and Sergio Prado began planning their crowdfund, they knew that it would be critical to tap into their established online community to ask for their support. According to Sergio, “Before we started our fundraise we took time to plan out our strategy and assess what we had learned from our previous success.”

It worked. During their first week, they successfully brought in 458 backers and $21,550 –  making crowdfunding history by becoming the fastest funded fitness app.

Here are some of their tips for launching a campaign with impact:

Evaluate Your Network

When beginning a crowdfunding campaign, it's important to evaluate your network and establish exactly who will make up your base of support.The success of your crowdfunding campaign will largely rest on how effectively you communicate your launch within your various networks. Once Bodbot successfully identified who their core group of backers would be, they were able to tailor their rewards to incentivize their network to contribute. They did this by offering their personal training app for life for a low fee and saw an outpouring of contributors looking to take advantage of the limited time pricing.

Sergio’s Tip: Try using your campaign as a customer conversion- rate enhancer.  “Emailing new users about the campaign within a week of their signing up resulted in substantially higher conversion rates.”

Create a “Hard Ask”

It is critical that you let your backers know exactly how much you’d like them to contribute, and explain what they get in return. After sending out an initial email asking their network to contribute, Bodbot saw a good amount of pledges come in. They introduced Bodbot Plus at a discounted rate.

The team decided to send a second email to their network letting them know that the offer was a limited time opportunity and asking backers to contribute $50. They saw an incredible influx in support and reached 100% of their funding goal within hours of sending the second e-blast.

Sergio’s Tip: “Each time you contact backers, make sure you have a purpose to do so with a specific ask in mind.”

Time Your Communication

Do some research into the times that your audience and backers surf the web, share on social channels, and open emails. Have you noticed that any of your company’s emails get opened or responded to often on a certain day? Use that knowledge to plan when you send emails to your network. By making a more strategic play and timing your communication, you create an opportunity to get in front of more potential backers.

Bodbot used data from emails they had previously sent to their community members and learned what days would be most effective. They timed their emails to take advantage of these peak days and timing, and saw fantastic results.

Sergio’s Tip: Sundays are a particularly good day for conversions for our industry. Emailing in the early afternoon is also particularly good for conversion. Do some testing and research prior to your campaign to determine when is your best time frame for sending.

Curious about other ways to gear up for a successful launch? Check out more tips here.