Stealing the headlines

Dr Lysimachos Zografos, co-founder of Parkure knew that getting the press behind him would be critical to the success of his crowdfunding campaign.

The powerful combination of crowdfunding and drug repurposing could also accelerate the search for cures of other common diseases. This was a great story but could easily get lost among the thousands of other crowd funding campaigns.

Lysimachos had never written a press release and heard of PingGo through the University of Edinburgh. He had already started his research and compiled a list of press actively writing about Parkinson's, using the internet to find contact details for each one.

Now he just needed to tell his story. He quickly answered all the questions PingGo asked him before editing to sharpen the angle ready for the press.

The work Lysimachos had done earlier to identify journalists and start building relationships paid off and his first piece of coverage was in the Daily Telegraph. From there he followed PingGo's step by step guide and spent two hours every morning on the phone to journalists.

Once the story was covered in the Telegraph he adapted his first press release, moving the story on. Having achieved 25% of funding in the first week he kept the news flowing out of Parkure constantly over the next three months to ensure he kept visibility of the campaign.