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Ann Arbor Consultant Touts Success With Kickstarter Campaign For Tech Firm

ANN ARBOR -- RFD Insight Inc., an Ann Arbor-based business consulting firm, said Wednesday that it has supported Tellurex Corp. of Traverse City in a successful Kickstarter campaign, helping to raise 131 percent of its goal from the popular crowd-funding Web site.

Tellurex is a long-time Michigan researcher and manufacturer of thermoelectric systems, with applications ranging from automotive accessories to defense to backup power.

Online media reports that fewer than 30 percent of technology companies have successfully reached their goals at Kickstarter.

By contrast, theater and dance have success rates of 64 and 69 percent respectively, reports TechCrunch.com , while music projects have a 54 percent rate of reaching their targets.

RFD Insight supported the Tellurex application with new Web pages and a press release that were linked to the Tellurex Kickstarter offer with words and images.

"Keywords and terms were carefully chosen to drive high rates of discovery via Google search," said RFD Insight managing director Lawrence Dolph. "In other words, people didn't necessarily know they were looking for this opportunity but found it on Page One of the Google Search citations. The product looked good and they joined pledge stream on Kickstarter."

Five days after the Kickstarter campaign opened, RFD Insight issued a press release through PRNewswire that was posted by 262 major United States media and offshore media in the U.K., Germany and India. The press release retained the same high volume search language as deployed on the web site, and the wide posting across the U.S. and overseas created a second huge spike in visits to the Tellurex Web site and a new stream of pledges on Kickstarter.

"The first impression that Kickstarter investors are not that friendly towards technology offers has been partially dispelled," said Dolph, who leads the marketing practice of the Ann Arbor consulting firm. "Presentation is everything. You may have to work a little harder to make a technology offer as compelling as the arts, but that's not to say it can't be done."

For more information, visit www.RFDInsight.com.

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