Crowdfunding PR Rolls Out Title III Equity Crowdfunding 2-Month Prep-Work Programs to Launch More Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

The crowdfunding prep work program helps entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses amass a large crowd of followers on social media and utilizes PR to generate hundreds of articles on leading newspapers, TV/radio stations, trade publications and leading blogs

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas (May 16, 2016) – Want to learn how to launch a successful Title III crowdfunding campaign on one of top 100 equity crowdfunding sites? To help crowdfunders achieve this elusive goal, Crowdfunding PR (http://crowdfundingPR.wordpress.com) announced a special two-month Crowdfunding Prep Work Program that will significantly improve a crowdfunding campaign’s success rate by amplifying its founder’s social media profiles and by utilizing an effective crowdfunding PR campaign to generate hundreds of stories in the electronic news media prior to the crowdfunding campaign’s launch.

How to Plan a Successful Crowdfunding PR Campaigns, a Step-by-Step Process

One of the biggest challenges that most crowdfunding campaigns face are weak social media credentials and the lack of a large group of social media followers that are needed to support crowdfunding campaigns with donations and/or investments. Building strong, professional Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles and amassing the largest possible group of followers on social media networks is crucial to conducting a successful crowdfunding campaign.

The second biggest task is generating stories on electronic news media outlets and blogs prior to launching a crowdfunding campaign. Not only can a well-orchestrated crowdfunding PR campaign generate hundreds of free, positive trade press articles to support the fundraising effort, but the same targeted, search engine optimized press releases will continue to drive new investors, potential customers and sales/distribution partners to the business long after the crowdfunding campaign ends.

“What many entrepreneurs and startups need to recognize is how important social media is in the world of crowdfunding,” said Robert Hoskins, Crowdfunding PR’s Director of Crowdfunding Campaigns. “The very first thing that an investor/donor does when they read through a crowdfunding profile they like is to look up the company and its team members on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to check out their credentials. Having a strong resume on LinkedIn, lots of likes on Facebook and an army of followers on Twitter is crucial to determining the strength of the team and the likelihood that they have the tenacity and skill set to deliver on their crowdfunding campaign’s promises.”

“Next, most investors/donors will do a Google search to see what they can find online for both the company and its team members,” Hoskins continued. “With a two-month crowdfunding prep-work campaign there will be several pages of search engine results that link to the client’s website pages, their social media posts/profiles and the crowdfunding campaign’s prep pages that will point to their live fundraising campaign on Kickstarter.com, Indiegogo.com, GoFundMe.com or any of the other 2016 Top 100 Global Crowdfunding sites.”

If you would like to speak with a crowdfunding PR, social media and/or marketing expert regarding your crowdfunding campaign please call Robert Hoskins at (512) 627-6622 or fill out the contact form at: https://crowdfundingpr.wordpress.com/about-crowdfunding-pr-campaigns/ to setup a telephone consultation.

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(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR

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Mr. Robert Hoskins is a seasoned marketing veteran with a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses as well as Fortune 500 corporations launch successful marketing communications campaigns to gain market traction for a wide variety of products and services.

Mr. Hoskins is one of the crowdfunding industry’s foremost crowdfunding advocates and has amassed a huge social media following that is dedicated to supporting donation-, rewards- and equity-based crowdfunding campaigns. Due to the overwhelming demand from the general public for crowdfunding information, he empowers entrepreneurs with some of the internet’s most affordable ($20) online crowdfunding training classes, which provide insight to startups around the world on a 24 x 7 basis.

Mr. Hoskins adamantly believes that the crowdfunding industry will empower everyone in the United States to rediscover the possibility of living the American dream with a little hard work, a great business idea and the dedication to researching, planning and launching a well-thought-out crowdfunding campaign. He consults on a regular basis with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

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Crowdfunding PR Offers Texas Co-Working Space, Incubator and Accelerator Members a 50% Discount on Media Lists, Press Releases, PR and Media Relations Pitching Services

Texas Entrepreneurs and Startups Located Anywhere in Texas are Encouraged to Take Advantage of Front Page PR’s Free 30-Minute Crowdfunding Consultations to Learn How to Raise $1 Million per Year from More than 20 Million Texas Crowdfunding Investors

  By Robert Hoskins

Company Details:

Front Page Public Relations

Front Page Public Relations has been helping startups, mid-sized companies and Fortune 500 corporations develop corporate communications programs for more than 25 years. Our fields of expertise include building websites, generating persuasive content, developing corporate message maps, and planning integrated marketing communications programs that include advertising, media relations, PR and social media management.

Nothing is more important than the story you tell investors and your future customers. Gaining traction during startup mode is one of the toughest challenges bootstrapped entrepreneurs need to master.  Front Page PR specializes in helping young startups develop interesting, polished and persuasive marketing communications messages that will convince new customers to buy your products and services and persuade angel investors to invest in your business. 

For most entrepreneurs, removing the fear, uncertainty and doubt from the sales equation is a critical 1st step in the business development process.  Let us help you gain some marketplace momentum and start building a loyal customer base.  

Below are some very cost-effective ways to start generating some positive publicity for your business. A typical press release generates around 100 stories on leading blogs, magazines, TV stations and other types of media outlets, not just in the United States, but on a worldwide basis.

Offer Details:

For entrepreneurs of co-working spaces, incubators and accelerators, Front Page PR will offer a 50% discount on the following services: 

1. Building Press/Media Contact Lists

Front Page PR will build a targeted list of media contacts in the United States that cover your product or service category. Front Page PR will spend up to 4 hours @ $150 per hour to build and clean a reporter/media contact list. 

Click here to purchase a Press List at the 50% discounted rate of $300.

2. Writing/Issuing Press Releases

Front Page PR will spend up to 4 hours @ $150 per hour performing a competitive analysis of your top three competitors as well as research how leading publications are covering their stories. Based on this research we will write a 400-word, highly targeted and SEO’ed press release and issue it over Marketwired.com, the #1 news wire service in the United States.

Each release comes with an analytics report that shows how many media outlets picked up the release, how many people read the release as well as the geographical click-through rate for people who visited the company’s website.

This price does not include external wire service costs, which range around $250 for a 400-word release released in Texas that includes one logo. Extra photos and video attachments range from $75 to $125. Large city releases such LA and NY cost around $390.

Click here to purchase a Press Release at the 50% discounted rate of $300.

3. Media Relations Campaign

Front Page PR will spend up to 25 hours @ $200 per hour each month calling, emailing and texting tailored media pitches to a precise list of the top 50 reporters that cover your companies products. The goal of this program is build relationships between your executive management team and the media. It is a very labor-intensive process for your execs who will need to develop a message with our help and scheduling time to prepare for interviews and then spending time speaking with the press. It is a process that does not happen overnight and will grow slowly over a 12-month period and may involve press tours and travel. This option requires signing a 12-month contract.

Click here to purchase a Media Relations PR Campaign at the 50% discounted rate of $2,500.

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Contact:
Robert Hoskins
Front Page PR
(512) 627-6622
www.linkedin.com/in/roberthoskins
rhoskins[at]frontpagepr.com
@Crowdfunding_PR (fastest response)
@FrontPage_PR
@Crowdfunding TX

 

 

Front Page PR Unveils Top 10 Marketing Strategies to Boost 2017 Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns on Angel List, Republic, WeFunder, StartEngine or NextSeed

Does Your Angel List, IndieGoGo, Kickstarter, WeFunder, StartEngine or NextSeed Crowdfunding Campaign Need a Major Advertising, Marketing, PR or Social Media Boost to Sell More Perks, Rewards or Equity Crowdfunding Shares?

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas – Crowdfunding PR announced a new Top 10 List of Marketing Strategies to Boost Crowdfunding Campaigns on AngelList.com, IndieGoGo.com, Kickstarter.com, WeFunder.com, StartEngine.com, NextSeed.com or any other top crowdfunding sites in the United States. These time-tested, proven marketing strategies will help crowdfunders generate a significant amount of marketplace awareness, which in turn will provide a higher number of click-through visits and better conversion rates when pre-selling popular perks, attractive rewards or selling equity crowdfunding shares.  

Also Read: What are the Top 20 Title III Equity Crowdfunding Sites Ranked by the Most Amount of Money Raised in the U.S.

Using this Top 1o List of Crowdfunding Marketing Strategies, Front Page PR shares valuable marketing methodologies with crowdfunding campaign managers to give them a sense of direction on how to research, plan and launch very cost-effective marketing campaigns with little or no budget for a small consulting fee.  This allows bootstrapped crowdfunders to receive professional consulting services at an affordable price so that they can learn how to generate a significant boost for their crowdfunding profiles traffic before and during their fundraising campaigns.

For serious crowdfunding campaigns that have larger, well-thought out budgets and a real business plan, Front Page PR can maximize their crowdfunding marketing programs to achieve maximum reach and frequency by harnessing a combination of advertising, email marketing, event marketing, media relations, public relations, and social media to gain widespread publicity, earn organic search engine traction and accelerate that growth with paid advertising and sponsored content marketing. 

Crowdfunding PR has a 28-year track record of using successful marketing, PR and social media campaigns to launch products and services, grow businesses, build sales/distribution channels and locate customers with the highest propensity to buy a company’s products and services.

For the past 5 years, Front Page PR  has been employing these same time proven marketing skills to help clients produce successful crowdfunding campaigns.

Need Help Planning an Equity Crowdfunding Campaign?

If you would like to learn the best strategies for marketing your crowdfunding campaign and doing the proper amount of prep work before the crowdfunding campaign begins, please contact Robert Hoskins, Crowdfunding PR at (512) 627-6622 for a free 30-minute consultation.

Top 10 Advertising, Email Marketing, Media Relations, PR & Social Media Tools to Boost Crowdfunding Campaigns

Front Page PR offers the following marketing programs for crowdfunding portals as well as their crowdfunding campaign managers.  And while crowdfunding is the buzzword for 2015, these marketing strategies will serve any entrepreneur, startup or business that wants to launch a product or service in any B2B or B2C vertical business segment. If need some help figuring out your marketing and/or crowdfunding strategies, please fill the business lead form at the bottom of this page.

1. Press Releases – A professionally written press release issued on one of the top 3 news wire services is probably one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies on the planet. Depending on the press release’s subject matter and SEO keywords, press releases will be picked up by hundreds of electronic media news outlets in the United States and around the world.

A typical press release generates around 50,000,000 gross impressions and hundreds of click-throughs to a website or crowdfunding campaign.  If you email well-written crowdfunding press releases to bloggers like me (rhoskins [at] frontpagepr.com), we may take your press release, turn it into a story and then publish it on our blog that is followed by a global network of media outlets and crowdfunding readers. All stories require a picture, graphic or logo to be accepted.

2. Writing Effective Press Releases – One of the hardest things to do in the marketing world is find a great copy writer to generate quality and relevant content. There are a number of companies that troll new Kickstarter and IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaigns offering to write press releases and put them on a wire service for a very cheap price. Front Page PR receives lots of phone calls that lost several hundred dollars and didn’t even get a press release written. The main problem with cheap PR companies is that they do not have the English language mastered. All of Front Page PR writers were born and raised in the United States, speak English as their native language and write content in Associated Press (AP) style, which is what all media outlets require.

The other consideration is how much time and effort a PR firm invests in the researching and writing of a press release. This means doing a competitive analysis of similar products and services on crowdfunding sites as well as researching top competitors via Google searches.  This process is important to be able to effectively position your company successfully against the competition.

In addition, a PR firm should spend many hours researching the editorial environments and only target media outlets that contain the highest composition of client’s correct target audience, which will need to have a high propensity to buy the products and services being offered as perks/rewards during the crowdfunding campaign.

Excellent writing requires time, effort and cannot been done effectively for less than $800 to a $1,000 per release depending on the complexity of the subject matter. More importantly, the same prep work that is done to write the press release is also critical when writing highly tailored media pitches that are sent via email and social media to entice reporters to cover a story.

For example, if you are trying to sell triangles, the PR account executive will need to research and find triangle magazines to see what type of stories are being written for their readers. The problem is that most low-priced firms do not put in the time to understand what types of stories will be accepted and which ones will be rejected. Sending a triangle story to a circle or a square magazine will never work.

And, even if by pure luck you convinced a circle reporter to write a triangle story, it would be pointless because circle readers only read circle magazines to learn about circle related products and services. They have zero interest in buying anything but circle products and services.  This sounds like a simple concept, but ask any reporter how many pitches that they receive on a daily basis that do not fit their editorial environment and they will tell you they hit the delete button in less than two seconds.

Thus, hiring a PR firm that can build a precise database of only triangle media outlets and sending only carefully crafted triangle media pitches is essential to generating positive news coverage and feature articles.

3. Social Media Networks – The second most important thing after using PR to generate positive publicity is to build a large social media network so that you’ll have a massive group of people with which to share your news and marketing materials.  

If you have network of 5,000 contacts that each have following of 5,000 contacts, you can use social media networks to reach a potential audience of 25 million people for free.  

It is very important to build social media profiles on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Twitter, WordPress and YouTube.  Have social media accounts?  Please follow us and we’ll return the favor.

Don’t have any social media accounts setup?  Need help getting started?  No problem, Front Page PR can get 10 or more social media accounts setup for you is less than a week.

It would be wise to shoot for a goal of 2,500 Friends/Likes on Facebook, 2,500 connections on LinkedIn and at least 5,000 to 10,000 real followers on Twitter. This may take several months, but needs to be done before trying to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign.

4. Sponsored Social Media Posts – If you are new to social media, it won’t take you very long to realize that building a solid base of qualified social media contacts takes a lot of time and effort.  It can sometimes be disheartening to follow several hundred people in a day only to receive a 25% response rate from people that return the favor.

The good news is that Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all have a wide variety of digital advertising, sponsored posts and content marketing options that can significantly speed up the process of gaining likes, followers, shares and retweets.

There are so many different advertising options that it can be very confusing to know what to try first, what options work best and what kind of budget will be needed to achieve the desired response rates. Hiring an experienced social media team like Front Page PR is the best way to achieve short-term success.

 5. Content Marketing – One of the best ways to build awareness for your products and services is to utilize a content marketing strategy to distribute your company’s press releases, blog posts, photos and videos.  A very cost-effective way to start this process is to setup a free WordPress website.

A WordPress site is great for generating content and then sharing it with all of your social media accounts via its Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feed. Every time you post a new blog, a news story, photos, videos and/or URLs links, the WordPress site will automatically push the new content to all of your social media profiles at the same time with the push of one button.

6. Media Databases – The foundation for every good PR campaign is a highly targeted media database. Front Page PR uses very expensive PR database tools such as Cision, Meltwater and Vocus to do sorts on every media outlet in the United States to find reporters based on  keywords in their news coverage bios and the last several articles they have written. These services cost $3,000 to $5,000 per year, but are a critical tool is creating targeted PR campaigns. 

These tools make it very easy to do a sort and generate a list of several hundred reporters that cover a subject matter, but it is a very time consuming process to clean the list and purge reporters that do not fit the right profile. This is why high-end PR firms charge more money for our services. It is also why our success rate is significantly higher than cheaper PR firms that want to sell you their services online with a credit card without ever having the chance to talk to a live person.

If you would like save some and do the hard work yourself, Front Page PR will build PR databases for clients at $1 per contact. This will be the initial sort that contains 300 to 500 reporters based on the keywords in their writer bios. The problem is that these databases still need to be cleaned to weed out reporters that may have the right keywords in their bio, but haven’t written about the subject matter in many months or perhaps they have a negative tendency. You’ll have to Google search every single reporter on the list to find out who the best reporters are to contact.

7. Media Pitches – Conducting good research on a reporter’s beat, their last three stories and the media outlet’s editorial environment is the key to writing a persuasive media pitch. Media pitches can be sent via email and/or through social media networks based on the reporter’s preferences.  

The best strategy is to send each reporter their own personalized pitch based on what they have written over the past six weeks. Imagine how much time it takes to read the last three stories that a reporter has written and then sending each reporter a personalized media pitch for a list of 300 reporters. It requires a lot of time and effort, but the payoff is well worth the effort.

8. Media Relations – Once a PR database has been built, good PR firms like Front Page PR have very experienced media relations experts that work with the press to build relationships between their client’s executives and reporters. These relationships require a lot of time and effort to build, but will lead to many successful media interviews.

This process also involves media training executives and teaching them how to share the right kind of information with reporters. Providing reporters with news they can use is the best way to generate interviews that lead to feature articles and a long lasting relationship with each reporter. Reporters will return to their reliable sources over and over to write numerous stories once a relationship has been built. 

A good media relations pro will spend anywhere from 20 to 40 hours a week pitching reporters via email and twitter. Most junior PR people make at least $25 to $50 an hour.  This is another good example of why anyone that offers to do a press release for $300 simply cannot afford to do a good job.  Working a list of 300 reporters takes many, many hours of work.  Sometimes it takes several hours of emailing, checking schedules and making phone calls just to get one interview setup. 

9. Event Marketing –  Event marketing is a great tool to use during the bottom of the “U” also know as the “Lull” during the middle of a campaign. When planning a crowdfunding campaign’s launch date, scheduling the crowdfunding campaign so that a major trade show like CES, Cebit or Interop falls right in the middle of the campaign is an excellent strategy.  

This allows a client to generate lots of publicity for the campaign’s launch, more news at the major trade show event (where all industry reporters and industry analysts congregate), and then even more news as the campaign exceeds its fundraising goal and/or stretch goals toward the end of the campaign.

10. Email Marketing – Email marketing isn’t used as much during crowdfunding campaigns as PR and social media, but it is the most successful type of marketing that can be used to deliver paying customers to successful crowdfunding campaigns.

Most startups have a new website, but most haven’t had time to build up a good database of customers. Front Page PR can help clients build double opt-in email databases of interested customers by offering them an opportunity to learn more about a product/service, downloading a free white paper, requesting early bird discounts/coupons, subscribing to newsletters, etc.

A database of qualified customer emails is very useful for pre-selling perks and rewards and building a customer loyalty network. A large database of prospects is also an extremely useful tool when trying to build large social media networks.

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Want to talk a crowdfunding PR professional about consulting services or hiring a PR firm? Please give me a call with all of your curious crowdfunding questions!

Robert Hoskins
(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR

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Mr. Robert Hoskins is a seasoned marketing veteran with a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses as well as Fortune 500 corporations launch successful marketing communications campaigns to gain market traction for a wide variety of products and services.

On a regular basis, Mr. Hoskins consults with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

Google search “Robert Hoskins Crowdfunding” to see why Mr. Hoskins runs one of the industry’s foremost crowdfunding PR, social media and marketing agencies that has amassed a huge social media following and is dedicated to supporting a wide variety of donation, rewards and equity crowdfunding campaigns.

Raising Awareness for the Crowdfunding Industry through Free Online Crowdfunding Training Programs

Please help us spread the basic concepts of the crowdfunding campaigns with the masses by sharing the following free training class links with your social media networks

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas – It amazes me to discover at business networking events the number of people that that have never heard of crowdfunding.  And while crowdfunding may still be under the radar for general population, based on the number of calls we receive each week, the crowdfunding industry is definitely experiencing hockey growth rates.

Our team at Front Page PR used to spend a tremendous amount of time on the phone educating future crowdfunding campaign managers one person, which was extremely time consuming.

Over the past 6 months, the demand for crowdfunding knowledge became overwhelming, so we decided to create the crowdfunding industry’s first free source of crowdfunding training classes.  The goal was to make it as easy as possible for anyone to learn more about crowdfunding by providing the basic crowdfunding training materials listed at the bottom of them page.  If you like the reading materials and find them useful, please help us spread the word about using crowdfunding as a small business finance tool to your social media networks.

“Just click to tweet. It is very easy!”

If you have a marketing background and would like to start a crowdfunding training class in your city or town, please give us a call (512) 627-6622.  We have several printed books that combined with the crowdfunding training materials listed below can help  any get a basic understanding of what it takes to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign.

Crowdfunding Training Class Links:

1. Introduction to Launching a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

   http://wp.me/p2XQpY-1G0 [Click to Tweet]

2. How to Conduct a Competitive Analysis for Crowdfunding Campaigns

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-F [Click to Tweet]

3. How to Shoot a Persuasive Video for Crowdfunding Campaigns

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1r [Click to Tweet]

4. How to Write an Effective Crowdfunding Profile that Converts Donors

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-S [Click to Tweet]

5. How to Write Copy with Language that Encourage People to Donate

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-P [Click to Tweet]

6. How to Offer the Right Perks/Rewards with Good Calls to Action

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1n [Click to Tweet]

7. How to Utilize Perks/Rewards to Conduct Marketplace Research

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-P [Click to Tweet]

8. How to Set Realistic and Achievable Crowdfunding & Fundraising Goals

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1a [Click to Tweet]

9. How to Do a Great Job of  Explaining How Crowdfunding Funds will be Spent

   http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1e [Click to Tweet]

10. How to Raise the First 30% of Crowdfunding Funds from Family and Friends

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-17 [Click to Tweet]

11. How to Build a Great Crowdfunding Management Team to Enhance Success

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1i [Click to Tweet]

12. How to Build a Press Room for Crowdfunding Campaign to Achieve Success with the Press

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1x [Click to Tweet]

13. How to Build a Press Kit with the Materials Reporters Need to Write a Story

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1z [Click to Tweet]

14. How to Write SEO’ed Press Releases to Promote Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1B [Click to Tweet]

15. How to Create an Informational Crowdfunding Campaign FAQ Sheet

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-14 [Click to Tweet]

16. How to Develop a Crowdfunding Timeline Complete with Milestones

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-2y [Click to Tweet]

17. How to Plan an Effective Advertising Campaign to Promote Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-g [Click to Tweet]

18. How to Use Content Marketing to Promote Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-u [Click to Tweet]

19. How to Calculate Average Crowdfunding Conversion Rates by Industry

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-M [Click to Tweet]

20. How to Use Email Marketing to Reach and Convert More Crowdfunding Buyers

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-12 [Click to Tweet]

21. How to Conduct Media Relations to Generate Publicity for Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1l [Click to Tweet]

22. How to Find the Best Social Media Tools to Promote Crowdfunding Campaigns

    http://wp.me/P4r9U5-1M [Click to Tweet]

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Feedback Wanted: Creating a National Crowdfunding Campaign Rating System

Crowdfunding platforms need to add crowdfunding campaign rating systems, portfolios of crowdfunding service providers and social media network graphing APIs to improve success ratios

By Robert Hoskins

We work with lots of people who want to launch crowdfunding campaigns.  It is surprising how many are completely unaware that they need a startup business plan before considering launching a crowdfunding campaign, especially when the main goal is to raise money to start a new business.  Even project related crowdfunding campaigns would benefit from writing up a business plan to help campaign managers organize and to think logically about what they are trying to accomplish with their fundraising campaign.

Front Page PR is the #1 Crowdfunding PR firm in America

One of the most popular crowdfunding services that is in demand from crowdfunding campaign managers is quality advice/feedback on their initial efforts to shoot a good crowdfunding video, write up an effective crowdfunding profile and write enticing calls-to-actions for their campaign’s perks, rewards, donations and soon-to-be investment performas.

The biggest reason that crowdfunding campaigns fail right now is because they do a poor job of providing elementary campaign planning requirements such as conducting a thorough competitive analysis, writing a business plan, creating a corporate message map, building an experienced management team, establishing a target audience, planning a marketing budget to reach their target audience, and predicting with some certainty a perks/rewards (sales) forecast complete with a return-on-investment analysis.

It sure would be great to see crowdfunding platforms start requiring campaign managers to fill out both a business plan section as well as the crowdfunding campaign. It may require extra work, but it certainly would improve a platform’s success ratio.

During this campaign planning process, it would be extremely beneficial for campaign managers to be provided with a database of third-party experts to give them professional advice and counseling.   This behind-the-scene step would allow them to seek professional advice from marketing, financial, legal and other pre-qualified crowdfunding service providers in order to evaluate and critique their campaigns before they went live. In addition, they could utilize these same experts to help them build a professional management team that would add credibility to their crowdfunding profiles.

After the campaign goes live, a public rating system would kick in that would allow investors/donors to rate each module of the business plan and the crowdfunding campaign on a scale of 1 to 10 based on their perception of the information provided. Or, perhaps the crowd should be allowed to ask questions or click on a green, yellow or red flag depending on how they felt about each section of the crowdfunding pitch provided. This would be an extremely good way for thousands of people to work together to vet and weed out fraudulent campaigns by raising red flags at the appropriate time.

To keep negative sharks from bashing without compassion, other users could evaluate advisers and ban people that are considered to be trouble makers after a certain number of derogatory comments that are detrimental versus instrumental.  The purpose would be to educate the masses as more and more investors begin logging on to invest in upcoming equity crowdfunding deals.

In addition, all crowdfunding platforms should be required to use the social graphing APIs from Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and other social media networking sites so that everyone can research everyone to see who they are and what their professional credentials are.  This would also encourage crowdfunders to do a lot more work on improving their social media profiles and networks before attempting to launch a fundraising campaign.

Just like media outlet comment sections, people without social media profiles should be banned from creating crowdfunding campaigns as well as critiquing them.  This also might be an easier way to govern who is allowed to invest and what their budget level is on an annual basis based on their status as an accredited or unaccredited investor.

Once a national, standardized crowdfunding rating system is up and running, which may take quite a while, it will be easier for novice investors to search secure crowdfunding platforms for investment opportunities based on their desired crowdfunding rating and risk assessment criteria.

Some basic Crowdfunding Rating Modules to get the conversation started:

Business Plan Rating Modules:

• Mission Statement
• Objectives
• Strategies
• Management Team
• Legal Issues
• Competitive Analysis
• Target Audience
• Positioning
• Pricing
• Promotion
• Place (location)
• Distribution Channels
• Campaign Goals
• Campaign Expenses
• Campaign Revenue
• Campaign Deliverables
• Campaign ROI
• Exit Strategy (even though Mark Cuban says no)

Crowdfunding Campaign Rating Modules:

• Crowdfunding Goal
• Campaign Length
• Pitch Video
• Pitch Profile
• Perks/Rewards/ROI%
• Marketing Budget
• Industry Growth Predictions
• Sales Forecast
• Funds Usage
• Barriers to Success
• Fulfillment Milestones
• Social Impact
• Post-Campaign Fulfillment Audit

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Crowdfunding Expected to be a Hot Consumer Electronics Topic at CE Week in New York

By Robert Hoskins

CE Week announced plans to host an innovative new lineup of keynotes and Crowdfunding conference sessions from the most well known names in the technology industry. The 2013 CE Week Line Shows and Exhibits are scheduled for June 26-27 at the Metropolitan Pavilion and Altman Building in New York City. This event is the official show headquarters of a week-long series of CE technology events taking place in the city over the course of CE Week, June 24-28.

CE Week LIne Shows & Exhibits is the Official Headquarters of CE Week, featuring the show’s largest exhibit floor of new products and start-ups, the largest concentration of conferences and attendees.

To kick off CE Week, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is producing a Research Summit on Monday, June 24, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This event at the High Line Hotel will provide timely intelligence on the unique and important market trends and transformations emerging in the consumer electronics industry.

Aereo Founder and CEO Chet Kanojia will join Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA, for an in-depth conversation about how technology innovation drives Aereo’s business strategy, at 10:30 a.m., Wednesday, June 26.

Living in Digital Times will display the best and brightest in mobile app technology at the Mobile App Showdown. During this live event at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 26, ten finalists will put their apps to the test and the audience will cast the deciding vote on the best app.

Top company executives from Pioneer, Monster, Kenwood, Toshiba, IK Multimedia, Samsung and BlueBOLT will introduce new products and discuss what’s ahead for their companies during press conferences.

The CE Week SuperSessions will address popular topics including 3D printing, crowdfunding, and the next generation of gaming. Sessions include:

Polygon SuperSession: Video Gaming’s Other Next-Gen [June 26 at 1:35 p.m.] – With so much attention focused on new video game consoles from Microsoft and Sony, both of whom are poised to usher in another “next generation” of gaming later this year, it’s easy to miss that an entirely separate alternative generation of video game consoles is taking shape. Join us as we explore this nascent “other” generation, typified by a focus on mobile hardware, open operating systems, digital delivery and an indie-friendly publishing model.
Moderator: Christopher Grant, editor-in-chief, Polygon

CNET SuperSession: Bringing 3D Printing to Consumers [June 26 at 3:15 p.m.] – We hear about new 3D printing breakthroughs almost every week now, ranging from houses to prosthetic skull implants to 3D printing on Mars. For consumers, 3D printing is either science fiction, or it suffers from the perception that it’s an expensive, time-consuming hobby with little practical utility. How can consumer-facing 3D printing companies improve their image and attract more mainstream users? Should that even be the goal? This panel will explore the issues and solutions around taking 3D printing to the mass market.
Moderator: Rich Brown, senior editor, CNET

Mashable SuperSession: The Battle Over Smartphone Screen Size [June 27 at 10:15 a.m.] – Since 2010, the average size of cell phone screens has increased by almost a full inch. Plus-size phones like the Samsung Galaxy Note have expanded the displays of all models, to the point where it’s impossible to buy a top Android phone with a screen smaller than 4.7 inches. Does this trend have a ceiling, and what does it mean for people with normal-size hands?
Moderator: Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief, Mashable

PCWorld/TechHive SuperSession: Who’s Fastest? Wireless Speed Test Results [June 27 at 12:15 p.m.] – PCWorld/TechHive Editor Mark Sullivan and OpenSignal Co-Founder and CEO Brendan Gill present results from their annual study of 4G and 3G wireless speeds. This year, testers visited 20 cities and measured speeds at the street level to give wireless customers independent data on which carrier offers the best speeds and coverage in the U.S.

Engadget SuperSession: Crowdfunding the Hardware Revolution [June 27 at 1:45 p.m.] – Welcome to the dawn of the age of hardware startups. Sites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter have changed the way we think about starting a business, from funding to user feedback. We’ll talk to success stories about the new business paradigm and discuss some tips for getting started in the world of crowdfunding.
Moderator: Brian Heater, director of media, Engadget

The CE Week Line Shows Conference Program is part of the full CE Week conference program, including 50-plus sessions and featuring more than 150 speakers. Conference tracks include the CEA Research Summit, Crowdfunding, Women in CE Forum, Connected Car Conference, Digital Health Summit, 2^nd Screen Summit, Ultra HD Conference and Techlicious Summit.

To register for CE Week visit https://secure.events-registration.com/ceweek2013/ Join in on the CE Week conversation by tweeting using the hashtag #ceweek.

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Top 10 Tips for Selecting Crowdfunding PR Firm for Promoting/Marketing a Crowdfunding Campaign

Hiring an Experienced PR Firm with Strong Media Relations Experience and a Strong Database of Developed Crowdfunding Media Contacts Can Make or Break a Serious Crowdfunding Campaign Drive

Robert Hoskins, Director, Crowdfunding PR/Media Relations

By Robert Hoskins, Front Page PR

Follow these simple tips to find the best Crowdfunding PR firm to help launch a successful Crowdfunding PR campaign for fundraising platforms, portals, websites and individual Crowdfunding campaigns:

1. Check to see how many years the PR firm has been in business and examine what industries they have served
2. Review their Crowdfunding activity on popular social media sites such as Linkedin.com, Twitter.com, etc. to see how knowledgeable they are on popular Crowdfunding news trends in the media
3. Make sure they include a wide variety of written press materials in their monthly retainer, such as a Crowdfunding campaign profile, at least four press releases for a 30-day campaign, a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) sheet, a short white paper, online press room, and media training/message maps for executive interviews, etc.
4. Make sure that you will be working with a media relations expert that has at least 10+ years of media relations experience. The more media relations experience the better your publicity results will be.
5. Beware of PR firms that recommend signing up for expensive online tutorials, which then later pressures clients to buy more expensive PR services when they realize that they simply do not have enough time, experience or media skills to pitch stories to reporters successfully
6. Beware of PR firms that want to use free or cheap news wire distribution services.  Always use a premium news wire service such as Businesswire.com, Marketwire.com, PRNewswire.com or PRweb.com.
7. Make sure the PR firm adheres a strict no conflict of interest policy meaning they do not represent two companies or Crowdfunding campaigns that would be considered competitors at the same time.
8.  Ask for a PR publicity guarantee and a clip report that shows clients all the news stories that their Crowdfunding PR campaign generated
9. Ask the PR firm what other types of value-added marketing services are available such as press conferences, community outreach, email marketing, Google advertising/analytics, building fundraising donor databases, data mining, trade show speaker placement, product launches and perks fulfillment.
10.  Last, but not least, make sure the PR firm is thinking long term with initial Crowdfunding PR campaign. This means they need to completely understand building brand share awareness as well as business distribution channels for your products and services.

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Top 10 Marketing Programs that Every Crowdfunding Platform, Portal or Fundraising Website Needs to Attract Potential Investors and Fundraising Profile Managers

Crowdfunding Research Reports Predict Crowdfunding Industry to Grow into a $150 Billion Industry by the End of 2015

By Robert Hoskins, Front Page PR

According to a leading crowdfunding industry research report by massolution, the crowdfunding industry in the United States grew by approximately 105% in 2012 and represents the largest crowdfunding marketplace in the world.  And, according to a recent TABB Group crowdfunding research study, the alternative financing industry is expected to grow into a $150 billion powerhouse by the end of 2015.

Top 10 Value-Added Marketing Programs that Every Crowdfunding Platform, Portal or Fundraising Website Needs to Attract Potential Investors and Profile Managers

What is really impressive is the fact that the nascent crowdfunding industry is just getting started. But once media outlets, national associations, chambers of commerce, ecommerce centers, vertical business-to-business industry portals and/or franchising sites with several hundred thousand readers, subscribers or followers realize they have what it takes to launch a crowdfunding platform website, they will do so in droves.

As soon as these players begin crunching the numbers and learn how much they can collect at 4% of the total amount of crowdfunding raised, a multitude of new websites will join the 500 or so crowdfunding pioneers that are already making it possible to launch all kinds of new businesses.

Many entrepreneurs like the idea of crowdfunding because they do not have to surrender any control to outside venture capital investors.

For example, a successful $50,000 crowdfunding campaign would pay the crowdfunding platform owner a 4% commission of $2,000.   A small website managing 100 successful  crowdfunding campaigns per month at $50,000 each could earn up to $200,000 a month or $2,400,000 over twelve months.  This will be a very lucrative business for platforms that understand how to generate a steady stream of crowdfunding profiles and investors to fund them.

Many argue that there are too many crowdfunding platforms already in existence, but trust us when we say that 2012 was just the tip of the iceberg for what is to come over the next five years.  The biggest challenge that many early adopters in the crowdfunding industry will face is the need for strategic marketing programs.  Like many small technology companies, however, many crowdfunding platform invest everything they have in the underlying technology and/or cloud-based systems needed to create a crowdfunding platform, but invest very little in the marketing programs needed to make their platform successful.

We talk to lots of new crowdfunding platforms on a daily basis and are surprised at how many do not have formal marketing programs. In the beginning stages of building a crowdfunding website is to amass a large following.  Without a high volume of potential investors and plenty of crowdfunding campaign profiles to browse through crowdfunding platforms will generate very little, if any revenue to sustain their operations.

A secondary challenge that crowdfunding platforms are facing is how to offer a portfolio of value-added business services to help their campaign managers launch successful marketing programs necessary to plan and execute a successful fundraising campaign.

The reason that Kickstarter currently rules the roost is because they have figured out how to make sure that their crowdfunding campaign managers have access to very cost-effective marketing programs. Instead of spending a lot of money on its own marketing programs, Kickstarter provides subsidized marketing programs that make it easy and very affordable for their crowdfunding campaign managers to get the professional help they need to develop great crowdfunding profiles and then generate free publicity by utilizing strategic public relations (PR) and media relations services.

The result is that instead of Kickstarter spending a lot of money on its own publicity campaigns, they have hundreds of crowdfunding clients generating publicity for their individual Kickstarter fundraising campaigns.  The result is widespread news stories that generates a significant amount of interest in Kickstarter’s platform from funding raising campaign managers and donors/investors who are looking for the best crowdfunding website to do business with.

Using Google Analytics and other website measurement services such as Alexa, it is fairly easy to do Kickstarter vs. Indiegogo comparison to see which site is generating the most traffic.   performing a

Thus, Kickstarter has become the 800-pound gorilla.  But at one time, only a few years ago, they were in the same spot as most small crowdfunding platform are today – small, hungry and hoping they will succeed.

The key to success are successful advertising, marketing, PR and media relations programs.  A good example to reflect on was the competition between IBM’s OS/2 operating system versus Microsoft’s Windows operating system in the 1990’s.  Technology experts agreed that IBM had a superior product, but IBM lost the battle because they under estimated Microsoft superior marketing, business development and channel marketing programs that effectively build worldwide distribution channels.

Another good example of superior marketing was the Intel Inside marketing program was very successful.  Intel would pay for 50% of all costs for computer manufacturer’s advertising campaigns as long as the Intel logo was featured prominently in leading trade publication advertisements.  This allowed both Intel and computer manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, Dell, Gateway and others to double the power of their marketing budgets.

So what type of marketing programs does it take to make a crowdfunding platform successful?  It would be wise for every crowdfunding site, regardless of industry, to add a menu tab to their crowdfunding websites offer the following value-added crowdfunding support services:

1. Social Media Campaigns
2. PR/Media Relations Campaigns
3. Press Room with News Story Building Blocks
4. Crowdfunding Video Production
5. Donor Email/Newsletter Marketing Campaigns
6. Google Advertising Campaigns
7. Google Analytics Conversion Tracking
8. Event Marketing Campaigns
9. Perks-Based Fulfillment Companies
10. Affiliate Marketing Programs

It is very simple for every crowdfunding platform to build a directory of service providers for each category of value-added services.  Providing a list of qualified service providers makes it easy for crowdfunding campaign managers to shop for the best deal on copy writing, video production, PR,  perks fulfillment and other types of crowdfunding services they need to help them launch fundraising campaigns.

As platforms mature, the more sophisticated crowdfunding platforms will soon allow crowdfunding campaign managers to request bids for these types of services when they create their initial crowdfunding profile.  This will enable crowdfunders to subscribe to important marketing services before the campaign begins versus half-way through the campaign when they are in fear of failure.  Creating professional profiles supported with well-thought out marketing campaigns, which will raise the visibility of the both the crowdfunders as well crowdfunding websites and will ultimately lead to an overall crowdfunding success rate due to increased web site traffic and and higher donation/investement conversion rates.

Building a rock solid database of potential donors/investors with a known-propensity to support various crowdfunding campaigns along with a high conversion rate for vertical financial marketing programs will be extremely valuable in the future of the booming crowdfunding industry.

A general rule of thumb is that crowdfunding platform founders/CEOs should dedicate a minimum 4% of their total budget to marketing programs.  And should they decide to invest their marketing dollars in setting up co-operative marketing programs for their crowdfunding clients it will allow them to double down and significantly increase the reach and frequency of every marketing dollar spent.

Even crowdfunding platforms on a shoe string budget should consider matching marketing funds for their most promising crowdfunding accounts.  In most cases, investing wisely in marketing programs will lead to higher commissions received due to the higher amount of funds that will be raised.  Collecting 4% of $50,000 is much more lucrative than 4% of $5,000 and the extra revenue should cover almost 100% of the initial marketing investment.

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Click here to learn more about launching a Crowdfunding Campaign!

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Want to generate news for your Crowdfunding PR campaign?  Select one of the following categories and post your press release:  Business , Cities, Communities, Crowdfunding Platforms, Education, Film, Music, Entertainment, Games, Videos, Social Good, Solar, Renewable Energy, Software, Hardware, and Technology Gadgets.   Don’t see your category listed? Tell us to add it and we will.

Both Crowdfunding platform owners and Crowdfunding campaign managers and PR staff can post their news and press releases into these free discussion forums to promote maximum social media exposure.

Five Tips on How to Get Great Publicity for Crowdfunding PR Campaigns in Media Outlets Everywhere

By Robert Hoskins

Looking for a cost-effective way to get some positive publicity for your Crowdfunding Platform or Crowdfunding PR campaign to reach potential donors/investors?

Front Page PR is the #1 Crowdfunding PR firm in America for Fundraising

Follow these simple directions:

1. Hire a Crowdfunding PR firm to help you write a search engine optimized press release
2. Release the news via a professional, paid newswire service (free news wires are ignored by reporters)
3. The same Crowdfunding PR firm should also conduct a media relations campaign to contact all reporters that cover your Crowdfunding subject matter
4. Post the news wire URL link from your press release into one of the following vertical business Crowdfunding PR categories so donors, investors and members of the press can find it
5. Make sure to include a picture of the product, an executive headshot or your company’s logo. Stories with a picture/logo/infographic are picked up 50% more by the press.

Select one of the following categories and post your press release: Business , Cities, Communities, Crowdfunding Platforms, Education, Film, Music, Entertainment, Games, Videos, Social Good, Solar, Renewable Energy and Software, Hardware, and Technology Gadgets.   Don’t see your category listed? Tell us to add it and we will.

Both Crowdfunding platform owners and Crowdfunding campaign managers and PR staff can post their news and press releases into these free discussion forums to promote maximum social media exposure.  Don’t forget to include hashtags (#), which Linkedin.com is now linking to people and companies with Linkedin.com profiles.

Crowdfunding reporters scan news these Crowdfunding PR campaign categories on daily basis looking for new and exciting Crowdfunding news stories to cover.  The same is true for donors and investors that are looking for cool new Crowdfunding campaigns to invest.  Post it for free so anyone and everyone on LinkedIn.com can find it.

To learn more about the Crowdfunding industry and startup local Crowdfunding community outreach programs, please join our free American Crowdfunding Center on LinkedIn.com or Meetup.com and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Become a Crowdfunding Advocate by starting up a Crowdfunding Meetup in your city or town and promote Crowdfunding as a social and economic development finance tool.

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Top 5 Tips on How to Produce a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign Pitch Video

By Robert Hoskins

Kendall Almerico, ClickStartMe‘s CEO, released a video explaining five things every good crowdfunding video should do to maximize the chances of success. Almerico speaks not only from his experience operating the hottest new crowdfunding site on the Internet, but also from his background as a television and radio producer and host.

“A good video is a necessity if you want a successful crowdfunding project.” Almerico says. “More than 50% of crowdfunding projects with a video are successful. Conversely, only 30% of those without a video succeed.”

Almerico’s new video explains the five things that make or break a crowdfunding video. “Your video doesn’t have to be a Spielberg epic to be a good crowdfunding video,” Almerico notes. “But, it needs to follow five simple rules to give you the best chance of success.”

Here are Almerico’s five tips:

1.     Good video and audio quality make a difference. While a good quality crowdfunding video can be shot on an iPhone or with a camcorder, care must be taken to assure good lighting and audio. Recording a video in a well-lit room or outdoors makes the lighting part easier. The sound is another issue. If using a phone to record the audio portions, speak loudly, clearly and not too close to the phone, or too far away from it. Listen to a sample. If it sounds too hollow or if words that start with a P make sound “pops,” do it over. Also, beware of echoes. If shooting outdoors, this is usually not a problem. But recording indoors in a room with wood or tile floors is asking for trouble. By trial and error, it is easy to find a room that works.

2.    Plan the video in advance. Trained public speakers or actors can turn on the camera and talk without a plan. For others, this is is a recipe for disaster. Write a script, and try to stick to it. When writing the script, think about how a journalist tells a story. Give the “who, what, when, where and why.” In addition:

a.    Tell the story.
b.    Talk about the rewards.
c.    Give people a reason to get excited.
d.    End with “the ask” and a thank you.

“The ask” is the portion of every crowdfunding video at the end where the project creator asks for donations.

3.     Only talk about two or three rewards, not all of them. People do not want to hear about every reward being offered. Highlight some of the best rewards. Pick one from the low end, one from the middle range, and one high-end reward and discuss them. Remind the viewer that there are other rewards they can see by reading the project text. Most importantly, get excited to pitch the rewards. Excitement is contagious, and the viewer will also get excited about it if done correctly.

4.    Add update videos as the project continues. People should update their crowdfunding project constantly, adding rewards and trumpeting their successes. Consider posting additional videos when these things happen. Not only do videos get more interest for the crowdfunding project, but they get lots of additional plays on Facebook and social media when they are posted. An update video is particularly effective down the home stretch, when trying to get everyone excited again to fully fund the project as the end approaches.

5.     Keep it short and simple, but end with a bang! The video should be no longer than 3 minutes unless absolutely necessary. The last 10-15 seconds should be “the ask” where the project creator requests donations and ask for help spreading the word. This should be clear, carefully worded, and create a sense of urgency and action. Tell people what to do, and do not leave it up to them to figure it out on their own. Check out these examples:

Bad Ending:     “Thank you for watching my video and for your attention.”

Good ending:    “We only have 30 days to raise $10,000 and we need your help, now! Donate today and, just as important, spread the word by sharing our project with everyone you know. Thank you for helping to make our dream, a reality.”