Kickstarter recently introduced its new “community tab,” which allows creators, backers, and visitors like you to see the dynamics of a project’s support community.
It shows:
- The cities where backers come from
- The countries where backers are from
- How many new vs. returning backers supported this project.
- A breakdown of the different people supporting this project.
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This is invaluable information, especially if you’re trying to build up a compelling PR story around your Kickstarter project. Here are a few ways that you can use this information to put together a press release that gets reporters, journalists, and bloggers interested in your project.
1. Cater to local interests
If you’re looking to connect with a local PR outlet or a media publication that covers a specific city, using these statistics can help show that their own citizens are excited about your project.
At the end of the day, a local publication must cover stories that the community will care about. Not only do they have to be interesting or relevant, but ideally, they should also involve the community in some way.
A great way to get the attention of a reporter is to emphasize how many of their own citizens are rallying behind your cause, project, or endeavor.
2. Show social proof to gain a wider audience
Remember, the media is in the business of driving readers to their website to check out stories that they are interested in. Whenever there is a built-in audience for a story, it takes some guesswork out of the equation.
For example, if a reporter writes a story about how 3D printing lovers are all using this new tool that not many people have heard about, it’s likely that that story will get a lot of shares among the 3D printing community. The story serves as a voice for the community! It sheds more light on their interests and values.
Therefore, if you can demonstrate that a large number of regular Kickstarter backers are rallying behind your project, this can be one element of the story that you pitch to the media. It shows a tremendous amount of social proof, and it also encourages the idea that there is interest for a story about your project or product.
3. Appeal to global interests
If you’re from Italy and you find that a lot of Italian citizens are backing your project, this might be newsworthy to a publication in your niche. It shows that people from your country CAN launch a successful crowdfunding campaign and that it may gain support from both backers in your country and around the world.
Changing consumer behavior is also always a story that will appeal to business interests, therefore if you find that, as an American, you’re seeing a lot of support from India, you could take this information to various Indian publications and show them how your campaign represents a portion of the population that is interested in a new gadget or technology.
The first crucial part of the outreach process
If you think of PR outreach like traditional marketing, there are two parts to the equation. The first is getting the relevant audience to read your story. The second is figuring out how to get more people from that audience to take a desired action. That action could be to write about you, email you back, or share you on social media.
For the first part, there’s no easy way to go about it, other than to grind it out. You have to make a media list of all of the different publications that you’re going to reach out to, what they write about, and how you’re going to craft your email subject line. If possible, it’s always best to get a warm introduction to a reporter from a trusted source.
You can also use services that have an existing relationship with your target media publications, like press release services or by hiring a PR agency.
The second important part of the outreach process
Once you’ve figured out how to reach out to journalists, get on their radar, or take your story public, then it’s time to craft the story that’s going to determine whether or not a reporter will take your desired action. In most cases, that will be to write about your campaign, cite you as an expert, or include you in a roundup post.
Ideally, unless you’re doing a blanket blast, you should be sending a unique pitch to each media publication that you reach out to. Also, it’s best to send it to an individual journalist that you’ve developed a relationship with in some way. This is oddly similar to applying to a job. You don’t send the same resume to every employer. You tailor your resume to the individual employers.
The story that you send out should contain:
- Elements to establish credibility
- Why the publication’s audience will like the story
- The who, what, when, where, how, and why.
- An emotionally compelling story.
Two people can pitch the SAME reporter about the SAME product, but one might receive a reply back and the other might not. This all comes down to the strength of your copywriting. Similarly, in this situation, person A could fail to get a reply and person B could be written about.
Remember, marketing is all about how you frame a product or message in the mind of your recipient. This holds true for your campaign page, video, and press release.
