A Guide to Completing Prelaunch Research (& How to Make Sense of the Data)

Most crowdfunding campaigns don't fail on launch day. They fail during prelaunch, when the idea goes untested, the audience goes unbuilt, or the audience never gets warmed up before being asked to buy.

At Russell Marketing, we break prelaunch into three stages: assessing market demand for the product at the price the creator wants to sell it, acquiring a group of people who have expressed interest in the product offer, and communicating with that group until they're ready to buy.

Most importantly, each stage produces its own data that can help inform your launch strategy.

Having helped founders generate more than $50 million through go-to-market launches, we've fine-tuned these strategies over time. Below, we'll walk through each step and the key data we recommend keeping an eye on.

Step 1: Validation & Market Demand Assessment — will anyone actually buy this at the proposed price?

Before spending too much time and money on a big launch, test how the market responds to your offer.

There are two funnel structures that can help identify not just whether people like the idea, but whether they're willing to pay the price you're proposing.

1. The first introduces a cold audience to your product through ads, moves people who click to a sign-up landing page that showcases the product without revealing the price, then sends those who sign up to a page where they can put down a small deposit — roughly 1% of the planned price — to reserve early access at a discount.
2. The second skips the deposit and instead lets people click "buy now" on a product that isn't available yet, then tells them it's out of stock and asks for an email address for a restock alert.

Both move a stranger from seeing a product to taking an action that signals purchase intent. It's that purchase-intent action, rather than simply expressing interest, that's especially worth paying attention to.

How to make sense of the data: Watch the share of people who reserve in the first funnel or attempt to buy in the second.

High ad clicks and sign-ups on the first landing page paired with very few reservations can indicate that the price feels too high for the value being communicated. In our experience, a reservation rate under roughly 10% of sign-ups is worth a second look. For example, if 100 people sign up on the first page but fewer than 10 place a deposit, consider revisiting how you're presenting the product, the offer, or the price itself.

For the second funnel, we generally look for at least a 10% click rate on the "buy now" button.

From here, you have a few options: move into a full-scale launch if the numbers hold up; pivot by narrowing in on the feature or audience segment that converted or adjusting the pricing model if you're falling slightly short; or reconsider the offer if interest remains thin across every segment tested.

Step 2: Audience Acquisition — build the community before sales open

A validated idea with nobody to sell it to on launch day can still struggle. "Build it, and they will come" doesn't hold. A community of prospective buyers needs to be built weeks or months ahead so there's momentum when the product goes live.

One mistake to avoid is relying on a single channel. A prospect who only handed over an email address is one bad inbox placement away from silence. Adding another way for people to stay connected — whether that's a phone number, Messenger opt-in, or invitation to a private group — gives you multiple ways to reach the same person.

How to make sense of the data: Keep a close eye on Cost Per Reservation and Cost Per Lead, and pay attention to which audiences, messages, and creative approaches convert best. As a general benchmark for our campaigns, we aim for a Cost Per Reservation below 15% of the early-bird price or a Cost Per Lead below $5.

A crowdfunding launch is about finding the lowest-hanging fruit. While many audiences may be a good fit for your product, the goal at this stage is to identify the audiences most likely to convert efficiently. Find what works and double down rather than trying to appeal to everyone at once.

Step 3: Audience Engagement — earn trust before you ask for the sale

Once your community is growing, the job shifts to preparing people to back your project on launch day. That means resolving objections that might otherwise surface for the first time when you launch and giving people a reason to be excited about backing early.

Most objections fall into a handful of buckets: cost, the product itself, brand trust, technical friction, apathy, and timing. Surveying prospects before launch about what's still unclear, running Ask Me Anything video chats, and watching where people drop off in a funnel can surface many of these issues early enough to address them.

You can also build excitement by giving people incentives to act quickly. "The first 50 backers get an extra discount," "Day-one backers get a free bonus added to their order," or "Back the project within the first 48 hours to get your order personalized" are a few examples.

Underlying all of this is trust. Being transparent about your team, manufacturing, and timelines can help potential backers understand who they're supporting and what to expect. Founders who are personally visible and responsive to prospects can build a level of confidence that ad copy alone can't provide.

How to make sense of the data: In our campaigns, we generally aim for open rates of 50% or higher and click rates of 5% or higher on a welcome sequence. A sharp drop-off after the first message can indicate that the follow-up isn't delivering enough new value.

The real test, though, comes after launch. Cancellation and refund rates can help you understand whether the expectations and trust you built during prelaunch carried through once people became backers.

Why running your prelaunch in this order matters

These three steps build on each other. Validation and market demand assessment help you determine how to go to market effectively. Acquisition builds your community. Engagement turns a list of interested people into an audience that's ready to act when your project goes live.

Skip or rush any one of them, and the gaps can show up exactly when they're most expensive: on launch day, in front of everyone. That's why we validate before we scale, work step by step through a launch, and keep a close eye on the data along the way.

Ready to put your prelaunch strategy into practice? Learn more about Russell Marketing's approach to crowdfunding launches and how its team works with creators to validate ideas, build audiences, and prepare for launch.