Do you want to get media attention for your Kickstarter campaign?

It all starts with YOUR story. Your story is a vehicle that you can use to subtly influence journalists, bloggers, and reporters to write about your project. It’s powerful stuff.

Just as a resume would communicate your credentials to a potential employer, a press release is the delivery vehicle for getting your story in the hands of media publication.

Put simply, your press release is what’s going to make the difference between getting a media hit, receiving thousands of website visitors, and blowing up your funding… or fizzling out.

This is why writing an effective Kickstarter press release is SO important and why I’m going to be walking you through how to write one easily (by just copying templates that work).

What do you need in a press release? 

Just like a resume, a standard Kickstarter press release has a specific format that’s meant to convey important information to the target media publication. They’ll use this info to decide whether or not to contact you for more detail about your story.

These key elements include:

  • Headline: The title of your announcement. This should evoke curiosity or attract attention.
  • Sub-headline: Expands on the main headline and provides more context. This could include adding in bits of the who, what, when, where, why, or how.
  • Date, Location: This is the beginning of the press release, which indicates the timeliness of the news update and which region it’s coming from.
  • Contact Information: Typically, at the top or bottom of the press release, this is an easy way for a journalist to call or message you and get more info on the story.
  • Story Quotes: Whether they are quotes from the founder, customers, or other members of the story, these serve as easy-to-grab segments that a writer can include in their article.
  • Images and Video: While high-res images are rarely embedded in the actual press release, they are frequently attached to the email sent out to reporters to give them a quick visual of the story. Links to videos are also sometimes included.
  • Campaign link or website: This is the most important link that you should include in your press release. You don’t want to make a journalist hunt down your project. Make it easy for them.
  • Company section: Where you expand more on what your company does and who it is that’s making this news announcement.

When we send out the press release to journalists, we do not embed the video directly into the email, as this is typically frowned upon. However, we do provide this service when we publish it on our own website. You can see a sample press release layout on our site below.

When we distribute this press release to our media partners, we adhere to the standard press release format. However, we’ve found that website visitors prefer our richer features (like video embedding) when discovering news.

Often times, creators choose to write their own press release, however, we also offer this service so that you don’t have to worry about putting together an effective pitch. We’ll do it all for you (and at an affordable cost).

Historically, the media industry has been slow to adapt to the times. I’ve found that many of their older writing standards are a bit archaic. We’re seeing newer publications replace decade-old ones, which have been disrupted by the digital web.

If you ask a veteran, they will also tell you to include these items in your press release:

  • ###: This symbol designates the “end” of the press release and that any information after that fact, like contact information, should be ignored.
  • For Immediate Release: By including this statement at the top of your press release, you are indicating that the journalist can publish a story about it right now. Now a days, this is more of a suggestion, as media publications will take stories and run with them. Some reporters (but not all) will work with you on an embargo option, where they agree to publish at a specific date.  

Typically, press release, will be about 300 – 500 words. Sometimes, it is literally pasted into the body of an email and other times it is included as an email attachment. Lastly, there are networks that will also syndicated the actual text of your press release on media publications.

Supercharge your press release

The press release format isn’t rocket science. It’s easy to imagine how popular bloggers get quickly overwhelmed with pitches that look and sound alike. After a while, they tune out from new announcements, unless they really stand out.

We want to get you noticed. This is why I’ve put together several key ways that you can supercharge your Kickstarter press release. When you use these techniques, you’ll stand out from other campaigns.

Social proof makes a blogger hungry…

Journalists, reporters, and bloggers are all in the business of writing FOR an audience. They must deliver stories that their audience will click on, read, and share with their friends.

If a news reporter hears that you already have people that are raving about the project, that other media publications that have picked up the story, and that it’s evoking strong emotions from your followers, that’s music to their ears.

It takes away the risk of taking the time to write the story, because there is a guaranteed audience when it comes out. People are already talking about the subject and will be hungry to read more pieces on it.

Social proof simply means numbers or indicators that your story is popular. That might be social media followers, backers, other media hits you’ve gotten, or what other notable people have said about your product.

A good story will NEVER go un-noticed

You can bring out storytelling elements in your pitch, which will make a journalist’s ears perk up. Every reader will give their rapt attention to a good story. It is extremely profitable.

Just look at how children will literally stop and stare at a television screen, hungry to find out wha happens next to the characters in a story.

Easy story telling tips include:

  • Conflict: Why hasn’t this solution existed until now? What conflicts did the founder go through to make it?
  • Breakthroughs and revelations: How is this a monumental breakthrough that the world has never seen before?
  • Reactions and events: These move the story forward. People LOVE to hear about what other people are reacting to online. Are people outraged or awestruck?
  • Meaning and beliefs: The best stories are about the type of world we want to live in. They go beyond simple profit-motive. What type of vision does the founder have?

When you envelop the message that you want to share into a story, readers will instantly start to listen to what you have to say. It will emotionally move them in ways that pure logical information can’t.

Seeing as media publications are in the business of storytelling, they are always on the look out for good “products” aka “stories” that will move their audience.

Demonstrate credibility quickly

Many writes get tons of unprofessional pitches for crappy products. These press releases can have misspellings, simple formatting errors, and be difficult to understand.

When a reporter is sifting through their email, they are likely to delete or breeze past any news that doesn’t look credible. This is their first line of defense when narrowing in on the emails that they DO want to read.

Make sure that you get past this first filter by demonstrating credibility fairly early on. You can do this by:

  • Highlight awards
  • Mentioning endoresments
  • Using statistics and figures
  • Demonstrating expertise

Basically, you want the reporter to think highly of you, your team, and the product that you’ve created. You don’t want them to dismiss you as another crackpot.

Press Release Examples

To give you an idea of what it looks like when a professional PR agency pitches a journalist, I’ll be using some of the emails that I’ve received over the years. This will help you see some of these practices in action.

Below, you can see one example of an initial cold email. The press release was pasted after this email.

This representative stated that they’ve included the press release below in the email for more detailed information. Their initial email was used to contact, gain rapport, and make the simple announcement.

The press release above contains many of the key elements that we discussed earlier including quotes, dates, title, sub-title, and more. As the press release goes on, you can see some of the other items that we mentioned previously.

This project ended up raising more than $90,000 on Kickstarter, which goes to show you the power of the media and a properly run crowdfunding campaign. Marketing is key!

I’ll give you another example so that you can see how to put together your own Kickstarter press release. In this second example, the writer also first pitched their product in the email and then attached an image and a press release.

After reading through the email, a journalist can gain more information about the project by looking into the press release. I’ve shown you an example below.

Again, this press release has many of the common items that we discussed earlier in this article, including title, subtitle, date, etc.

It’s easy to see why reporters can get lost in all of the pitches they receive (that all have a similar format). In order to capture attention, you need to use some of the devices that we talked about and also use a company that can get the word out about your Kickstarter campaign.

Publishing and promoting your news

The next step after writing your press release is promoting it! You gotta decide how you’re gonna get eyeballs on your news. You could email journalists, send out a press release on a news wire, or simply publish it on your blog.

We help you get your news noticed by publishing, syndicating, and broadcasting your press release. We will even write it and put it together for you. If that sounds interested, you can submit an inquiry here.

Now, you don’t have to use a service like ours to spread your news. You could also use one of these sites or build up your own social media following and share that news with your followers. It’s completely up to you!

One of the benefits of using our service is that you’ll also get a detailed reporting of all of the places that have published your press release and even a bit of traffic data. Our multi-tiered approach allows us to reach visitors on different social media channels, outlets, and mediums.

Either way, I would recommend building up your own marketing clout before launching a campaign on Kickstarter. This could include items like an email list, social media followers, and media asset, like high resolution images, that you can use to get backers excited about your project.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and that you take a second to browse some of the other ones on our blog. We have many ones that will aid you when getting the word out about your Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign.

Lastly, if you sign up for our services, thank you. If you’re interested, just submit an inquiry and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.