You’ve already gathered hundreds of emails of people interested in your book, educated them on what to do on launch day, and had expert eyes review your campaign page, reward tiers, and video. What’s left?
Here are 3 last-minute housekeeping things you should do before going LIVE on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo to help your campaign run smoothly and efficiently.
#1 Digital housekeeping
Clean your computer and your inbox! Delete old files or save them somewhere OFF of your hard drive so you don’t accidentally send someone the wrong file.
Organize all of your folders so you can quickly and easily locate your promotional graphics, videos, and materials for posting to social media or responding to a media request.
If you don’t have a clear file naming system, now is the time to develop one for your campaign.
Time is of the essence in a time-limited campaign and you don’t have spare moments to be sorting through a million emails to locate that file you sent someone.
You REALLY don’t want your computer to say that your hard drive is full and you’re out of memory during the middle of your crowdfunding campaign so be sure you have tons of extra space and Ram to operate at full capacity.
Clean out your inbox
If you’re email is hosted by your .com domain, you might need to clean out that inbox that you never check if you use a forwarding mail service and manage your inbox with Gmail (as I do).
You’re going to be emailing people directly A LOT and you don’t want their replies to get bounced back with a “Recipient’s inbox is full” error message.
In summary: Get your digital house in order.
#2 Physical housekeeping
Get all of your cleaning and doctor’s appointments done and out of the way before you launch so that you aren’t distracted during your campaign.
Stock up on grocery staples like toilet paper, paper towels, and non-perishable goods so that your trips to the store are relatively straightforward each week.
You’re not going to want to spend extra mental energy meal planning, so get that done before you launch to free up that extra space.
(NOBODY TALKS ABOUT THESE THINGS BUT IT REALLY HELPS.)
Life stuff will come up anyway—unexpected illnesses, WiFi outages, and life interruptions that are beyond your control.
Unless you’re looking for a break, don’t schedule extra things to your day if you can help it. You’re going to want to focus on your campaign as much as possible during this 30-day period.
In summary: Control the things that are within your control.
#3 Schedule ALL of your social media posts
If you’re sick, your WiFi is down, or Facebook locks you out because you’ve been messaging too many people too quickly, you’re going to want your social media posts already scheduled in the hopper.
This doesn’t mean that you “set it and forget it” as you should also be posting spontaneously, but you should have at least one post on Facebook scheduled every day of your campaign.
Write your blogs beforehand, create all of your graphics, and plan out your communications campaign in great detail.
In summary: Proper planning prevents poor performance.