Your campaign is now live. What’s next? What to expect? How to know whether your efforts are enough? What are other opportunities and avenues you haven’t explored yet that can benefit your campaign? Let’s dive right into it.

1. Performance Monitoring and Adjustment

So you kicked off your campaign and say it’s 30 days long. What you can expect is a curve that looks something like this:

You’ll receive the highest number of pledges in the first 24–48 hours. This is where all your efforts running the lead generation campaign should finally pay off and you can expect getting some funds back to reinvest into the marketing efforts. Do consider ramping up your ad spend in the first few days of the launch, and adjust the budget depending on returns you see. Email marketing also plays an important role in this phase. Read Part 1 for the benchmark conversion numbers.

Mid campaign conversions tend to slow down. This is the time to look for additional promotional opportunities through PR and affiliate marketing. If you are in the consumer electronics space, tech gadgets and design focused media are your go-to channels.

TechRadar , Gadget Flow , Engadget , Gizmodo, Digital Trends Media Group , Yanko Design — they all have editorial as well as paid opportunities to get you media coverage and bring additional visibility and exposure.

Look into affiliate and referral marketing platforms like Kickbooster , reBacker, Backerspaces, Backercrew, Backerland — they all have their small-mid size communities that may be interested in supporting your project.

Closer to the end of the campaign, a week before the end, it’s time to ramp up your email marketing efforts and add elements of urgency and scarcity in your copy. Everything that goes along the lines of: “Less than 1 week left”, “You still have a chance”, “You are almost out of time”, “Final countdown” — all works just fine. Don’t be afraid to send too many emails, but definitely watch out for the Spam report rates and unsubs. You want to keep it healthy.

2. Engaging With Backers

There is a reason why you hear so much about crowdfunding “communities” . Your backers are your campaign’s lifeline. Now that you got them on board as your backers, you are on the same boat together. Keep them in a close loop of the latest developments on the project. Regular updates can be as simple as sharing behind-the-scenes photos or asking them for their feedback as you are deciding on the color or where to place a power button. Make them feel they are part of the journey. And don’t let queries pile up. Dedicate 30 minutes a day to go through all the comments and questions and make sure noone’s been forgotten. Remember, in the world of crowdfunding, silence is definitely not golden.

3. Stretch Goals and Community Building

Stretch goals are like the cherry on top, they keep the momentum going. Say you’re developing a smartwatch, a stretch goal could be an additional watch strap color unlocked after reaching a certain funding level. But don’t just stop at goals, engage your community. Host a poll to decide the next product feature. It’s all about making backers feel like they’re part of your team.

Another tactic could be around social media growth. Encourage your backers to subscribe to your social media channels, share-like-subscribe, with the promise to unlock the behind-the-scenes video series for all the backers, design insights, making of the product and more. Such an approach serves as a great incentive for the growing community and encourages engagement.

The very best part of the community is the live feedback you get from your supporters. And this is invaluable.

Hope this was helpful. In my next post we will focus on the post campaign management.

Are you planning a crowdfunding campaign? Reach out for my first-hand feedback and support.