With more than half of blog readers saying that blogs influence their purchase decisions, it's no wonder that many companies are eager to generate some buzz about their products on blogs. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen magically. In order to get the attention of these influential bloggers, companies have to reach out to them and make themselves known - but in a meaningful way.
This is not easy. It takes time and effort to put together a blogger outreach campaign; but if you do it right, your efforts will reap rewards in the form of increased exposure, positive recognition, and more sales.
Here are 10 tips that I've put together based on my own experience conducting blogger outreach campaigns:
- Identify the right blogs: You obviously want to find blogs that are the right fit for what you’re offering in terms of content and target audience. Use blog directories and search engines, as well as conversation monitoring tools, to find these blogs. Compile a list with the blog names, URLs, where you found the blog, name of the blogger, and their email address.
- Read the blog: The blogger wants to see that you’re paying attention to what their blog is about. Read a few of their posts to get a feel for their subject matter. Participate in discussions by commenting on posts, if you can. Get to know them before sending your pitch, as this will be the foundation of your relationship.
- Make it personal: It’s OK to come up with a boilerplate message to send out, but make sure to personalize it as much as possible. Of course, you’ll want to integrate the name of the blog and the blogger; however, take it a step further by mentioning where you found the blog and/or a specific post that caught your interest. I also recommend AGAINST using an email marketing platform to broadcast your message to a list. No matter how many personalization parameters you insert, it just won't work as well. I know sending individual messages takes a lot of time; but it will be well worth it in the end.
- Explain the benefits: Why should this blogger promote your offering for you? Why would his audience be interested? What makes your offering valuable? These are all questions you should be answering in your pitch. This is where all the homework you do beforehand by reading the blog will come in handy.
- Be transparent: Don’t be dishonest in representing yourself. Tell them who you are, including your title. If you’re with a PR firm or marketing agency, make brief mention of it at the beginning (i.e. “[Company name] is a client of our agency, and I’m reaching out to you today…”) and include in your signature the name of the company and the name of the agency.
- Make yourself available: Let the blogger know that you’re available to answer their questions, and include your email address. Respond to any questions they have in a timely matter or schedule phone conversations, if necessary. It’s also a good idea to include links to your social media profiles (like Twitter), either for yourself (if you are representing your own company) or for the company.
- Be ready for negative feedback: You may get some less-than-positive responses to your emails. Because of this, have a response plan in place if this should occur. Here are some tips for dealing with negative feedback.
- Keep track of responses: As you receive replies from bloggers, make sure to keep track of everything on a spreadsheet (how they responded, if they published a post, questions they had, bounced messages, etc). Not only will this help you track results of your outreach campaign; but it will also give you something to work from for future campaigns.
- Don’t spam: I recommend sending one email, and maybe a second one to those who don’t respond (but make the second message different from the first). If you find that certain bloggers just aren’t responding, then leave them alone.
- Thank them for posting: Make sure to thank any bloggers that do publish a post about your offering – with an email and/or a comment on their post.
So am I missing anything here? What are your experiences with blogger outreach and what tips would you offer?
