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I was recently contacted by Crowd PR. They are a public relations agency for crowdfunding. Where can I find information about this marketing agency? I want to learn more about how they work, and what results their service provides. We have a big campaign coming up, and we want to get featured by many media outlets, publications, and blogs. An effective publicist is a must for us.

They have a profile where employees have left reviews:
https://www.comparably.com/companies/crowd-pr

Overall, it looks like their former employees have a generally positive outlook about them. Grant it, this is only half the coin considering there are no customer reviews on this website. But employee reviews can give you a good insight into the inner workings of a company. High morale tends to spill over into good results. It also shows that they have an active team working for their agency, which compared to other marketing agencies you hear about is a positive sign indeed. Many agencies have no signs of even having a team. I myself have paid a service for promotion and I was reasonably certain there was no team involved due to the low price and lack of english skills.

We found another relevant website about Crowd PR:
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Crowd ... 497917.htm

Same as above. I am seeing several posts from former employees about them. Just seems like typical day to day office talk from what I have read on there. Doesn’t provide enough information for us to make the call about them definitely. I would prefer more definitive and unbiased posts about this agency, personally. But it’s better than nothing - we need all the help we can get when it comes to selecting the best PR firm for our crowdfunding campaigns - and not stone can be left unturned.

We have researched Crowd PR during past campaigns. What stood out to me about them was yes they have a few good case studies, but I was astonished by the sheer lack of reviews and information about them online. During my findings, all that came up about them was a single quora thread found here: https://www.quora.com/Is-Crowd-PR-a-good-PR-agency

All that is contained in that thread is third and second hand accounts about them. No one on there has claimed to work with them directly. I am sure that they are an active agency, but we wanted to find the very best of the best in our search. This was a common theme even when we were looking up other marketing agencies: not a lot of info on google. I wish they could all have Yelp pages where people would leave reviews about them, just like a normal business. That would make things so much easier.

Ok so I found something a bit more specific. It looks like they were mentioned by a few articles journalists had written. Both were in technology publications. Different journalists and editors, but they were in some big media outlets. Here is the first excerpt:

“Reached for comment, Crowd PR denied any affiliation with Misty Mountain and told us a bizarre tale. According to Crowd PR’s William Henry, the PR email we received was sent by a former employee of the company who still had access to the company’s client list through the company’s account with the online project management tool Trello. According to Henry, the former employee, who he claims left the company in April, was pitching Crowd PR’s clients to journalists in an effort to generate press and then lure them away from Crowd PR”

source

And the second mention in a publication is as follows:

“They wanted to confirm that their San Francisco-based PR company, Crowd PR, hadn’t outsourced their work to it.”

source

It can be concluded that they do actual work based on these mentions. Obviously scams don’t talk to journalists, they just take money and run. So it’s safe to say that they are not a total scam based on these statements alone. This is helpful, considering 90% of the marketing agencies who email crowdfunding campaigns are not legit. Now all we need to do is get more info to see at what level they perform at, meaning, how good of an agency they are. Performance is everything - if an agency doesn’t perform they might as well be a scam since you didn’t get any results from them. What we need to see now is how good the results they provide on a consistent basis are.

Hey just wanted to chime in on this, I found a facebook profile where people can leave reviews about them: https://www.facebook.com/crowd.pr.reviews

From the looks of it, the page is run by an employee of their company. So it’s doubtful you can trust any reviews on there. What I am seeing is that there are not currently any posts on that page anyways - but it’s important that we add it to the discussion here in case someone else is able to glean more information from it. It appears as though they are planning on using that page to have their clients post reviews on it after they work with them. Doesn’t seem to currently be in use.

Their main facebook page, however is currently in use:
https://www.facebook.com/crowdpragency

They seem to post a lot from their quora blog, and share articles posted in the media. It is not very helpful. What we need to see is how many relationships they have with journalists, editors, and publications. Public relations entails making connections with the media to secure publicity. We need to see how talented their publicists are, how often the get press, and how their outreach process goes. Crowdfunding campaigns rely heavily on press coverage in top tier media outlets to get backers, and what we need is a PR agency to get us featured there.

Happy to lend a hand and provide more information on Crowd PR. If you subscribe to this community, you will see they are frequently talked about on here. From what I gather, they are a new agency compared to the other firms like Funded Today. Keep in mind that we don’t have the luxury of a plethora of review websites regarding these marketing agencies like we do with other types of businesses (like restaurants). Thankfully, there is some info here and there than can be gleaned to help you decide if you want to work with them or not.

They also have a profile on CrunchBase:
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/crowd-pr

Further research is needed. Although they are a new firm, I prefer to see government approved case studies about them. Any agency worth a grain of salt has those, and the US is happy to provide them with relative ease. If you are considering hiring them, it is of the utmost important to do you proper research on their agency and how they work.

I will share my experience with Crowd PR here. We hired them during december for our indiegogo campaign. We were contacted by one of their sales reps named Dan Butts with two weeks remaining. The call went well, and we were assured that there was enough time for articles to be published about us before time runs out. Public relations seemed to be a great way for us to gain exposure for our campaign. From what I have read online - the media and journalists and instrumental to getting yourself funded. We were given references from past clients which checked out as well.

And that’s when it all started. We paid their upfront fee, crossed our fingers, and hoped for the best possible outcome. In terms of other marketing channels, facebook ads were all we were doing with a small degree of success. Dan updated everyday as promised, which I was not pleased with. I would have strongly preferred 5 updates per day, but that was not something they could accommodate I suppose. Regardless, as days went by we began to lose hope for our media coverage. We were told by Dan that journalists were interested, but they just needed more time to be persuaded to write about us. During this period of time I had no less than 3 furious phone calls with this firm, many of which conversations included heated exchanges of words between us. I was not pleased after day 2 and I was not afraid to tell them about it.

On day 3 of the PR campaign, the results began to show. Nothing major, just a small coverage in tech blogs and a few digital magazines. Crowd PR told me editors were giving them a hard time, but I did not accept that as an excuse. At some point they did get me featured by Cnet and The Verge which I was very proud of. I told them I wanted CNN and New York Times, and they actually told me that was not a realistic expectation. I strongly disagree with that, as I have personally seen a project on the front page of the NYT.

In conclusion, they secured a good amount of media for us. They are a small PR firm, and I don’t think they have ever gotten anyone covered in CNN which was a must for us. My recommendation is that they are a pretty good marketing agency, but if you are going for front page coverage for days on end then you may want to try it yourself doing it in-house.

If you check out their medium blog, it should give you a better picture of what kind of agency they are.

My main problem with them is that they refuse to work unless you send them an upfront payment. On top of that, they don’t guarantee you placement in top tier publications like Daily Mail or TechCrunch. If they have so much control over these journalists, then why not work for $0 upfront and promise on payment later? Seems like a no brainer to me.

They claim to be based in San Francisco, but I have read allegations that they are based in Florida. There are several reports on this forum that they are the latest agency out of 600 other past agencies. I find it hard to believe, but a user has reported that they also go by the name of:

“Crowd PR Guru, CrowdChirp, First Wave PR, Top Level PR, Milton's Boost System”

This person just posts that though without any evidence. It’s worth considering, but I have read this forum long enough to be fully aware that they are some crazies on here. Personally, I find it unlikely that this is an agency that used to go by hundreds of other names it just seems a bit far fetched to me.