Background
Shape Flexer ran a Kickstarter campaign for their durable and shapeable sunhat in June of 2017 in an effort to raise enough funds to bring their product to life. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, Shape Flexer was able to sell their products on their website and continue to grow their business. After a year of selling their original product on their website, they created a new, lighter version of their hat, for which they even ran another crowdfunding campaign. To better understand how they moved between crowdfunding and ecommerce to build their company, check out their results below!
Crowdfunding Marketing Approach
After creating an informative campaign page full of relevant content, graphics and GIFs, Shape Flexer launched their crowdfunding campaign in July of 2017. Through the use of rewards, email marketing, frequent backer updates, paid media and more, the team was able to raise over 700% of their funding goal. With these funds, they then moved forward and started planning their production and ecommerce marketing strategies.
Ecommerce Marketing Approach
After crowdfunding success, the Shape Flexer team paired with an ecommerce marketing agency to help market their new product. Due to the seasonality of the product, they spent the beginning of the summer focusing on Facebook Ads by testing messaging, audiences and offers so they could optimize campaigns before heading into the late summer and fall months.
The team also set up an abandoned cart series and created a downloadable content piece in order to capture emails from qualified, interested leads. These content pieces educated visitors about the versatility of the product, and also provided an opportunity for ad retargeting.
Within the first four weeks of the engagement, the team’s ad efforts increased sales by 41%. In November, the start of the holiday shopping season, sales increased by 51% when compared to sales generated in the previous month. From August to December, Facebook Advertising accounted for 70% of total online revenue. Additionally, by the end of the campaign, the team had increased the conversion rate by 108.75%.
With this success, Shape Flexer was able to create another version of their sunhat, the Shape Flexer Lite, for which they were able to raise 1,150% of their funding goal with 4,143 backers.