Backertree wrote:Hey Julian, Welcome to the KickstarterForum!
There are definitely alot of crowdfunding marketing agencies/business/consultants in the industry now and I find new ones popping up every day. The problem is that alot of the crowdfunding marketing businesses are scams, and are either selling a useless service (such as fake/bot traffic, fake shares, email and social media blasts to fake followers) or they appear to be selling a good service, then when you pay them, your money disappears and you are no longer able to communicate with them.
Before engaging with a crowdfunding marketing agency, make sure you ask the right questions. If they raised $1M for there clients, ask for a list of campaigns they've worked with (and for larger projects, consider contacting previous clients for references). Don't just ask what they are going to be doing, but ask how they are going to be doing it. If they are offering press release distribution, find out whether they are just submitting it to a wire service or if they are sending it out to their mailing list (and if so, find out whether these users freely opted in or whether they were scraped from other websites, etc.). It may be worthwhile asking what experience this person has in the crowdfunding industry as well; how long have they been working with creators? Have they run their own crowdfunding campaign? Do they work with an in house team, or is it one person outsourcing the work to other freelancers?
When working with an agency who is helping with media coverage, find out if they have previously worked with campaigns in the same niche. If they already have relationships with contacts who can get you featured on other websites then that is great, but if not, I would consider finding an agency with more experience with similar campaigns. If you are paying for press outreach to a set number of people, make sure to find out who these people are and if the outreach is an automatic 'blast' or a manual process.
For larger projects, it will be a good idea to have both parties physically sign a contract of some sort that details all of the pricing, services, and expectations involved in the partnership (so there are no surprises later on).
Please let me know if you have any questions for me by either commenting on this thread, sending me a pm, or contacting me through my website. All the best with Flickerstrip
Best Regards,
Jake
Team Backertree!
I agree with you 100% on this