Launching a crowdfunding campaign involves a number of marketing and communication activities that are essential for its proper promotion. Among these, a particularly important action (though often underestimated and improperly carried out) is the production and dissemination of the so-called press release. What exactly does a press release consist of, what is this tool used for in the context of a crowdfunding campaign, and how best to use it? We discuss this in the next few lines.
What is and how does a press release work?
A press release, in general terms, is a text written for the purpose of informing in an official way about a certain event, news or important result related to a company or person, such as may be, for example, the launch of a crowdfunding capital raise.
This text is disseminated to news agencies and journalists, in the hope that they will take it up to produce articles. Within a press release, therefore, all relevant information must be detailed, according to the journalistic rule of the 5Ws - Who, What, When, Where, Why. It is also important that the text be written simply and clearly and not be overly verbose (usually no more than one folder).
Press release and crowdfunding: when is it useful?
Is it really necessary to produce a press release when starting a crowdfunding campaign? It all depends on how and with what intent it is written.
In order for a press release to be truly useful and to have the desired effects-to get people talking about one's project and campaign-it must, of course, be picked up and used by as many media outlets as possible. To this end, the press release must report information that is interesting to the audience and worth telling, it must basically be attractive in the eyes of those who read it.
Creating a press release just to inform in a generic way that the raising is online is one of the mistakes not to make in the context of a crowd campaign: the start of a capital raising of a particular company, in fact, is not in itself perceived as a fact so deserving of attention (unless it is a brand that is already well known) and the chances that it will be taken up in this case are very low.
Better wait until there is something really important to report, such as exceeding the minimum target (overfunding), especially if it is reached in a short time, or the joining of particularly relevant investors.
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What is the purpose of a press release in a crowdfunding campaign?
L’obiettivo principale per cui si dovrebbe produrre un comunicato stampa nell’ambito di una campagna crowd – che come diciamo sempre, è una vera e propria operazione di marketing! – è attivare la cosiddetta riprova sociale (o social proof), ovvero quella regola del marketing per cui le persone tendono ad essere più attratte e a ritenere più meritevoli quei comportamenti già condivisi da un numero elevato di gente. Come detto nelle righe precedenti, quindi, bisognerebbe pensare di diffondere un comunicato stampa solo nel momento in cui la campagna raggiunge dei risultati importanti (e non prima), al fine, appunto, di farla percepire come un’occasione da non lasciarsi scappare e generare un desiderio di emulazione.
The press release, in this sense, acts as a real referral for the campaign, i.e., it has the ability to generate the impression in potential investors that this is an attractive and viable opportunity, given that so many people have already taken it up and that newspapers are talking about it (from this point of view, the more authoritative and well-known the newspapers publishing the articles, the more powerful the effect that is achieved).
In other words, the press release, if done according to the guidelines shared here, helps to get people talking about it, helps to create a positive opinion about the project and the campaign, and generates an important word-of-mouth effect that produces in interested people a legitimacy and an extra push for investment.
How to manage the production and dissemination of a press release?
Several avenues can be followed to produce, disseminate, and get published the press release dedicated to the crowdfunding campaign.
The cheapest (but not the easiest) is self-service. It involves, in practice, doing everything in-house: from the actual drafting of the communiqué to sending it to newspapers. This is an option that is not always feasible, as it requires the availability of dedicated and competent people, both for the writing work and for the activity of sending to the news organizations.
An alternative is to rely on outside consultants and agencies, both for the work of writing the press release and for its dissemination: this choice saves time and resources.
In both cases, however, there is nothing to ensure that the bulletin, once released to news agencies, will actually be picked up by journalists.
If you want to be sure that the news is actually reported in the media, the best thing to do is to pay for the output in one or more specific newspapers. This requires some financial investment, which, however, if done in a reasoned manner (selecting the newspapers most in line with the target audience you want to reach), can have excellent effects.
To conclude
The press release is an invaluable tool for those about to start a capital raise that, if used in the correct manner and timing, can contribute significantly to the success of a crowd campaign. The important thing, when producing a press release for crowdfunding, is to always keep in mind its real goal: to get the word out and work on so-called social proof.
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