We launched the HAB Land Mini-Bond crowd fund on 22nd December 2016 to the HAB audience with an introductory 9% offer closing on 24th December, before a wider public launch on 9th January at 8%. As well as a wider push out through HAB and associative channels, the launch focused on a broad media issue to capture nationals, sector, local and expert press attention.  

Our communications activities were a mixture of pro-active, planned and responsive tactics using a content-led approach through HAB channels, Code Investing marketing, third party channels and press.  

Within four days of the launch, the crowdfund reached its target raise of £1million, and by 28th February 2017, the crowdfund closed at a whopping £2.432 million from 282 investors.

The crowdfund received coverage from national titles during the launch, with interest from The Telegraph, the Guardian and The Times all during the first week.

Over the 7 week campaign, web traffic was tripling it’s usual numbers, with the biggest single referrer being Twitter, generating over 70% of referral traffic. followed by the Guardian, the top third part referrer. Tweets drove 671 clicks through to the HAB website, with the top mini-bond tweet generating 534 engagements and 14,962 impressions alone! By the end of the crowdfund, @HABHousing had over 300 more followers than in December.  

HAB’s website experienced record level visits between 9 January and 28 February 2017, driven largely by social media and press activities. Of the traffic visiting the website during this period, over 2/3 had never visited before.  

With an increase in fans from 31 to 53, Facebook also saw a spike in engagement with posts and drove increasing amounts of traffic to the HAB website, and during February referred more traffic than the Guardian article.  

The campaign in numbers:

  • 4 press releases
  • 5 web releases
  • 180 Twitter posts
  • 7 e-shots
  • 2 events
  • 13 articles published in third-party websites and newspapers
  • 27,000 website page views
  • 91,000 Twitter impressions
  • 70% of website referrals from Twitter
  • 128 retweets
  • 289 likes
  • 19 replies

We’ve also helped HAB secure exclusive front page press coverage in The Guardian resulting in a 92% increase in website traffic and 300% growth on Twitter through profile visits and mentions. Facebook reach tripled and the story was the most popular on HAB’s LinkedIn for 2017. To find out more read the case study here.