We are going on kickstarter soon with a product that is targeting mainly the professional photographers. I know that PR companies can put you on the news... but for my application not sure if they can target the audience I am going after through photography blogs etc. What's the best way of bringing traffic to a targeted audience campaign such this?
If your objective is to get a product funded, then getting on the news isn't necessarily the best route as this is a very broad approach vs targeted. Am assuming that whoever will invest in your product, will need to have a bit of understanding about what it offers photographers? From an editorial perspective, bloggers and journalists will write about something if it is genuinely newsworthy. Would need to know more about the product and how it would/could innovate to tell you if I think it is. Would always say, that a more targeted approach is best.
One thing I have done many times is research into a specific niche (e.g. photographers) then create an influencer list from that to then target with a story/product etc. Would look for those that may have written about similar products. A modern PR agency should be able to do this for you and have skills in this area.
Another route, beyond the photography blogs and specialist media etc. is to use things like social media advertising, targeting those that have an interest in photography. This is more guaranteed in a sense, and you could manage how much money you put into it and what the target cost per click is. Budget would play a factor, but social media ad platforms can provide a very targeted way to reach people and deliver highly favourable CPC rates, and as a result great ROI.
Would compliment this with community outreach, targeting photography forums by approaching moderators and asking them what they thought of the product and how happy they wold be to post, or allow you to post to the community.
For something like this, would say the best way is a combination of various tactics just one approach. You need people talking about it to create that groundswell, but you also need a guarantee in terms of traffic. Would be hard to guide anymore without a more in-depth understanding of the product and its benefits. Hope this is helpful, let me know if you'd like to chat more.
We raised $150k for our startup by crowdfunding. We did hire a PR company at the time, however if we were doing it again, we probably wouldn't. I wrote an in-depth blog post on it (http://allabout.siansplan.com/) but will summarise the relevant info here.
// Our experience with a PR company
Over the course of the campaign we were featured in (UK publications) the Metro, Telegraph, Sunday Times and many online platforms such as The Huffington Post and The Grocer. These were big wins for us, and 80% down to the PR company's contacts and expertise.
Publications however, were weary of posting anything about crowdfunding so the vast majority of these articles didn’t mention our campaign. The feedback from the publications with regards to our crowdfunding campaign was 'we'll feature your product once successful'. Other angles were used to entice the reporters to write about us (eg. reducing food waste, saving money, saving time). We then used our landing page to educate visitors about our crowdfunding campaign and how to invest.
We know that 4% of our investors (from a survey) found our crowdfunding campaign through the papers, a relatively small amount.
In short, a PR company will help refine your press releases, find interesting angles and approach publications on your behalf however it's unlikely that your crowdfunding campaign in itself will experience much traction in the press.
I think there are a number of factors at play. What is your funding goal? Would you hire them directly or would they take a percentage of the total amount raised, or both? Are you looking for a PR firm or a growth hacker? While the lines are blended now between PR and social, I personally would lean toward someone who has promotion, growth, social and PR experience to help promote your project.
I own a PR company so of course I am biased. Unless you have a monster network of your own, you have to find people that are interested. If you have a great social media network, or know how to find this target market via your own tools that's great. If not, consider hiring a firm that does.
We are currently working with a crowdsourcing campaign, and we kicked it off with one of our proprietary news blasts a week ago. This not just a press release but an entire campaign. Even with all of the power of these tools, massive social media engagement and a very smart client we are at 39% of our "raise" with 46 days left. We have over 150,000 views of this announcement and we have driven over a thousand sessions to our landing page since January 22 2015. We have not even begun our organic media efforts. If you can generate this kind of response with your own team...do it. If not, find someone to help.
DON'T hire a PR company. Instead...
Listen to the 30-minute "Ask Altucher" Episode #170 [link below] where we talked to Clay Hebert.
Why? Because Clay has helped 70 entrepreneurs get over 15 million dollars through croudfunding. He knows how to do it right
And he literally gave away ALL THE SECRETS to making your croudfunding camping a success... in half an hour
For example...
I had no idea that the total amount you need to ask for MUST BE SMALL, because hat way you can create a story if you "over-fund it quickly" ----
Imagine the headline:
"Croudfunding Campaign asks for 10K and gets 100K in 8 hours!"
Can you see the possibilities?
And it is YOU that can feed that story to media hungry places (Medium, Thought Catalog, Huffpo, CNBC, etc.etc...)
Another thing I did not know, is...
Give away the BEST prizes for the cheapest donations, the one to five dollar level. Give a lot to those... listen to Clay to hear why
And on and on...
Listen to Episode 170 for all of it: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ask-altucher/id868149214?mt=2
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