About 6 years ago, I purchased a book that, at the time, was an insane purchase. 

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I was mainly living off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and $1 pizza.

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The book was written in 1966, had 236 pages, and cost $200.

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But I didn’t blink an eye when I hit the buy button. It’s one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. 

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The book?

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Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz. 

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To some, this is considered the bible of direct response copywriting. That was my full-time job in those days, and I was in deep. 

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The book is insanely dense and takes time to read. However, there are an untold number of concepts that can transform your marketing, and, ultimately, your company inside. 

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But the one that it’s most known for is the concept of Customer Stages of Awareness. 

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There are 5 Stages of Awareness

- Unaware

- Problem Aware

- Solution Aware

- Product Aware

- Most Aware

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Each of these stages represents how much a customer knows about your product. The lower down you go, the more they know. 

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Most Aware means they know all about your product and are close to buying, they just haven’t pulled the trigger.

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Unaware means they don’t even know they have a problem, let alone that buying your product could solve it. 

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As a prospect moves from unaware to most aware, they learn more about the problem, the solutions, and ultimately your product. 

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These stages were identified not to create a fancy-sounding marketing theory but to first acknowledge that people with different knowledge levels require different marketing messages from your company and then to identify exactly which types of marketing messages those should be.

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At a high level, here’s how that plays out:

• Unaware - you need to show them that they actually have a problem!
• Problem aware: explain to them the nuances of the problem and start introducing solutions
• Solution aware: here, they know there are solutions to the problem, so you begin presenting your product
• Product Aware: They know your product, so here you show off how amazing your product is, especially compared to competing solutions
• Most Aware: They’re ready to buy, hit em with an irresistible offer, and they’re in

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What does this have to do with Equity Crowdfunding?

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This theory was designed for direct response consumer marketing, not fundraising. But the fundamentals are the same, so at Rally On, we’ve adapted this concept to writing our client pitches. 

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Because on an equity crowdfunding platform, how you pitch your company also depends on your investing audience’s stage of awareness. 

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Do they know 10 other companies like yours? If so, we must highlight why you blow the competition out of the water. If we can convince them you’re the best, we may have an investor.

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Are you an innovation solving a problem people don’t even know exists? Well, before anyone will ever invest, we need to convince them there’s a real problem here! If they believe there’s a problem, and that you are the solution, we have real investment potential. 

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The example I would give is for solar energy as a solution to climate change. 

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In the 70s, before the public knew about Climate Change, it would take a lot of work to sell solar panels as a potential solution. Instead, you’d need to spend most of your time (50 years) educating people on why Climate Change is a problem.

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Cut to now. Everyone knows about solar panels. So if you’re looking for investment in your solar panel company, you better explain why you make the best damn solar panels on the planet because there’s another company right next to you on that platform page selling the same thing. 

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