Stoking the Fire

Thrilled with the progress we're making. I was hoping we would break $2K day one and we did. I was also hoping we would hit 50% by the end of week one, and it looks like that may happen as well...OK, I was REALLY hoping we'd hit ten times that, but...realistically, I knew that if we hit these numbers (30% and 50% respectively), we would have a good chance of making our final goal. I was expecting a strong start -- as noted in my previous entry, we urged our inner circle to contribute early to jump-start the campaign. Barring the breakout exceptions, most Kickstarters do tend to sag in the middle. Again, we have promotional activities planned for the coming "saggy" weeks. But we also have braced ourselves for a decline in activity in the middle, with a spike at the end (humans generally respond to deadlines). Here's a quick breakdown:

DAY ONE: 27 Backers
DAY TWO: 10 Backers
DAY THREE: 6 Backers

See a trend? The challenge for us is to keep the fire stoked. If we walked away right now, I'm fairly certain the campaign would go cold. We have some activities on tap (stay tuned). But we are also doing some simple stuff.

We are posting regularly on Facebook and Twitter. I have known for months/years that I needed to develop a social media following, and I haven't. Why? Because I suck. The fact that I'm "not really into it" does not relieve me (or you) of that duty. My recommendation to you is to do what everyone told me to do: Develop a social media presence BEFORE you launch your campaign. I see a lot of filmmakers with films in major festivals, and they don't even have Facebook pages, or websites, or trailers. So I don't feel that bad. But I really could have done a lot better. With that said, I did hire a kickass Marketing Director, Gracie Bingham about a month ago, and she is setting us straight. This will be great for the remainder of the film's life. But, my lack of previous activity will have an effect the Kickstarter campaign.

We had an activity planned for yesterday that we had to amend. Duck Club Presents is producing the film. (More on our relationship later.) They offered two "Season Passes" as rewards, and we were planning to hype up that reward on Wednesday. Offered as a $250 reward, these passes enable entry into EVERY 2014 Duck Club event, including the Treefort Music Fest. Those passes sold almost immediately on Day One. Good problem to have I suppose. But it did take a little wind out of our marketing sails yesterday. We are moving forward with our second co-marketing opp today. And have a fun activity we are planning for next week (involves VD), in addition to releasing our second video. Stay tuned!

It's all about keeping that engine hot. Back to shoveling coal...