Are you ready? Let’s get into the details of what exactly is blogger outreach strategy and how it can help you build a better blog that drives more traffic and sales.
What Is Blogger Outreach?
Outreach or Blogger outreach is the process of reaching out to bloggers or site owners, i.e. decision makers to a find common point of interest and build relationships.Outreach can be done both online and offline. For example, you can meet bloggers at events or conferences. For the purpose of this guide, we’ll focus on online outreach only.
Building relationships online can be a cost-effective way to reach out to highly targeted individuals and prospects that have more/varied readership than what you already have.
By reaching out to them in the right way and at the right time, you get the potential to reach a far wider audience and your content has the potential to go viral. While outreach is primarily associated with link building campaigns, it can be used for other reasons too.
Benefits Of Blogger Outreach Strategy?
So why should you care about creating a blogger outreach strategy? Here are few strong reasons to do it.- Bloggers are influencers (when a top blogger tweets or links to your stuff, you’ll get a lot of traffic, sales and subscribers)
- Blogger outreach increases your popularity (if a top blogger mentions you, others will also find you as a top blogger!)
- Increases your overall social media influence
- Blogger outreach increases your website incoming links and traffic
- It helps you build strong relationships with other bloggers
In a nutshell, blogger outreach strategy not only helps you boost your blog traffic but it can open the doors for you to build high quality links from top blogs without spamming others.Are you now convinced about reaching out other bloggers to make your blog successful?
Blogger Outreach Campaigns
Enter influencer marketing, or blogger outreach campaigns. The idea behind a blogger outreach campaign is that a company, in seeking exposure for a product or service, leverages influencers who have established a substantial following, asking them to write about it in exchange for free access to the product or service. (Sometimes, money would need to exchange hands as well. It all depends on the relationship the company has with the blogger and what the blogger commands.)
Way to Create Perfect Blogger Outreach Strategy
So here are the few ways to create perfect blogger outreach strategy.
- Study The Writer. You can ask and ask and ask, but unless you research the writer and know exactly what it is that they cover, you’re wasting your time.You can do something like this by going through blog sites, reading all of their writings, and then summarizing the aspects of their content that map to your product. You could also contact bloggers in a more automated fashion, by using tools that save you some of the time it takes to do influencer outreach. You could also outsource by contacting one of many agencies that represent bloggers and can manage the campaign on your behalf.
- Simplify. Your messaging needs to be as succinct as possible. Don’t write your emails like we write our posts. Keep it simple, stupid.I’m busy, you’re busy, the next person is busy, and information overload is less than ideal. If you don’t get to your point within the second or third sentence, you’ve lost me. Heck,
- Show Passion. Be passionate about what you’re pitching, and make sure that enthusiasm comes through in your outreach emails. Oh, and don’t hire an agency if you’re that passionate. You can’t outsource passion, so keeping the work in-house would be a better choice.Also, don’t be annoying. Passion is one thing, but stalking is another. You don’t want to risk alienating those exact folks you’ve identified as having so much influence in your category.
- Be Creative. Creativity is important. If you’ve got a breakthrough product, that’s great. But if your offering is an also-ran, why should the influencer care? Unless there’s an incredible unique selling proposition, most people won’t bother (and may even be offended that you wasted their time). Explain how your brand is different, or surround it with a creative and useful content initiative.
- Build Trust. It’s all about relationships and trust! Either you have an existing relationship with someone who is able to reach out to the influencer on your behalf, or you need to work really hard to become their friend. Follow them on Twitter, comment on their blog, wine and dine them, etc
Remember, you could kill a relationship as quickly as you start it if you waste people’s time and don’t follow the aforementioned prescriptions.
With that said, the best practice to follow when contacting bloggers, whether you’re a PR person or an in-house marketer at a company in need of publicity, is to work hard for their attention, and keep at it. It doesn’t hurt to get an introduction from a friend you have in common if that’s a possibility.
Benchmarking for Outreach
If you want your outreach campaign to drive a profitable outcome for you, you need to set a certain benchmark and criteria for sites you want to acquire links from. Before you pitch to any website, make sure you ask yourself these questions:
- Is the website regularly updated?
When was the last time the blog was updated? Do the posts receive legitimate comments?
- Are they active on social media?
Do they have a considerable amount of genuine following? Do some Twitter searches for their domain name: Does their audience engage with and share their content?
- What is the Domain Authority of the website?
- Do they have quality links with a diverse anchor text ratio?
- Do they have an active newsletter?
- And do people subscribe to their blog?
- What is the ratio of guest posts on the websites?
- What is the ratio of content written by blog owners/editor? If the blog is dominated by guest posts alone, steer away – unless the blog is community driven.
- How strict are the guest post guidelines? It’s usually better if they have strict guidelines.
Once you understand what you are looking for, take the next step by doing some research on the sites you want to reach out to and if you’ve reached out to them, received any response and when to follow-up. This way, you can stay organized and scale your outreach campaign.
By working closely with a carefully curated group of bloggers to promote your services and/or products, the word-of-mouth marketing can be very effective and rewarding if done right. The key is to find the right bloggers within your niche, content producers who are just as passionate as you are about the topic.
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Great article. People forget how important social media is. If you produce the right content, your information will be spread across all platforms. Key is to make sure everyone sees it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting.
DeleteHi Debarpan,
ReplyDeleteyou give helpful advice here especially for beginners.
To connect with others is a good thing to do and you give
good tips what to consider and look for .
Thank you
Erika
Hi Debarpan
ReplyDeleteLove your thoughts on Blogger's outreach. Once a blogger makes up his mind to build a strong relationship, following your tips is sure to give a blogger so much success in his outreach. Thanks for sharing.
Hello Debarpan, You did an amazing job with this post my friend! It is so important to have a game plan HUH?
ReplyDeleteGreat Share
Thanks
Chery :))
Nice tip and also a practical way of link building.
ReplyDeleteHi Debarpan,
ReplyDeletevery detailed and informative post with lots of direction. This is so easy to do .. most people though won't follow through for what ever reason. Consistent effort, in my opinion, outweighs everything. I use myself as an example. The more I outreach to others, the more response I get. Very helpful post! Great to be visiting you ...