Scheduling Your Crowdfunding Outreach Plan
I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again: your crowdfunding success has far more to do with your outreach plan and direct messaging than it does with having a good idea. To that end, when I consult with crowdfunders about their process, I focus especially on this aspect, working with them to find a balance that’s right for their project and audience.
If you’ve found yourself struggling to fill a month’s campaign calendar with content without completely overwhelming people, you’re in luck! That’s what this post is for! Below, I break down not only the most common platforms/outreach styles, but I also offer some suggestions for what you might post about and when it’ll be most effective.
How to schedule: I suggest, for direct, 1:1 emails, to not exceed 3–4 to an individual audience member in a 30–45 day campaign. If you have a preexisting newsletter or regular email list you send things to outside of crowdfunding, I would limit yourself to one announcement email maybe a week before the campaign launches, and a midpoint email that aligns with either a big moment (hitting 50%, bringing on a new cast member/above the line crew) or a special event like a limited availability incentive or a matching pledge drive.
As for the individualized emails (not a newsletter, absoLUTEly not a mass BCC):
Week 1, send a 2–3 paragraph email, spreading out the outreach into sections where the first day you email your most surefire supporters, on and on until you hit the end of the week and your email list.
End of week 2: follow up with 1–2 short paragraphs with your progress (we’ve hit x% funded already! We’re x away from our goal! We’ve even released a new incentive! etc) and a reminder to get involved to anyone who hasn’t supported you yet.
Last 3 days of campaign: send one final 1 paragraph email with a final update, a final new piece of info beyond your success (released 2 exclusive interviews with our writer/director! Released a limited availability incentive- only 2 remain!) and a final ask.
Want help writing that first outreach email? It’s included in my Crowdfunding Starter Pack of templates, along with templates for every section of your campaign AND an outreach plan schedule template!
Campaign Updates
How to schedule: 1 per major milestone hit (no more than 4 milestones per 30 day campaign), plus 2 extra a week.
Campaign updates are the messages you’re sending from the campaign itself (all major platforms have a messaging option) to current followers and supporters. Don’t ghost folks as soon as their check is cashed- keeping in touch with your existing cheerleaders is tantamount to keeping them around and spreading the word and success of your campaign!
Examples of milestones:
- Finishing your first week strong
- Hitting 50% funded
- Hitting 100% funded/releasing stretch goals
- Matching pledge drive announcement
- New incentive released
- Name talent attached/announced
- Misc unexpected announcements that affect the campaign/project
- Event planned (livestream interview, panel, etc)
Ideas for those “extra” updates in between:
- Key cast/crew interviews
- Fun facts/trivia about the project
- Pre-production diaries
- Reviews of comps for your project (become a temporary recommendation newsletter)
- Storyboard to screen (for post campaigns)
- Votes you can offer to supporters (choose between poster designs/wardrobe choices/names/etc)
- Video updates/ content (for your own sanity, no more than 1–2 per week. If you can, film and edit these in advance)
Instagram Grid
How to schedule: 4–6 posts total for a campaign/project specific account, 2–3 for a personal filmmaker/artist account, spread out based on milestones hit or most important big news
What to post:
- Announcement of the campaign/key art
- Carousels of teammates, tagging them and the campaign
- Any milestones (see above)
Caveats:
You should only post 2–6 times on the grid of EXPLICITELY-CAMPAIGN posts, however… you can get around this stipulation by planning project-adjacent content that’s interesting in its own right to freshen up your feed without overwhelming people with self promotion. This includes pre-production content (wardrobe tests, location scout pictures, etc) as well as thematically-aligned content (see example below for the campaign I managed, Shroomery).
Instagram Stories
How to schedule: You can post Stories (or Snapchats, if that’s where your ephemeral posting is most common) multiple times per day for the entire campaign!
What to post:
- VARIETY. If it’s just the same key art/standard “shout out” template each time, people will stop watching, and the algorithm will stop serving your content conveniently
- Encouragements for people to get involved
- Highlighting new content on the feed
- Showing off the most fun incentives you’ve delivered so far and tagging people in them as you can
- Videos from pre-production adventures like location scouts, camera tests, etc
Twitter (I refuse to call it by the other name, fight me Elon)
How to schedule: You can get away with 1–2 posts per day
What to post:
- Easy throwaway place for social media shout outs that won’t overwhelm anyone
- Threads of incentive deliverables (especially the eye-catching and funny ones) tagging people as you can
- Evergreen reminders that something’s afoot
Do I think Twitter is still a viable (let alone ethical) place to promote new work? Honestly, my answer to this depends on how engaged you were on Twitter before The Purchase (derogatory) and how many of your followers remain. If I find a text-based, chronological feed platform that seems like it’ll replace Twitter in a viable way, I will update this post. To date (April 2024), no such place exists.
How to schedule: 1 post a week at most.
What to post: Focus on content/scheduling that will encourage the most engagement (soliciting answers to a leading question, a major exciting announcement, breaking news, a particularly fun and existing-community-focused new incentive) since Facebook punishes pages and profiles whose posts don’t perform well by showing their content less in the future.
I encourage you not to linkspam Facebook Groups with funding requests if you’re not an active non-spam community member, because it will either get deleted by moderators, never approved in the first place, or roundly ignored. More advice on engaging with communities online here.
Threads/ Bluesky/ Mastodon/ Hive Social
How to schedule: are you being for real right now
In all seriousness, none of these platforms, at time of writing, seem to have the market share of users to justify spending any particular time on them. If you happen to already have a dedicated following/community on one of these platforms, great! You can replace the stuff you would have posted on Twitter there. Otherwise, it’s honestly not worth it.
And if you’re thinking of posting on Threads… just post on Instagram? What are you doing?
For a pre-formatted outreach plan template and six other crowdfunding-related templates, click here!
Bri Castellini is an independent filmmaker, an aspiring romance author, and, regrettably, a podcaster. She’s known for the 2017 short film Ace and Anxious (writer/director, 160k+ views on YouTube) and for her podcasts Burn, Noticed and Breaking Out of Breaking In, covering the USA television show Burn Notice and practical filmmaking advice, respectively. She can lick her elbow (not clickbait). Full work history and ways to hire her as a consultant can be found on her website BriCastellini.com
