Raising Capital in a COVID World

15th December 2020

Remember the start of 2020, when you could meet potential investors in person, tell them about your company and the opportunity you were offering, and judge their thoughts based on their reactions and body language?

That seems like a lifetime away now.

Although an end is in sight, it won’t be soon. Networking events will be one of the last ‘normal’ things we can do again, and for the foreseeable future, any face-to-face meetings are likely to involve a mask and will probably be avoided.

So how do you engage your private network and raise capital without face-to-face meetings?

Refocus your efforts on emails

The first step is to redouble the time you spend on email invites. They’re more important than ever.

They’re your primary method of communication with your network now, so you want to make sure you give them the full attention they deserve.

Everyone else will be trying to communicate via email too, so you’ll want to make sure yours stand out.

Think about your email subject line specifically. Keep it short and focused, with something that will grab the attention of those in your network and encourage them to open it.

You’ll want to keep your body copy short too. You don’t have the same kind of time you have in a face-to-face meeting, and you won’t be able to read that prospect to see if they already know the information you’re sharing, if they’re not interested, or if they want to know more.

So, give them options. Let them decide if they want to dig into more details. Structure your emails with:

• A one line intro
• The opportunity
• What’s in it for them and why they might be interested
• Options to get more information – link to:
  • Company info
  • Financial info
  • Pitch deck
  • Diary to arrange a call

There are many different opinions on what your teaser or pitch deck should contain. With ProRaise you can quickly and easily build a company and deal profile by following a structured framework.

Track documents and analyse data

While you can’t analyse body language, you can dig into email data to gauge reactions from your network.

Start with the basics. If you use a mailing list, most will give you statistics on open rates and click rates. Look at who’s opened your email and who’s clicked on documents. They are clearly interested in what you have to say.

You might even see some users opening an email multiple times – they keep coming back to it, so are definitely worthy of following up.

If you’re just sending one off emails via your mail client, you could request a delivery or read receipt.

And if you’re sending documents, then you can really dig into the data to see who in your network is seriously considering your opportunity.

Beyond clicking a link, there’s tracking software that allows you to see when a document or piece of content you send is opened, or when it’s shared with someone else. You can even track which slide of a pitch deck a potential investor is on, and whether they keep returning to a certain page or don’t get past some specific financials.

This information is invaluable in helping you decide if an investor is interested and what might be stopping them from committing. It’s almost as valuable as reading body language in a face-to-face meeting.

You can use your ProRaise Data Room to track metrics just like this.

If a potential investor is interested, you’ll give them access to your Data Room, where a variety of documents are available. You can then use the statistics tab to:

• See how many times a potential investor has visited your Data Room
• Track how many times a file has been viewed (or not viewed)
• Analyse which files have been saved for a closer review

This will help you chase the most promising investors.

Use Zoom sparingly

Finally, when a potential investor has questions and they want to talk to you, with COVID restrictions in place the next best thing is a Zoom call.

It’s easy to think that this is simply a digital version of a face-to-face meeting, and that you can read body language the same way. Don’t make that mistake.

We’re all used to Zoom calls now. So used to them, we’re probably fed-up with them. It’s very easy to mis-read people through them.

It’s easy to appear distracted and indifferent, when actually that isn’t the case. It might cause you to jump to the wrong conclusions.

So, use Zoom sparingly. Keep video calls under half an hour if you want to maintain maximum commitment and attention span from your prospective investor and be wary of mis-reading body language or casual actions.

That’s it, three simple but effective steps to engage your network:

• Email (with thought)
• Track (with data)
• Follow-up (with short video calls)

ProRaise can help you get started. Sign up and send emails directly to your network, share important documents, and track which potential investors are engaging and worthy of a follow up.