Hi, I am pitching an idea on equity crowdfunding in South Africa for a business case challenge. However, I do not have any contacts( starts or investors)to support my claims. I've tried asking on facebook groups and Reddit, but to no avail. Where would be a good avenue to look for such contacts or are there any ways around this? I do not stay in South Africa fyi. Thanks!
One challenge that you may be facing is that Africa has a tremendous problem with fraudulent businesses running online and telephone scams.
With that said, some industry experts say that Africa is still a developing country and offers many great opportunities such as commercial real estate.
Hopefully, you do have a well-written "business plan" and a "pitch deck templates." They are many sites on the Internet that provide these templates along with advice on what investors like to see.
The first step in the marketing process is to perform a competitive analysis to find existing competitors in the marketplace using Google. Go to their websites and start cutting and pasting content into a word document. Make a note of their title, description and keyword Meta tags.
In today's digital marketing world, knowing what keywords and phrases your industry is using including your competitor's names, locations and sales/distribution channels is critical. The key is to develop website content that has the right keywords and phrases so that customers and investors will find your company website when searching for your type of business.
Next, build a WordPress website, that reflects the who, what, where, when, why and how much, about your company's products and services. Do Google searches on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to learn how to structure and write content that search engines like to index. Also include a press room so reporters can find you. Each website page should have at least 400 words of text and a graphic. Make that you add "Alt Tags" descriptions for pictures and "Title Tags" for URL links. Also add numbered and bullet points with links to other pages on your website. Add about 25 pages of company content and around 100 posts, which are considered "News" by search engines.
As your building your website consider it as an electronic salesperson that needs to answer every Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) that a customer might have about your product or service. The purpose is to remove all of the fear, uncertainty and doubt from the sales equation. So that when a customer or investor calls or sends an email that will be ready to do business.
The next step is to begin marketing this content via Facebook, LinkedIn and Facebook. When you post a URL link from your website, Facebook and LinkedIn will automatically pull the first picture and 100 words of text into your social media post. In addition, you will have the opportunity to put in a small pitch about what information you are sharing complete with a call-to-action that tells customers what to do. This will drive a lot of interested customers/investors to your website that will sign up for "Free Information" or fill out "Contact Us" forms, which will help you develop business leads and a customer/investor email database.
In addition to sharing information about your company, setup Google Alerts for the top 5 search keywords that represent your products and services. This will generate a list of news items that will be sent to you every day via email. Pick and choose the best articles/content and then share them via your social media accounts.
This process will make you a subject matter expert in your field because you will be reading every single news story that is coming out. If you share the best content, others will see the content and follow you on social media because they will want to become subject matter experts too.
Building large social media networks loaded with great information on your products/services as well as equity crowdfunding is great way for people to find you versus you trying to find them.
For an example, visit http://crowdfundingPR.wordpress.com
If you'd like to chat my contact information is in the upper right hand corner of the page. The added bonus for you will be the extensive content on how to conduct a successful equity crowdfunding campaign.