How to setup an email signature in gmail

Or, how to use good design to make a kick-ass Kickstarter

Using the GENDER book as an example – 320% funded.

A lot of the work was done in the 4 years in advance, building our newsletter, audience, and hype about our project, but some specific things I’d suggest for the months before you launch include:

1. Date a blogger who has a big readership in a related field (haha, just kidding. Seriously, though, it helps).
2. I used a lot of the tips from here: hacking kickstarter. You can see our sample landing pages here and here (I changed the branding to match). It’s totally worth it to get a web guy to do this for you if you don’t feel comfortable. On a related note, I am a designer who is accepting new clients.
3. Use Mailchimp. It’s easy to use and free for small projects. Take your core list of already-interested persons and hit them up throughout the campaign. Write these emails before it even starts. In addition to your already-interested list, make a separate a list of all your gmail contacts (instructions here) and use it, but only once in a very long while. Remember they didn’t sign up on your list. They’ll tolerate an unsolicited email once in a blue moon because you’re friends, but don’t be a jerk.

1. Abuse your social networks. If you facebook, facebook it. If you tweet, tweet it. If you call people, call them. Don’t worry about the networks you don’t already use; it’s too late now for that. Instead, if you’re not hip on Tumblr, ask your friends who have 2,000 followers on it to tumble it for you. It’ll have more reach that way. Use the networks you already know and are good at, and use them lots. If by the end of your campaign, your friends are sick to death of hearing about it, you’re doing it right.
2. Make an event page on facebook for the kickstarter, and then hack facebook to automagically invite all your friends, and then invite your close supporters to do the same. This gives an exponential increase to your social reach. Here’s the example page of how we told folks to help.
3. Use Hootsuite to program tweets and facebook updates to run a couple times a day throughout the campaign. Program this before the campaign starts. That way, when you’re flooded and overloaded and reeling from the press/monies/updates, you’ll have at least something posted every day.
4. Think of your stretch goals in advance and make these very visible. We made a graphic for them. I updated every time we passed one to keep people motivated. Likewise, make sure you set your initial goal high enough- that’s the one most people care about. Don’t be afraid to ask big if you have the following to back it up.
5. Make a street team of your core supporters to help you out as much as if it were their own project. See: the gender scouts.Give them fun assignments that build hype, and practical assignments that will really help you, like the facebook hack above to invite their friends to the launch event, or to write articles supporting your project.
6. If you’re posting an update or announcement, try to do it with a custom graphic image or video, like this and this. It’s much easier for folks to reblog or share if it catches their eye visually. If you have illustration talents, use them. ( Or hey, hire me to do it for you).
7. Be transparent with your pricing; people want to know where their $$ is going, and why. You need them to trust you. Again, I made a visual for this because I’m a visual kinda person. I also put up links to our google spreadsheet budget. Maybe this is a little overboard, but I think it build trust.
8. Try to ally yourself with other good causes by giving a % of the proceeds away. We did a book scholarship program for this, and had other “feel good” reasons to donate, like planting trees for the project, using recycled paper to print on, etc. The more people associate you with good causes, the more they’ll donate.
9. Press releases- cherry-pick the authors you know already and the ones you think will be interested based on their past stories. Ask on facebook: “Do I know anyone who writes articles online?” You might be surprised who can give you an introduction. Send them a ready-to-copy-and-paste article along with juicy images. Make their jobs easy, and build one-on-one relationships with them. You might get a story in the Huffington Post this way, or be featured on the front page of Buzzfeed. You never know.
10. Referral contests– it’s cheap for you to give away copies of the thing you’re making (and free to give away the digital goods), and referrals are priceless. Make it a game.
11. Show, don’t just tell what the perks are. Again, use your Photoshop skillz or hire me to do it.
    
12. Build some buzz around the big launch day-countdown on all your sites and social media until it opens.
13. Make your video awesome as possible.
14. Set yourself fun mini-games: if we make $X today, I will ____. If we get to 100 funders tonight, I will do 100 pushups. Insert your silly stunt here. If nothing else, it keeps it exciting for you.
15. Good luck!

Want some graphics for your kick-ass Kickstarter?

Let’s get together for a free 30-minute cofee date consult to talk about your specific needs- goal graphics, perk illustrations, or more! This can be especially useful with products that aren’t made yet- I can mockup what your printed book will look like or draw an image to represent the future product being used. I can travel to you anywhere in the San Francisco bay area for a small additional fee, or we can meet over Skype, Google Hangout, or on the phone- it’s totally up to you. Click here to get started!