KickstarterForum.org

Hello everyone!

As of this posting, I have raised $417 for my Kickstarter campaign. That is great considering I just launched on Friday and I need to raise a total of $560. However, most of the pledges come from my family and friends. I was considering sending out a press release to get more backers. Do they really work? I just want to know if people have had success with them before I pay the money to a PR person.

I am trying to fund a science fiction ebook, so I am not sure if a press release would help. Here is the link to my project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13 ... -the-ebook

Thanks!

I think this is a really important question. First of all, the way I am reading your post, you are asking "Will a press release get me more kickstarter pledges?"

The simple answer is it depends. The goal of PR is to get on a news publication which may or may not lead to traffic and that traffic may or may not lead to pledges.

I have seen campaigns get onto the A list news publications for their industry like techcrunch, and it do very little to boost pledges. I have also seen campaigns get on mid tier publications and smaller publications, and it does an awesome job of boosting pledges. It all depends on the demographic of the news source and how well strangers will convert.

If you have not proven that strangers interested in your category will convert into pledges, then you have to prepare yourself for the possibility that spreading the word about your campaign may drive traffic, but that traffic may not convert into pledges.

With regards to types of PR there is:

- Syndication (your press release is syndicated or is shown on news publications, usually a section that is dedicated to press releases, along with RSS feeds, and sometimes social media feeds). The benefits here are when you google the name of your campaign, you will be seen on all of these websites and people who read these publications also have a chance to check out your headline and news.

- Distribution (your press release is sent to the email inbox of journalists). Response here depends on the journalist, what stories they are working on, and current trends. Your 4-5 sentence messages and your press release should focus on the main selling points of your new initiative.

- Direct pitching - This usually has the best response, though is very time consuming unless you are hiring a PR agency that has established relationships in your marketplace. However, it gives you the opportunity to tailor your PR pitch to each publication.

PR also has other values. I've sent out press releases for campaigns and a week after the campaign finished, I get a response from a journalist wanting to run a story, I forward that along, and they end up doing a post-kickstarter story or story that's focused more on the product, which the person intends to build into a business.

If you're planning on building the product/project into a longterm venture, I think reading up on PR is definitely worthwhile.

any place to get journalist complete list for tech??
i know few sites but hard to find there emails....

Media databases:

Vocus: http://www.vocus.com/advanced-pr/engage/
MuckRack: http://muckrack.com/

We also create media lists at CrowdfundingPR for creators (usually list of 30 starting at the gold tier). We could negotiate if you'd like a larger list.

One good way to make a press release work for you is to target some hometown resources- i.e. a few people working on my film have connections to our local university (UT in austin) so I pointed that out in the PR and then submitted that to the local papers. Local media outlets like a local angle!

I didn't do a press release for mine, but promoted it heavily

promoted it heavily where?

I sent quite a lot of press releases, but there was no reply. Got a lot of posts with the proposal PR, but many are simply not credible. Can someone recommend?

We sent out a lot of Press Releases but all we got back were the whole, pay to PR type comments.

This is a key question to ask.