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.
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This article was written by Salvador Briggman
