In a world of extreme media saturation and skeptical consumers, it can be difficult for a corporation, let alone a crowdfunding campaign owner, to get someone’s attention long enough to communicate the benefits of an opportunity. These simple action items below will help you improve the visibility of your press release and your credibility in the eyes of new readers.
1. Include a Reader Bio or Professional Image
This is a crucial step for developing rapport. Not only does it show that there is a real person behind the campaign, but it demonstrates transparency. It adds an element of authority. Unfortunately, like-ability plays a factor in persuading readers to take action and support your campaign.
For the same reasons that politicians work the smile and pay extra for high quality images demonstrating their warm approachable features, you too must pick out a professional image that engenders trust. You may not like to play this game, but it is a necessary element of promotion. In an internet marketplace where people prefer anonymity to putting themselves out there, being transparent sticks out and makes your messages more memorable.
2. Hope, but Don’t Expect The Website to Promote For You.
As a campaign owner trying everyday to make a dream become a reality, the chance of a feature story, promotion by a industry-centric website or the hope that your project will rank well in the platform’s search results can seem like a carrot dangled in front of a donkey’s nose.
In my experience, any element of the plan that you cannot control should be considered “luck,” and you cannot create a dependable marketing strategy around variables that may or may not occur. Stay focused on what you can control and direct cause-result relationships.
This means that posting your campaign press release in LinkedIn groups, on forums, in google groups, and sending it to journalists and bloggers is a must. Ironically, many publishers become interested in your story only after it has show social proof and doesn’t need their boost as much as it did in the beginning.
Having your friends visit the press release website, comment, like, share, etc. also shows activity and may make it more likely that you will be featured on the press release website.
3. Develop a Relationship With The Influencers
The moment that you are trying to persuade someone to take a course of action, you are in the business of sales and sales is all about establishing a relationship before asking someone to do something for you (purchase your product).
When you are attempting to persuade an influencer to “tweet out” your press release, mention it on their facebook, or write an article, featuring your campaign, it pays huge dividends to take a few seconds to have a conversation and develop rapport before asking them for a favor.
Most people want to put in the minimal effort required in order to obtain a result from another person. What if you took the opposite approach? Do you think you would stand out? Do you think people would be more willing to help you?
In my opinion, the common reason that more people don’t want to take the time to establish a relationship, aside from the minimal effort phenomena, is that they are afraid of taking up the influencer’s time because they are “very busy.” I find this to be a fallacy. I am far more willing to make time if a reader wants to have a real conversation rather than if they just want me to tweet out a campaign or press release.
Put yourself in the head of the influencer. Just imagine that you’re getting tweets, emails, facebook messages, and LinkedIn messages every day. Most of them are one-line messages with a link attached saying: “Hey can you …” Any type of meaningful interactions stands out like a dove among pigeons in these kinds of messages.
There is always the risk that the influencer might not reply and therefore you may feel obligated to include your “pitch” in the first email. I can’t speak for other people, but I actually put a star in my inbox next to emails where people just ask me questions without any strings attached so that I make sure I can get back to them. Later, when you have established contact, you can pop the question.
Put it this way. If you were selling a product, would you ask the person to buy in the first email or phone call? No. It’s a much longer sales process to actually obtain meaningful results. Sure, you can spam and hope they will take the action you want them to, but that’s like playing chess with no strategy and hoping you will win.
Have a question? Have an article topic suggestion? Leave a comment below!
This article was written by Salvador Briggman
14 Readers Commented
Join discussionA quick question. If we get to the point with someone who has influence where we feel comfortable asking them to tweet out our campaign, is it then okay to include the details, or should we start off more general, like, “Hey, I have a novel on Kickstarter that I think you’d be interested in. Would you like to hear more about it?”
Basically, when is it ok to go “all in” for lack of a better term?
Hi Michael- If you know the influencer personally, I’d say you can just ask them outright. If you don’t, it varies based on the personality of the person. I would rather be asked outright. There are two things you can do below to improve the chance they will respond positively:
1. Offer some kind of value in exchange for a tweet or a social media mention. The bigger their audience, the more value you should seek to add. Examples:
– If they are a blogger and if you know someone else that would be into their blog, tell them you know your friend would love their website and can get them to subscribe or like their facebook page in exchange for a share. I would tweet out a campaign in a heartbeat for two new email subscribers.
– If they’ve written a book or have some kind of product, offer to share it on your social network or endorse it.
– Tell them you could go through their articles and leave some appropriate/relevant comments to jumpstart discussion.
2. Highlight or emphasize why this campaign stands out. Maybe there has been early success, it is in line with a noble cause, or there is a compelling story behind it. You don’t need to write a book, just one paragraph.
Hope this helps- Sal
Seriously. I could not agree more.
If you can find ways to offer value to the other party, your success rate will be much higher. Be genuine. Be a good person. Don’t take short-cuts. It will pay off in the long run.
Sounds great, Sal. Thanks a lot. Maybe I’ll be able to use those methods on you soon! 🙂
How to send info to LinkedIn?. Some of the persons are rejecting the info about fundraising campaign
I have fundraising campaign to publish my book and give special offers in exchange. How to be more visible?
http://www.gofundme.com/Benjamin-Dylan-Family
Hey, I have a campaign on Kickstarter that I think you’d be interested in. If you would like to hear more about it, please check us out. You will not be disappointed. Likes and shares are welcome. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1378228359/new-generation-slide-gloves-and-pucks
Excellent Article. Reading it will help me in many area’s. Thanks so much for sharing.
Awesome!
Aloha and mahalo for your crowd-funding advise. Wondering if you think it it better to send out to genre related media or spend time on penetration and do more mass submissions?
Here you are again Sal with more of the best advice. You could fill volumes! I am becoming more comfortable by building a quality knowledge base way before I launch my program. Many thanks to you! Regards…
Here you are again Sal with more of the best advice. You could fill volumes! I am becoming more comfortable by building a quality knowledge base way before I launch my program. Many thanks to you! Regards…
Great Post, Im not Launching a Crowdfund Campaign but Launching a Crowdfunding Business and am having Difficulties getting the word out, I just realized that your posts on how to get more PR for a Crowdfund Campaign can pretty much can be applied in my case too. Do you know If I could crowdfund on Kickstarter or maybe somewhere else to pay for Flyers & ads in return for Discounts as the reward?