Weekly Campaign To-Do List

We want to make it as easy as possible for those running a campaign to be able to reach out to their network in order to maximize your chances of success. For that reason, most of our tips revolve around campaigns that run for the length of one month.

One month is a good, digestible length of time to run a crowdfunding campaign. It’s long enough that you can develop genuine fundraising strategies and are able to fully tap into your network, but short enough that your supporters still feel a genuine sense of urgency in your cause.

Each of the following sections covers a period of time in the life of a typical month-long campaign. However, the tips below can be adapted for use in a campaign of any length. Just keep in mind that the longer your campaign runs, the more difficult it can be to drum up interest in the doldrums between when your campaign starts and when it ends.

For each time period, we’ll cover a few big things you should be thinking about as well as some good outreach samples you can use that week.

Before Your Campaign

Just because you’re not doing intense outreach before your campaign starts doesn’t mean you don’t have a few things to do to prepare yourself. Preparing yourself for what’s to come is the most important thing you can do this week, but there’s a lot of preliminary outreach you can do to help grease the wheels for your official launch later on.

First, get your list of outreach targets together and write your primary outreach email. You should be as certain as you can ahead of time who you plan on reaching out to, and having your basic email prepared will save you a lot of time.

After that, prepare a plan for your social media account. You may not want to post every single day, but you want to make sure you hit all the different online communities with which you’re involved. These communities may require different levels of context for who you are and why you’re loaning money, but all of them should be sent a version of your message along with a link to your campaign page. In the time leading up to your campaign launch, you can take some time to prepare the first of these messages so that they’re ready to go on the day of.

Lastly, you can send out a bunch of preliminary social media posts and emails letting people know that you plan on crowdfunding a loan, and when you plan on starting your campaign. It will plant the idea to contribute in their mind and may help them want to keep an eye out for your campaign’s official launch.

Useful Templates:

“Before the Campaign Launch “ Email Templates

Week 1: It Begins

Use our "Announcing Your Campaign" Email Template; send a short announcement along with a link on all social media.

Following this, it’s time to start reaching out to people one on one. Alter your basic email message in order to personalize it slightly for each person on your outreach list, and make sure that your “ask” -- the part where you request that they contribute to your campaign -- is in a prominent place in the message.

Again, you don’t necessarily want to post every single day, but make sure to have a few casual social media posts throughout the week about your campaign, and keep an eye out for anyone interacting with your posts or answering your emails so that you can continually direct those who are interested toward your campaign page.

Useful Templates:

Week 2: Keep the Ball Rolling

Your first week is over, so your campaign may start to plateau here. This is normal -- even in the best campaigns, interest peaks at the very beginning, and once more at the very end.

Don't panic if you find this happening to you, but keep reaching out and trying to generate interest. Even though it will be awhile until your campaign starts generating large amounts of interest again, it’s still important to keep contributions trickling in. Now that the ball has started rolling, you’ve got to keep it moving.

You may find that you’ve now emailed lots of people who haven't yet responded to you or contributed to your campaign. Now is the time to start reaching out to these people with our “Following Up” email -- but try to make sure at least a week has passed before you do so.

Useful Templates:

Week 3: Don’t Lose Hope

You're now moving into the second half of your campaign -- take this time to take stock of your campaign and evaluate your progress so far.

Use our "Thank You" email template to start personally thanking those who have contributed to you, and ask them to keep sharing the campaign with their family, friends, and professional networks.

One thing you can do this week is to start a “countdown” to the end of your campaign -- this will help alert followers to the fact that your campaign is ending, giving them a more specific timeframe in which to contribute, while also generating a feeling of urgency.

If your campaign has been pretty successful so far, emphasize that in all of your outreach. People love getting on board with something that’s already doing well. If there are numbers you can cite, do so. Be as specific about your success as you can be.

Useful Templates:

Week 4: The Big Finale

You're moving into your last full week, and the last few days of a campaign are when interest picks up again. Use your time at the beginning of this week to plan your last big outreach push.

The last few days of your campaign are where you have some of the highest potential to raise funds (much like the first few days of the campaign). Send out a final email and social media blast to your entire network letting them know that this is their last chance to lend to your campaign.

You HAVE to let your network know, as much as possible, that this is their last chance to contribute to your fund. Hearing this will light a fire under those who are willing to do so, and the urgency may help sway those who were on the fence.

Useful Templates:

“Thank You” Email Template
Tweets #9 and #10 Templates
Facebook Statuses #8, #9, and #10 Templates

After It Ends

No matter what the results of your campaign were, now is the time that you can finally calm down. Take your time in reaching out to your community, but make sure you manage to include everyone who contributed in your thank-you tour.

If you reached your goal, then celebrate -- publicly! Post congratulatory messages to every account you have. Talk about how much money you were trying to raise, what you ended up raising, and what the next steps look like for you.

If you didn’t reach your goal, it’s still important to profusely thank everyone who was involved or who contributed. For one thing, you might still end up borrowing the smaller amount you managed to raise, and for another, you can’t be sure you won’t try to raise more money in the future from this same network. Showing goodwill now will only help strengthen your bonds with your local community, and, aside from that, it’s just a nice and thoughtful thing to do.

Either way, reach out by email and social media and thank everyone who contributed or helped out and update them on the final results of your campaign.

Useful Templates:

“After the Campaign Ends” Email Template
“Thank You” Email Template

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