7 Hacks for Finding Media Partners to Promote Your Kickstarter or Indiegogo

Collaborating with the media to get your campaign in the spotlight is a tried-and-true marketing strategy used by successful project creators to drive more (quality) traffic to their campaign page.

Finding bloggers and reporters to write about your project can feel like an extremely daunting and intimidating task, but it’s an important one to ensure your project gets the attention it needs and deserves.

We put together a list of some of the best hacks you can use to find the right content creators to help you tell your story. Some of the tips are no-brainers, while others will encourage you to get creative!

We’ll use the fictitious campaign, “The Wanderer: The Most Compact & Durable Backpack for Travelers” as an example to demonstrate each hack.

Hack #1 – Google it!

This tip is probably an obvious one, but there are a lot of little hacks within Google to make your search queries return more relevant results, saving you a lot of time!

1. Use Google News to find relevant articles and blogs

Input keywords related to your product and click the “News” tab to find a list of publications and blogs that have already covered similar topics.

Google search results

2. Refine your search by content type, date published, and relevancy.

Click the “Tools” button in the right corner of the menu to reveal filters.

Use the left filter to only show blogs, the middle filter to select a date range, and the right filter to sort by relevance (recommended).

With these filters selected, Google will return the most relevant blog posts related to your query in your specified date range.

3. Use special characters and words in your search query

Google has its own search language that enables you to automatically filter your search results by including the special characters and words in your query.

Put – in front of words you want to exclude.

Put a word or phrase inside quotation marks to search for an exact match.

Put OR between each search query to combine searches.

Put site: in front of a domain address to search for a specific website.

Put related: in front of a domain address you already know to find related sites.

Hack #2 – Search on YouTube

Project creators that work with vloggers to promote their crowdfunding campaign often see some of the highest rates of success. Many vloggers have a very niche and engaged audience that trust product recommendations and reviews. Getting a sample into the hands of the right vlogger can make a huge difference for your campaign.

Try searching for YouTube reviews of products that are either similar or complementary to yours. Look at the text just below the video title to see who published it, how many times it has been viewed, and when it was originally posted.

Use the “Filter” button to further refine your search query.

In the example above Pack Hacker appears multiple times in the first page of results for our sample search query. To learn more about a specific vlogger, you can click on their name in the search results page or on the actual video player page to view their personal profile.

Once you’re on their profile, click on the “About” tab to learn more and to access their contact information.

Hack #3 – Hashtags

Searching by hashtag can be an effective strategy to find content creators, especially influencers, that have a social following similar to your target market.

1. Instagram

Enter your keyword or phrase into Instagram’s search bar, and click on the “Tags” tab. Instagram automatically sorts the tagged posts by “Top” or “Recent”, and suggests other hashtags that are related to your query. Posts that make the cut to be featured on the “Top” page are the ones you’re probably going to want to focus your time on, as many of these posts are made by larger accounts and influencers.

Check out this post for a deeper dive into how you can leverage Instagram’s influencer network to boost your campaign efforts.

2. Twitter

Use Twitter’s search bar to find Tweets containing your keyword or phrase. Click on the “Advanced Search” option to filter your query by the most important words, specific Twitter accounts, Tweet engagement levels, and/or dates.

3. Google

Use # in front of your keyword or phrase in your Google search query to find content connected to your hashtag across all social media channels.

Hack #4 – Podcasts

Getting your project featured on a relevant podcast is a surefire way to reach an engaged and targeted audience. Some niche podcasts are open to receiving requests to be a guest on their show, or may offer sponsorship opportunities. There are also great crowdfunding-specific shows like the Successfully Funded podcast, which dedicates each episode to a fascinating project that is successful and live at the time of the interview.

You can search for podcasts that cover topics related to your industry through popular podcast providers like Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Click on the podcast title to learn more about the show and its producer(s), and make sure you listen to at least a few episodes before you consider reaching out.

If no email address or direct contact information is listed, try searching for the podcast on social media and connecting with the producer through direct message.

Podcasts can provide a fantastic way to get your product in front of prospective backers, so make sure you don’t forget about them when building out your media outreach strategy.

Hack #5 – Campaign Pages

One of the best places to find bloggers and other publishers that not only write about your industry, but also have a track record of covering crowdfunding campaigns, is on other projects’ campaign pages.

Many project creators will include an “as seen on” or “featured in” section on their campaign page to help build up the project’s credibility. Look for projects similar to yours and peruse their page for this section to see who’s writing about them. These bloggers and media outlets are excellent candidates to send your press release to.

Hack #6 – Curated Lists

Why spend time looking for crowdfunding blogs when someone else has already done the work for you? Use your master Google skills to find curated lists of media outlets or bloggers that cover crowdfunding campaigns or topics related to your project.

Here are a few to get you started!

Hack #7 – Blog Host Sites

Independent blog host sites like Medium are gold mines when it comes to finding content creators. Many of the writers on these sites are independent and looking for ways to monetize their content.

Input a keyword or phrase into the search bar to find stories, people, publications, and tags related to it. Click on the author’s name to find contact information on their personal profile page.

Making Contact

Once you’ve compiled a list of media outlets and independent content creators that you think would be a good fit for your project, the next step is to begin reaching out.

You’ll drastically increase your chances of getting press coverage and securing content partnerships for your campaign if you start this process long before your campaign is set to launch. Project creators that take the time to build relationships with their media partners before they pitch their story are much more likely to get a response.

Identifying suitable publications and blogs to pitch your project to is the easy part. Actually getting coverage takes a captivating story, a clear ask, and an appealing offer.

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