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JUMPSTART
INTERVIEWEES :
Aga, Founder and Business Development, Niwa A smart-phone controlled growing system http://getniwa.com Platform: Kickstarter I Target: $100,000 Amount Raised: $151,173 I Backers: 565
Ashok, Founder and System Architect, Ezeecube An automatically sorting stackable media box http://www.ezeecube.com Platform: Indiegogo I Target: $75,000 Amount Raised: $146,666 I Backers: 1,137
Sam, Founder, ZCan Wireless The world’s first wireless scanner mouse http://www.d-toi.com/zcanwireless.html Platform: Indiegogo I И Target: $30,000 Amount Raised: $112,868
ask them to align coverage with the campaign,” says Ashok. “In our PR we saw a spike in backers when we gained coverage on some big blogs like Engadget and Techcrunch and from there it got picked up on regional blogs. However, be sure to line up PR at least 6 weeks in advance to make it newsworthy. It’s very difficult to get coverage after your campaign is launched,” he says. Whilst contacting journalists ahead of time will help you reserve a spot in their editorial calendar, it pays to be strategic with how much effort you put in, as the payoffs may not always match the rewards. All of our interviewees agreed that it’s tough to get coverage once your campaign is launched. At the rate the media moves, even getting in touch just a few days after the start of your campaign may mean it’s considered ‘old news’. For Niwa, the initial launch period was the most intense and fruitful time in terms of PR. “In the first 24 hours we got over 40,000 visitors, after that it plateaued. To be honest after the initial momentum was gone it was very hard to keep it going. We saw spikes when big papers or magazines wrote about us and we got a few sales a day, but even though we were snowballing media, it was hard to keep the momentum going”. In terms of marketing, social media is a no-brainer and whilst each of our interviewees harnessed a range of social media platforms to different extents they did so in combination with other strategies. “Social media helps to create the buzz around the product, and it did bring initial traffic to us, but social media can wear out after a while,” says Ashok. “I’m not sure if social media alone can get you fully-funded depending on your campaign goal and it certainly doesn’t undermine the need to have good PR”. An area not to overlook in your PR strategy is the power of the various crowdfunding platform you’re promoting yourself on. For ZCan, Indiegogo itself was a major source of traffic. “Our tipping point came when Indiegogo sent an EDM about us. They were incredibly effective because they have such a big database”. Ezeecube also found similar success with the support of their crowdfunding platform, following being featured in the Indiegogo newsletter they raised US$20,000 in just three days.
All of our interviewees agreed that it’s tough to get coverage once your campaign is launched. At the rate the media moves, even getting in touch just a few days after the start of your campaign may mean it’s considered ‘old news’.