“We’re building an active, engaged, global
community of investors and entrepreneurs,
and LinkedIn is playing a large role in that.”

Todd Crosland
CEO
Seed Equity

Seed Equity attracts investors to startup ventures with Spotlight Ads and Sponsored Updates

  • Challenge

    Challenge

    Raise profile of new startup investment bank and reach investors

  • Solution

    Solution

    Spotlight Ads and Sponsored Updates

  • Results

    Results

    1,205% increase in new investor signups, 43% increase in Company Page followers

Challenge

As a new player in the equity crowdfunding space, Seed Equity – a registered broker dealer providing investment banking services to startups and growth companies – needed to spread the word about investment opportunities to the right audience: accredited investors who want to support entrepreneurs in their new ventures. However, finding and marketing to these potential investors required some detective work – their interest in investing is often not reflected in their job titles or companies. “Our investors might be CEOs, or they might be angel investors,” says Todd Crosland, CEO of Seed Equity. “We’re reaching out to people with specific skills sets and interest in investing, not job titles.”

Solution

To encourage potential investors to register for Seed Equity’s social investing community, its agency, Dean Media, helped develop messaging for LinkedIn Spotlight Ads and Sponsored Updates. Precise targeting of LinkedIn members with investment expertise in their member profiles, plus targeting to members of LinkedIn Groups for venture capital and private equity, helped Spotlight Ads and Sponsored Updates reach the right investors.

“Because Spotlight Ads pull in a LinkedIn member’s profile image, they draw attention – more than you’d receive from the typical display ad,” says Crosland. Sponsored Updates also helped introduce Seed Equity to investors by touting the opportunity to invest in early-stage startups, and allowing investors to join their social investment community. “We can raise awareness of our company in several places at once on LinkedIn,” Crosland says of using both Sponsored Updates and Spotlight Ads. “Our targets will see an attention-grabbing Spotlight Ad, and they can educate themselves further on Seed Equity when they see our Sponsored Updates and start engaging with us.”

Results

●     Spotlight Ads CTR 7.5X LinkedIn benchmarks

●     Sponsored Updates engagement 3.4X LinkedIn benchmarks

●     1,205% increase in new investor signups

●     43% increase in Company Page followers

●     Expanded member base to 33 new countries