Overview
DiversyFund is a San Diego real-estate crowdfunding fintech that opens private real estate, including multifamily REITs and Regulation Crowdfunding offerings, to everyday and accredited investors. Heading into a major launch window in 2023, the company had a large investor base but no senior marketing leader in seat to set strategy and drive execution. Winston Francois stepped in with an embedded fractional CMO and a full delivery pod to lead marketing during that window.
The mandate:
- Stand up a modern lifecycle and email program and lift engagement above the brand's own baseline
- Launch the REIT IV offering and the Reg CF crowdfunding campaign with coordinated marketing
- Bring senior leadership and structure to marketing strategy, data, and revenue operations
The challenge
- A large investor list that was under-activated: community email sends typically opened at 32% to 35% with click rates below 1%.
- A high-stakes, compliance-heavy launch that required tight coordination across marketing, product, and compliance to open the REIT IV and Reg CF offerings.
- Investor data spread across systems, with a base of more than 300,000 records that needed enrichment, matching, and syncing into HubSpot before accredited targeting could work.
- No acting marketing leader to own strategy and keep execution moving during a critical period.
The approach
1. Embedded fractional CMO leadership
- Winston Francois's founder stepped in as acting CMO, supported by a delivery pod spanning strategy, lifecycle, campaign and revenue operations, and design.
- Built a full marketing strategy and presented it directly to the founders, then drove day-to-day execution against it.
2. Accredited-investor lifecycle program in Braze
- Enriched, matched, and segmented the investor list, syncing qualified contacts into HubSpot so the accredited cohort could be targeted precisely.
- Built and shipped a three-email accredited series in Braze, then reused the best-performing send to widen reach.
3. REIT IV and Reg CF launch execution
- Coordinated copy, compliance sign-off, and sends to open the REIT IV offering and add it to the investment documents.
- Supported the Reg CF crowdfunding campaign, which drew its first hundreds of investors during the launch window.
The results
| Metric | Change | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Accredited email open rate | 32-35% → 45.0% | Beat the 42.2% finance-industry open benchmark (Braze) |
| Accredited email click rate | 0.4-0.9% → 1.41% | Roughly double the brand's typical community click rate |
| Best single accredited send | 49.0% open | Top performer across the three-email series |
| Marketing leadership | Embedded CMO + pod | Strategy, lifecycle, launch, and RevOps run as one team |
The gains came from a specific September 2023 accredited-investor email series, not a full-year program. By enriching and segmenting the list and building the sends in Braze, the team turned an audience that typically opened 32% to 35% of community emails into one opening 45.0%, clearing the finance-industry open benchmark, with the strongest single send reaching 49.0%. Click engagement roughly doubled the brand's own baseline.
Alongside the lifecycle work, Winston Francois led the marketing strategy and coordinated the REIT IV and Reg CF launch across marketing, product, and compliance.
What we learned
- Data hygiene and segmentation unlock engagement: enriching and targeting the accredited cohort turned a 32% to 35% baseline into 45%-plus opens.
- Benchmarks are a floor, not a ceiling. Beating the finance-industry open benchmark started with disciplined list and lifecycle work, not clever subject lines alone.
- Senior marketing leadership in seat accelerates high-stakes, compliance-heavy launches.
- An embedded pod lets a company punch above its weight during a critical window, running strategy, execution, and operations as one team.