4 Marketing Hacks to Help You Attract the Right Investors

How to use marketing to attract investors

Marketing is about pinpointing your target audience, understanding the needs of people in that market and communicating how your company can solve their problems. Typically, companies do this to find potential customers. 

However, you can also use marketing to convince people or organizations to invest money in your company. Here are four steps to take if you want to market your business to investors. 

1. Discover investor needs.

The first step is finding out what potential investors need or want in a business investment. Investors tend to focus on a few crucial factors: 

• Is the company profitable?
• Is the company in an industry on the upswing?
• Will the company’s executive team be able to take it to the next level?
• Is the company offering a unique product or service difficult for competitors to replicate?

Depending on your specific business, product or industry, investors may look at additional factors, including your strategic alliances, technical know-how, a critical mass customer base or intellectual property.

Figure out what factors are most crucial to your potential investors. Then, you can move on to the next step, which focuses on improving your business in key areas before you seek funding.

2. Ensure your business is strong in areas critical to investors.

When you’re ready to sell your house, you might enhance the landscaping and declutter the interior to make it more appealing to potential buyers. You should go through a similar exercise with your business when trying to secure private investors. 

Follow these steps to shore up your business:

1. Analyze your business performance: Make changes to strengthen your profit margin, build your customer base and increase sales.
2. Hire the experts you need: If you don’t already have the right expertise on your team, bring on professionals who can fill the gaps. For example, hire a digital marketing expert, social media manager or bookkeeper if necessary.
3. Protect your intellectual property: Take steps to secure your intellectual property legally with patents and trademarks, if applicable.
4. Enhance your website: Ensure your website design is attractive and that the site functions well and is filled with quality content. (See more on this below.)
5. Check your existing marketing materials: Ensure your general and specialized marketing materials and strategies are effective. For example, ensure your email marketing campaigns are targeted correctly.

In addition to the above, you should focus on any aspects that might especially appeal to the investors you’re targeting. Once you know what your potential investors are looking for, you need to ensure your business shines in those areas. 

2. Create investor-focused marketing materials.

Next, create a business growth plan detailing your organization’s specifics, why your company is a good investment and what kind of investment you’re seeking. Create a PowerPoint presentation with some of this information for investors and write and practice your investor elevator pitch. 

Consider also creating a one-page company overview that includes the main selling points for investors. All your marketing materials should be well-written and designed to look professional and attractive, portraying your business in the best possible light.

4. Find and communicate with likely investors.

The next step is finding your ideal investors to pitch them. This process is akin to advertising and participating in trade shows to find customers. 

There are two primary ways to find and interact with investors: online investing platforms and in-person events:

• Online investing platforms: These sites exist to match investors with businesses. Some top platforms include SeedInvest, StartEngine, CircleUp and Wefunder. Whether or not you end up getting investment money through these platforms, you can use them to attract attention and build awareness of your company among the investor community.
• In-person events: Various events allow business owners to pitch investors on their opportunities, including Money20/20 USA for fintech companies, TechCrunch for technology companies and ACA for all kinds of companies.

4 marketing strategies for attracting the right investors

While the steps described above will help you identify, appeal to and find investors in general, you’ll need more than that to seal the deal. These four marketing hacks will help you attract your ideal investment partner.

1. Identify investors within your niche.

One of the biggest mistakes budding entrepreneurs make is begging for funds from any investor who cares to listen. When desperate for capital, some business owners will market their businesses or ideas without identifying the type of investor they want. It’s better to home in on the investors that make the most sense for your business.

Here are some tips for identifying investors in your niche:

• Understand your ideal investor: Before marketing your business to potential investors, determine your ideal investor. What niches do they invest in? Where do they invest? What’s their investment potential? If you’re planning to pitch to venture capital and private equity firms, learn about their decision-makers. For example, some investors are interested in companies’ social impact while others only care about the financials. Find out if potential investors have any history or interest in your industry, product or niche. After characterizing your ideal investor, you can start infusing your marketing plan with pertinent information. 
• Make sure you and your potential investors are on the same page: As many growing companies learn down the line, the right business matched with the wrong investor or investment platform is almost always destined to fail. This is particularly true if ideological differences between the founder and the business’s investors play out. Do thorough research to ensure your goals and perspectives align.

2. Redesign your public relations (PR) strategy for maximum investor exposure.

Once you’ve determined what your ideal investor looks like, ensure your PR strategy is coordinated carefully and sends the right message about your business to potential investors.

To accomplish this, back your PR campaigns with a solid digital marketing strategy. A well-managed content-amplification strategy designed to generate thousands of retweets, shares and referral traffic is the only way to ensure PR campaigns achieve maximum reach and engagement. (See more about digital strategies and social media tactics below.)

Here are more tips for creating a PR strategy optimized for investor attention:

• Get the most for your PR dollar: Value doesn’t necessarily equate to how much you spend on a campaign — it’s all about measuring marketing return on investment. An effective paid ad strategy on social media is vital, but approaching and using influencers in the right way is just as essential for organic reach. By covering all your bases — or, in this case, digital channels — your PR campaign has a higher chance of landing in front of the right investors interested in learning more.
• Show you’re at the leading edge: Your PR strategy must show potential investors within your industry that you’re ahead of the curve. Your press releases, newsletters, social media content and speaking engagements should focus on current and expected trending topics within your industry. This focus establishes your business as a thought leader, setting you apart from the hundreds of startups and small businesses also seeking investors.
• Establish your expertise: Since investors want to invest in companies with expertise, innovation and good management, use PR to showcase these skills. For example, do an interview on a podcast or television show, give a presentation at a trade show or write an article for an industry publication or blog. Focus on what problems your company solves and the unique ways it solves them. Make bold or provocative statements to create buzz. For maximum impact, capture all mentions, interviews and content and feature them on your website and social media. You can even include copies of articles in the information you give to potential investors to provide additional credibility.
• Time it right: Remember to time your PR campaigns appropriately. Schedule press releases, emails and other PR strategy elements appropriately in advance of seeking funding to lay the groundwork for productive conversations.  

3. Solidify your digital presence.

Your digital presence should also be front and center so potential investors can find you and interact with your brand easily. The last thing you’d want is to make a successful pitch to a potential investor, only for them to spend a whole afternoon wandering through the internet looking for the slightest glimpse of your brand.

Here’s what we recommend.

Optimize your business website.

Your company website is a significant element of your business’s online identity. Your site is usually the first place potential investors go for additional information. Despite its importance, a surprisingly small number of businesses pay attention to their websites — if they have one at all.

Ensure your website, especially your landing page, is easy on the eyes. It should also:

• Be mobile-friendly.
• Load quickly.
• Clarify what industry you’re in and what your product or service is.
• Be free of grammar and spelling mistakes, missing images and links that go nowhere.
• Outline why your product or service is unique.
• Have an About page that explains your company’s mission.
• Identify the problem your product or service solves and why it’s the best possible solution.
• Identify the executive team and key employees with bios showcasing each person’s experience and expertise.

Consider adding a password-protected page for investors or creating a separate website for them that links to your primary website. That way, you can have a webpage that specifically features the information investors want to know.

Optimize your social media presence.

Your digital strategy should also include social media marketing, another essential element that will solidify your online presence and bring your brand closer to potential investors. 

But instead of using every social media channel available, double down exclusively on platforms truly relevant to your business and investors. For instance, if you’re an online fashion retailer, you’ll get more brand visibility via platforms like Pinterest and Instagram than X (formerly Twitter) because of your products’ visual nature. 

While most social media outreach is designed to build brand awareness and promote your products or services to potential customers, you can also reach out to potential investors through social media. LinkedIn is the best social platform for investor outreach because you can directly message business contacts, participate in industry or investor groups and ask people in your network for introductions. 

Use your blog to tell your story.

Blogs can be an effective method of attracting investors. Feature high-quality blog posts or guest posts on industry influencer blogs that tell your story and highlight your company’s unique attributes and selling points. Search for the blogs and social media profiles of investors on your radar and comment on their posts to start forging a relationship with them.

4. Engage in smart networking.

One of the most common ways of finding investors is by rubbing elbows with other people. For instance, hosting or attending a business networking event can lead to a one-on-one conversation with a potential investor who may be a future business partner. 

Here are some tips for engaging in smart networking:

• Research event attendees: If you’re attending an industry trade show or investment event, try to get a list of attendees in advance. Research the individuals and firms that will be there, investigate potential investors and connect with them on LinkedIn. The right investor may not look the way you expect. They could be a current competitor or the producer of a complementary product. If you’re knowledgeable about their background and have already tried to establish a connection, you can better cater your in-person pitch.
• Talk and listen: When networking, have your elevator pitch ready if the opportunity presents itself — but it’s just as important to listen. By listening actively, you’ll build rapport and create relationships with people who can help you while gleaning crucial information about who is investing in what and what is important to them. Use that information to refine your efforts.

What to do after attracting an investor

By combining digital and traditional marketing elements, you stand a much greater chance of catching the interest of that one person who could be the difference between funding success and financial disappointment. 

After you’ve found the right investor who wants to fund your business, your next step is to determine if the investor is offering a good deal. Evaluate the terms, get advice from trusted experts or advisors and ensure the partnership works for you and your company before signing an agreement. Doing your due diligence will set you up for a successful working relationship.

Skye Schooley and Howard Goldstein contributed to this article.