What should be on your Kickstarter launch day checklist and why you should have one
Launching your crowdfunding campaign is a big deal. It’s often a culmination of years of hard work, and in spite of all that hard work Kickstarter can be a fickle beast. It’s important that your launch day goes as smoothly as possible and reaches your audience and hopefully beyond.
To that end, I highly recommend you build a checklist of things you need to do the moments after you hit launch on your campaign. This list is by no means anything groundbreaking or clever, but on day one it’ll be a flurry of excitement and chaos, and the last thing you’ll want to have happen is to forget to leverage a key audience. The important thing is that you have a list written down, and it’s as comprehensive as possible.
So without further ado, what should you be doing on the day of your campaign launch?
Announce your launch to your mailing list
You do have a mailing list, right? Ideally you would have sent an email the week before to encourage people to click the “notify me on launch” button for you campaign. After you launch your campaign, you should send another email with a link to your live campaign page.
Additionally, you should fire off an email to all your personal friends and family who might be interested in supporting you and your project. Be sure to explain how Kickstarter works. You may belong to other mailing lists that allow self promotion that you should consider emailing as well. For instance, I was part of the IndieMEGABOOTH, and they maintain an alumni mailing list that encourages creators to share when their projects launch.
Update your social media
This is usually a no brainer but there are so many places to do it, and so many ways you can do it.
Update your personal Facebook profile
You can and should leverage your personal network. Updating your profile photo in a way that is relevant to your project is a great way to catch people’s attentions. Be sure to add a description and link to your campaign page.
You should also do the same thing with your cover photo and post a Facebook story and a regular post.
Post in your project’s page, group, and/or event
If you’ve created a Facebook page, a group, or a launch event for your project, you should make a post announcing the launch as well as a link to the live campaign page.
Post in related Facebook groups
There are communities of hobbyist groups for everything. Ideally you’ve been engaging in them and some of these groups allow self promotion. For example, for board games these groups can be great places to share your project (be sure to read the group rules and guidelines before posting):
Update your Instagram and Twitter
Make an Instagram post and a moment. Tweet about your launch and then pin your tweet. Update your Instagram and Twitter bio with a link.
Make a blog post
If you’ve been maintaining a blog about your project, now would be a great time to make a new post about your launch (and also update your bio).
Update your website and redirect it to KS page
You should update your website to link to the live campaign page. Better yet, just have it redirect to the campaign page.
Share it at work
Depending on your workplace, you may consider sharing your project there, if there’s an appropriate channel for it. Many of your co-workers may be happy to support your extracurricular projects.
Key takeaways
Many of these suggestions seem obvious, but the reality is that there are so many of these to-do items and it’s easy to forget to do them all. I recommend actually making a checklist and actually checking off each item as you complete them.
Additionally, as you market your Kickstarter campaign, always be sure to provide a link! You always want to make it as easy as possible for people to support you and your project. Anybody who is even mildly interested in your project should be able to easily figure out how to pledge. Don’t make people hunt down your campaign page. They should be able to find it whether they come across it in a related post, in your bio, or seek it out.
