Blogger outreach isn’t a one-time, campaign-oriented approach. Rather, it’s a relationship that lasts for years between you and each blogger. Find out why real bloggers — and real blogs — always trump the robot armies that roam the internet.
Blogging
Real Americans don’t care much about A-list blogs
I had breakfast with John Bell of Ogilvy a number of years ago. He didn’t see the value of investing limited budget, time and resources on the long tail when those treasures would better be used to woo the high-fliers, professionals, top-cows and A-listers. That’s fair enough, and surely a common question, and a question we must address close to the beginning of every sales call we make at our agency when we propose blogger outreach to a prospective client.
The value comes from penetration, permanence, perseverance and persistence. There are only a finite number of members of every organization’s email list. Mashable and TechCrunch have a sizable but vertical (narrow) audience.
How to pitch bloggers so they’ll post about you
Last week I told you how not to pitch a blogger in your PR outreach, so it raises the pregnant question of what exactly should you do?
For about five years now we’ve seen an extraordinary number of clients and potential clients who have frankly been afraid of blogger outreach because of the poor practices of companies and brands that have stumbled in their attempts to engage the blogosphere. So today I wanted to walk through our process to show you how it’s done. Just how do you pitch a blogger?
Either take your time commenting on blogs or get spamboxed
]I must have impulse control issues. I posted the following on my corporate blog yesterday — Here’s how not to (spam) comment (spam) — because a comment spam broke by heart. The person who did it was 80% there, he just #failed where he could have maybe won me over (because my blogs don’t get a lot of comments and I am lonely and generally treat commenters — even shameless self-promoters — kindly since they’re all I have!)
How not to treat bloggers and how not to pitch blogs
In the five years that we’ve been reaching out to bloggers, we’ve learned just as much about how not to pitch as we’ve learned about the right ways. Avoid the lion’s share of pitching mistakes by being genuine and present in your outreach.