Following on from my posts on what to do before and what to do during your crowdfunding campaign, it is equally important that you complete certain things once your crowdfunding campaign is over. If you have been successful, the funds will be winging their way to your bank account within a couple of weeks. You will be feeling exhausted, exhilarated, excited, perhaps overwhelmed and you’re dying to get on with the project now but there’s still some essentials to be completed.
1. Your Ps and Qs
Say thank you to your pledgers and to everyone who shared your campaign – therefore you need to send out a thank you update on the crowdfunding platform and use social media to thank people too. Apart from anything else, it is good manners but your pledgers need to know that you really appreciate their help and that they played a part in your journey to success.
2. Honour Your Rewards
If you have promised to have your rewards with your backers by a certain date and you know you aren’t going to make it, you need to let them know in good time. People accept that sometimes things take a little longer than anticipated so a couple of weeks delay is usually fine but don’t let it drag on for months. Even if everything is going swimmingly and is on time, it is a good idea to send a reminder of the rewards and the expected dates of completion to the backers as it may be some time since they pledged and they may have forgotten.
3. Remember To Send Occasional Updates
Don’t overdo your updates but I found that people enjoyed reading the occasional update on how my writing, editing and self publishing process was going. Some may not have read them but lots of people did and a few emailed to tell me how much they enjoyed hearing about how it was all going. If you are making a film or rehearsing for a play, send out an update describing how the first day of filming/rehearsing went. Kickstarter now have the facility whereby you can send updates to selected reward-backers, so for example, if one of your rewards was for a T-shirt and there has been a delay or a change with the T-shirts, you don’t necessarily want to fill up everyone’s inboxes with that update. You can now send an update about the T-shirts (or whatever reward it is) directly and only to those backers.
4. Don’t Stop – Keep Working It!
You are now a successful crowdfunder. Use this detail to add news value to your project launch and your press releases. It may make your project more newsworthy with some journalists. When you are sending out press releases about your project, remember to mention that it was successfully crowdfunded.
5. Keep The Passion
Remember many of your backers may also be following you on social media – let them continue to see your passion in your updates as well as progression towards completion. Let them know how sales are going too. I’ve noticed that backers are really delighted to hear that my book is now going for a reprint and will be stocked in independent bookshops. They are your brand ambassadors and will be delighted to share your success with their friends.
Best of luck with your project – Do let us know in the comments how you are getting on with your own crowdfunding campaign.
