Crowdfunding campaigns can boost the chances of your product surviving and eventually thriving in the market but it takes work. Your campaign has to be well polished and designed. However, that’s not all it takes to be successful.
Very few crowdfunding campaigns raise more than $100k. Depending on your goal, you have to develop a unique approach to publicizing your own campaign. Below are important tips for approaching your PR to ensure that you achieve your goal and hopefully surpass it:
1. Start your PR early
The best campaigns involve starting to get the word out there early. The best time to start is 3 months early before the launch of your campaign. Do not make the mistake of beginning your PR efforts on the day of the launch. You want people to anticipate the launch of the crowdfunding campaign and that takes working hard before launching.
The biggest advantage of generating news about your upcoming campaign early is that you start getting in touch with a list of reporters quite early (you can curate your own list of reporters using this platform). It also gives you time to reach out to press personalities and bloggers who might have interest in your product. If these people like the story you are telling, and your company’s vision and mission then you are off on a good path.
2. Reach out to Influencers
Influencers are the people who are most prominent in your target audience. These could include authors, social media personalities, and experts in your industry. It’s advised to develop a list of about 30 influencers to reach out to about your product.
3. Review copies
Now, the thing about influencers is that they like to try the product before they endorse it. Same goes for journalists and bloggers. Before going out to create the buzz about your product, have a few copies to give away to journalists and influencers who get back to you after that email pitch.
However, be sure that the product works before sending it out. Test each of those review copies to ensure that the product actually works. If it doesn’t and you sent it to a prominent blogger, or journalist, they won’t hesitate to give a very bad review. That could spell death to your campaign in detrimental ways.
4. Have a budget
The whole concept of crowdfunding is that you don’t have to spend money, right?
Well, that analogy is totally faulty.
It costs money to design your campaign, create appropriate lists, demo videos, Facebook ads, review copies of your product, copywriting, etc. The minimum recommended budget is about $15,000.
Arguably, you can spend about nothing, if you choose to, by creating a buzz of your upcoming crowdfunding through social media, and distributing press releases to other channels online. However, if you are looking to get into the 2% of campaigns that raise over $100k, it will cost you some thousands of dollars. Spending some money will polish your campaign, and help it stand out from the crowd of campaigns on crowdfunding platforms.
5. Press Kit
A press kit will help you send the necessary information to journalists and influencers that might request for more information. You want to have this information ready to send whenever it is required.
The press kit should include every data and metric you believe enhances your story’s credibility. Additionally, it should have the story of how you came to develop the product and what problems you are solving. Add in there your biographies as a founding team, fact sheets, high quality images of your product and a link to your demo video.
Is there anything else I’ve left out? Let me know by reaching out to us on our Twitter @thepressfarm.
Originally published at press.farm on February 7, 2017.
