Crowdfunding moves fast, and public perception moves even faster. A single headline can shift how a product is judged long before the first backers arrive.

To explore how that works behind the scenes, I spoke with Artak, PR Team Lead at TCF, whose work spans six years, 40 campaigns, and thousands of media placements across top industry outlets.

In this conversation, he shares how PR functions inside a crowdfunding launch, what creators misunderstand about the process, and why the right narrative can have an outsized impact on performance.

Jasmine: What makes PR different from other promotional channels used in crowdfunding campaigns?

Artak: PR is the main channel that operates without any monetary investment. Everything we do is earned. We come up with stories, build pitches around those stories, and send them to journalists. There is no money involved. We don’t pay them.

When an article is published and we get revenue from it, that’s automatically a positive ROI no matter how much revenue it generates.

Jasmine: Since you don’t pay media, how much control do you actually have over what journalists write and publish?

Artak: Practically none. Once a journalist has the product and starts reviewing it, the article they publish is entirely based on their own experience. If they don’t like the product, the review can end up very negative, and we can’t influence that. We can’t ask them to rewrite their impressions, soften their conclusions, or remove anything that comes from their personal evaluation of the product.

The only part we can address is factual accuracy. If they use the wrong specification, misstate a number, or insert something we clearly provided incorrectly, we can reach out and request a correction. Beyond that, everything subjective stays exactly as they wrote it. That’s the nature of earned media. You gain credibility because you don’t control it, but the lack of control also comes with risk.

Jasmine: How do you prevent negative articles before they go live?

Artak: The only way to mitigate risk is by staying in active communication with the journalist throughout their review. If a journalist runs into a technical issue or the unit malfunctions, we can step in early and ask them to pause the review until we send a replacement. That alone prevents many premature negative articles that come from a faulty sample rather than the product itself.

But if the journalist simply doesn’t like the product, it becomes more delicate. In those cases, we can ask them not to publish the article at all. Most journalists understand this request and hold the piece, especially when it’s clear that publishing it wouldn’t reflect the intended experience of the product. Still, this is not guaranteed. Some will publish regardless, and there’s nothing we can do about it once it’s live.

Jasmine: How early should you start PR activities for a crowdfunding campaign?

Artak: The sooner the PR work begins, the stronger the campaign’s results usually are. Having around four to five weeks before launch gives enough time to build a solid journalist database, choose the right angles, prepare the pitches, and finalize all press materials. When this groundwork is done early, outreach performs much better and the campaign has a higher chance of landing meaningful coverage.

Jasmine: How is PR outreach structured across pre-launch, launch week, and mid-campaign?

Artak: Pre-launch is where most of the real volume happens. We start with embargoed pitching, meaning journalists receive the story early but cannot publish anything until the launch date. We clearly state the embargo in the pitch so they know when the article can go live.

During this phase, we try to reach the majority of the full journalist database, which for a typical campaign is somewhere between 700 and 1000 journalists. Our goal is to contact at least 70% of them before the campaign launches, because this is when the story is freshest and confirmations are much easier to secure.

Once the campaign goes live, there are usually around 200 journalists left who haven’t been contacted yet. Outreach continues, but now the angle changes. We look at early performance and use that as the hook. For example, if the campaign raises $200,000 in the first days, that becomes a new angle for launch-week pitching.

Mid-campaign is different. The initial hype slows down, so we adjust in two ways. First, we look for angles we haven’t used before, so we’re not repeating the same story. Second, we monitor what the media is talking about at that moment and search for connections between those trending topics and the product. Combining fresh angles with timely relevance helps keep the campaign visible even after the launch momentum fades.

Jasmine: How do you choose which angles to use when a crowdfunding product fits several categories?

Artak: We start by breaking the entire journalist database into groups based on angle. Most campaigns end up with three or four different directions, and each direction speaks to a different type of journalist.

For example, take a power bank. One angle is general tech, because it’s a gadget. Another angle is travel, because people who travel a lot constantly worry about keeping their devices charged. Those audiences care about different things, so the angle controls which features we highlight.

This is why we always ask a simple question first: who benefits the most from this product? Once we know the answer, we build the pitch around the features that matter to that specific group. The same product can have multiple stories, but each angle is shaped around the needs and habits of the journalists we’re targeting.

Jasmine: How do you balance resources between top-tier outlets and niche verticals?

Artak: We usually split it 50-50. If a project has clear potential for top-tier media, we start by pitching three or four major outlets exclusively. We wait to see if they’re interested, because once a story is sent to hundreds of journalists, top media almost never pick it up.

If those outlets decline, then we open the outreach to mid-tier and low-tier publications. Exclusivity is important for top outlets, so we always give them the first look before expanding the list.

Jasmine: What happens internally once major coverage goes live? How is momentum used across other channels?

Artak: When a major article goes live, it becomes a credibility signal the whole team can use. Social takes the strongest quote and turns it into a banner, something like “Forbes said this about our campaign.” Followers see coverage from well-known outlets and immediately trust the brand more.

The ads team uses the same quotes in Meta and Google creatives. Recognizable media logos make people more confident when they see an ad, so they convert faster.

Support and sales teams rely on PR too. If someone writes asking, “How can I trust you?” sending them a link from a respected publication usually settles their concerns right away.

PR ends up reinforcing every direction, even if it isn’t the channel driving conversions directly. It strengthens social, ads, support, and sales all at once.

Jasmine: How do you use AI in your PR workflow?

Artak: We use AI mainly during database research. A tool like MuckRack can return thousands of journalist profiles, and most of them aren’t relevant to the product we’re pitching. We upload those large lists into AI with a specific formula and criteria, and it filters out only the journalists who match what we need. That saves us a lot of time and keeps the research process efficient.

We’re also working on an AI agent that will analyze the coverage we secure for a campaign and pull out new angles or storytelling formulations journalists use, especially the ones our marketing team didn’t think of beforehand. Journalists are often very skilled at framing products in a compelling, newsworthy way. Once this agent is finalized, it will help us surface those insights for the other departments working on the campaign.

Jasmine: Can you share an example where PR significantly influenced a crowdfunding campaign?

Artak:  One of my earlier campaigns, Elecjet, is a strong example of how much PR can shape results. In the very first week alone, we secured more than 70 media coverages across outlets like Forbes, The Verge, Engadget, and other top tech publications. That kind of momentum immediately changed the campaign’s trajectory.

PR didn’t just add credibility, it became one of the main performance drivers. By the end, around 40-50% of the total conversions were influenced by PR. It was a clear case of media traction turning a campaign into a standout performer.

Jasmine: What mistakes do creators usually make in crowdfunding PR campaigns?

Artak: The biggest mistake is definitely starting too late. Most creators think they don’t need much time for outreach and they begin only once the campaign is live. That means they completely miss the most important period for PR, which is the pre-launch stage. 

Another mistake is relying too much on press release distribution services. These services distribute a press release to hundreds or thousands of outlets and you get the same article published everywhere. These articles don’t do anything. People don’t read them. They appear in a very specific part of the website that nobody enters. Over time, those pieces get deranked by Google, so you won’t even be able to find them later. My recommendation is not to spend money on these services. If you put that $700 toward one reliable and trustworthy media outlet, the benefit is far bigger than spending it on a press release and getting hundreds of symbolic articles that will get deranked in a couple of days.

Another mistake is pitching multiple journalists from the same outlet. For example, someone wants to get coverage on Wired and they send the exact same pitch to 10 or 50 journalists at the same time. That doesn’t work. Journalists talk. When they see the same pitch being blasted to their colleagues, they reject it and you lose the chance of landing coverage there.

Conclusion

Crowdfunding campaigns rise faster when credibility appears early, and PR is one of the few forces that can create that impact in a single moment without breaking the bank. When a respected outlet publishes a strong headline, it establishes legitimacy that creators can lean on throughout the launch and long after it ends. That kind of validation shapes perception, attracts attention, and gives a campaign a level of authority internal messaging can’t match.

As our interview with Artak shows, PR has the power to turn a single story into a defining moment for a campaign, helping it rise above the noise and move forward with real confidence.

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