The Ultimate Kickstarter Checklist for Your Crowdfunding Campaign

Being Kickstarter and Indiegogo experts, the one thing requested most from crowdfunding campaign creators is a guideline on how to structure their campaigns. This made me think of coming up with a proper checklist for all those of you who are interested or have already begun their research on conducting a crowdfunding campaign by themselves. If you read about the success stories of previous crowdfunding campaigns, you’ll notice that all of those campaigns were not successful just because they had an awesome product. In fact, I come across tons of amazing products that end up not being successful on Kickstarter. As weird as that might sound, that’s exactly what happens if you don’t market your campaign correctly. There is a series of tasks that goes behind the making of every successful crowdfunding campaign. Use this crowdfunding checklist to help you navigate through that phase with ease.

Pre-Launch To-Dos

1. You must have a product prototype design chalked out before planning your campaign.

2. Concentrate on calculating the exact funding goal required.

3. Do proper research on past crowdfunding campaigns of the same category.

4. Design a task calendar to refer to for the entire phase of your campaign.

5. Consider setting a proper length for your campaign.

6. Take help from services like Gadget Flow, BackerClub, or Kickbooster based on your budget.

7. There should be a landing page for your project prior to the launch of your campaign to grab the emails of potential backers. We recommend Leadpages in combination with Mailchimp

8. Send a monthly newsletter to all those who signed up on your page.

9. Start social media activity for your campaign, generate content 1–3 times per day per account, we recommend using Buffer

10. Create, set, and use a calendar for the duration of your social media campaign.

11. Look for social media influencers who can help you spread the word to the best audience.

12. Prepare lifestyle image shots of your product and create a video for your campaign.

13. Set up your pledge reward chart based on your main goal.

14. Prepare a draft for your campaign story. Hire an editor if you are not comfortable with the language.

15. Hire a PR firm like Enventys Partners or do your own bit in reaching outlets for media coverage.

16. Use services such as Crowdox, BackerKit, Fulfillrite to plan the fulfillment process.

17. Start participating in crowdfunding forums like Kickstarter Campus or Kickstarter Forum to show your presence and interact with other creators.

18. Take help from Kickstarter experts to make your campaign a success beyond Kickstarter.

Campaign To-Dos

1. Schedule your official press release to go live as soon as the campaign goes live. We recommend PRNewsWire.

2. Send out a newsletter blast to all your existing email subscribers, including friends and family.

3. Schedule social media posts regarding the campaign announcement.

4. Interact with your backers regularly. Use services like Mention to respond to comments as soon as possible.

5. Track the source of your traffic. You can use tools like Clickmeter or referral programs like Kickbooster for this purpose.

6. Supply timely updates to all of your backers.

7. Your target should be to reach 30% of your goal within 48 hours. This will increase your chances of getting featured on the front page of Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

8. Set up early bird perks to attract your first backers.

9. Once you cross your goal, you can still grab the attention of new backers with stretch goal pledges.

10. Never forget to mention your press coverage on the campaign page. It considerably boosts your credibility.

Post-Campaign To-Dos

1. Deliver the first batch to your backers as soon as possible. Make sure your fulfillment process is perfect and think long-term, if you had a successful campaign this might become a full-time job for you so make sure to pay attention to your brand reputation.

2. Update your backers about the manufacturing progress at least once every three weeks.

3. Avoid a delay in delivery as much as possible.

4. Never miss any genuine query that comes your way.

5. If you can take more orders, switch to the In-Demand Indiegogo program after your campaign ends.

6. Start preparing the launch of your web shop if you wish to continue taking more orders.

7. Voice your success with the help of podcasts arranged by Art of the Kickstart, Crowdcrux and similar platforms.

8. Thank your backers and make them feel special.

9. If you have the budget, make the packaging attractive.

Planning a crowdfunding campaign is not easy. Nevertheless, with the right elements in place, you can always pass with flying colors when you have this crowdfunding checklist by your side.