Yardball
Kansas City-based Sandlot Goods leveraged crowdfunding to launch Yardball, a new baseball and glove combination product that marked a departure from their established leather goods line. With an existing fanbase for their baseball-inspired wallets, hats and apparel, Sandlot Goods partnered with Enventys to bring Yardball to market via a targeted Kickstarter campaign. The goal was to attract new customers beyond their core following to support this innovative new take on America’s pastime. Enventys applied their crowdfunding expertise to help showcase Yardball’s unique value proposition and resonate with baseball enthusiasts seeking a modern twist on sports and recreation.
Amount Raised
Backers
Funded
The Background
The Sandlot Goods Team came to us to help crowdfund Yardball, a baseball and leather glove in one.
Already an established baseball-inspired leather goods company in Kansas City, Sandlot Goods had an existing fan base for their wallets, hats and apparel, but this was a bit of a departure from their norm. They wanted to leverage a new market by using crowdfunding and turned to Enventys Partners to help.
Our Approach
The Sandlot Goods team had an internal goal of $55K.
We more than doubled it.
As a lower-priced product, Yardball needed to sell a lot of units to backers to raise a lot of money. So we set out to market Yardball broadly and showcase its wide appeal. Our ads team ran a number of campaigns bringing in more than $24K. We also leveraged third-party promotions and newsletters to bring in revenue by tapping into other networks of backers.
ProductHype brought in more than $8K, and that gave the Sandlot Goods team the confidence to engage other promotional services. This placed the project in front of a variety of audiences.
For public relations, we leveraged the availability of media samples and secured a giveaway partnership with the senior editor for Sporting News and also coordinated a promotion with MLB’s New York Yankees reporter on social media.
One of the unique challenges we faced with this project was a communication one. Initially, we communicated a stretch goal announcing a new color scheme for Yardball. The announcement was not well received, as the language was confusing. Because the stretch goal was a new product offering, that needed to be purchased separately, we crafted additional updates to clarify the language.
The Results
Yardball surpassed its funding goal in less than 6 hours.
We went on to raise $131,635 with the help of more than 2,200 backers. Once the initial funding goal was reached, the Sandlot Goods Team chose to focus on a consistent ROAS instead of aiming for a max campaign raise. We achieved a 1.87 tracked ROAS and a 2.8 ROAS when adjusted for attribution loss.
Our Public Relations efforts yielded hundreds of social shares and more than a dozen media placements. This included excellent coverage in the creator’s local market and inclusion in a piece for Newsweek.