What is the best way to reach out to bloggers?
Knowing a little bit about what bloggers want from marketers and what is considered “blogger outreach etiquette” can greatly improve the success of your blogger outreach campaigns simply because your pitches will be considered instead of deleted right away.
In honor of the bloggers who provide invaluable word of mouth marketing for your brand, here is a list of things bloggers wished everyone knew before they pitched them.
Keeping up With A Blog is Tons of Work. Compensate!
There is a bit of a controversy about whether or not to pay bloggers and you can read about it in this post.
But, it seems that the consensus is that bloggers expect compensation for their brand mentions. It makes sense if you think about it. They’ve spent so much time curating and keeping the interest of their audience.
Not to mention the time it takes to craft a post…
Whether you have a budget and can offer a monetary amount for a post or your compensation is free product from your brand, be up front about how you plan to compensate a blogger if they decide to work with you.
If budget is an issue offer exclusive information or a guest post.
If you’re a GroupHigh user, you can see which post tactics (sponsored posts, guest posts, product reviews, etc) the bloggers actively participate in so you can know which bloggers to reach out to.
Bloggers want to be handpicked
Blogger outreach doesn’t work in bulk. Meaning don’t mass email a bunch of bloggers who you think are a “decent fit” with your campaign.
Find bloggers who have written about the niche your campaign falls in to. For example if I’m reaching out to bloggers to promote a line of organic yoga clothing, it would admittedly be tempting to reach out to bloggers who have simply written about yoga clothing. But, organic yoga clothing is more pricey so I’d have better luck with the both the response rates and the success of my post if I reach out to bloggers who have written specifically about organic yoga clothing in the past.
After you’ve handpicked your influential bloggers and compiled your list, make it apparent to the bloggers that they’ve been handpicked by crafting a personalized pitch to each one.
Press releases are black listed
Bloggers have declared a war on press releases and they wish everyone knew that you don’t sent a blogger a press release.
Have a clear plan
When crafting your outreach email, keep in mind that bloggers get a ton of pitches a day. So, make it short and sweet while being very upfront and specific with what you want from a campaign or relationship with them.
Give the blogger any time frame you are working with, your campaign goals and tactics, hyperlinks to information about your brand and what it is you want out of a post if they decide to take you up on your offer.
Personality is great
If your own inbox is one of those things that just can’t be kept under control then you probably understand the importance of a friendly email with a little bit of humor or personality.
While I’ve advised to keep your pitch short, sweet and to the point—I don’t want this to seem like the pitch should come across as formal or dry. Make your pitch sound human and conversational, it will stick out.
Do you have any tips you’d like to add about the best way to reach out to bloggers?
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Latest posts by Kristen Matthews (see all)
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- What I Learned About Blogger Outreach from Surveying 4,000 Bloggers - September 10, 2015
- 12 Subject Lines for Better Blogger Outreach - July 20, 2015
Stop pitching dreck. Your perspective on Google Panda, accompanied by a list of consumer tech and college financing articles you have contributed to top sites (that I’ve never heard of) is painful. And I’m insulted that you see my site as the equivalent of those (even though I know it is just a mass blast).
Know what you are pitching is possible. For instance, I don’t take guest posts. There is not a single guest post on my blog. Yet I get requests to become a “regular contributor” to my blog. You clearly haven’t read anything on the blog, just scraped an email address. I had zero opinion of you before, now I have a negative opinion of you and the company you represent.
Use a real email address. joesmores13as352 at gmail is a dead giveaway that you don’t see your personal profile as important, yet you want me to put my personal reputation on the line to distribute your backlink and sales pitch. That won’t happen.
Ok, that fills out my rant list for the moment. Fun post, thanks for sharing!
It all goes back to actually reading the blog and pitching perfect fitting bloggers instead of being tempted to “play the numbers game” and mass email a ton.
Thanks for your comment!
One significant legal point in blogger outreach: compliance with the FTC Endorsement & Testimonial Guides is the brand’s responsibility, not the blogger’s. So in doing blogger outreach, also be sure that you have considered how you would like a blogger to meet the disclosure guidelines and what instructions you will give. For more, see https://kbhilferlaw.com/influencer-marketing-programs-the-ftc-is-watching/
Thanks for that crucial tid bit!
I always recommend to my clients that they keep a document on hand of the guidelines to give all of the bloggers they work with.
Good read Kristen and you are spot on with most of your comments. There is one more that I’d like to add here: give the bloggers more time than journalists. There are two reasons for this:
1) most of them write post-working-hours as they do this for their passion so they probably just need more time to process & write
2) bloggers have a strong opinion on your message. they might even catch something in your message that could be announced otherwise and be better percieved by your audience. You won’t get that kind of feedback from regular journalists that are only after spreading your message 1on1 asap.
Hi Hans! Thanks for stopping by and for your comment.
I couldn’t agree more with your point about giving bloggers more time than journalists, in fact, I wrote a post about it on Social Media Today: http://socialmediatoday.com/kristen-matthews/1506896/blogger-outreach-sexy-name-what-pr-pros-have-been-doing-years
Perhaps you’ve given me a topic for my post next month on this site!
Cheers!