Step 1: Find
The rst step in blogger outreach is to nd the bloggers you might want to reach. All of
the bloggers that you nd now may not be the ones you ultimately pitch, but rather a
starting point for whom you might want to reach out to later.
Find as many bloggers as possible in that industry. In some niches, you may not be able
to nd as many.
Either way, this step will allow you to get the big picture of the bloggers
in the space, which you can narrow down in the following steps.
Where can you nd those bloggers? It’s not always easy. Here are some resources that
have been used:
Blog Databases
You can nd twitter chats by searching for their hashtag, and joining in the scheduled
chat.
These are all great tools, but none of them were made for blogger outreach. They’re just
what exist, so it can be tough to nd the bloggers you’ll want to include.
Another option is to buy a list of bloggers. This is a lazy shortcut as the list won’t be very
targeted and you’ll probably still have to do most of the research. Lists also tend to be
very expensive for the value you’re getting out of it.
The lack of e ective tools is a large part of why we started Blogdash. It provides a new
solution for nding the bloggers that match your brand or product. You can lter through
thousands of bloggers by keyword, category, klout (online in uence) score, Google page
rank, location and much more.
Step 2: Research
This is the most important step in your entire campaign. The quality of your research will
determine whether you’ll be successful in your outreach.
It’s important to learn everything you can about the blogger for two reasons:
So what information should you look up? You don’t necessarily need ALL the following
information, but the more you can learn the better. Here are some questions you want to
be able to answer:
So now you need to get the answers. Here’s some information you might want to nd
about the blogger:
1. Recent posts
2. Geographical location
3. Social accounts
a. Twitter
b. LinkedIn
c. Facebook
4. Other publications they write for
5. Frequency of posts
6. Klout score (Klout is a measurement of someone’s online in uence.)
7. Network—other bloggers they are connected to
8. Site analytics—get an idea of their tra c.
a. Google page rank
b. Compete score
c. Alexa ranking
Once you’ve gathered all this information, you should know which bloggers you need to
focus on.
Narrow it down to around 10-20 bloggers. It’s enough that you can really make an impact
in the space, without having to disperse your focus across too many bloggers. If you
choose the right ones at the tipping point, when they write about you, the rest of the
bloggers will follow.
Step 3: Engage
So you’ve searched and researched. Now, if you want to increase your chances of nding
success in your campaign, you should begin to engage with the bloggers.
How much and how long you should actually engage with a blogger depends on the
blogger.
The more professional bloggers are comparable to traditional journalists. They’re on the
lookout for great stories and opportunities, so they will be receptive to a pitch assuming
it’s targeted and personalized. In this instance, engaging is less important.
Many bloggers aren’t so professionally minded. Their blog is personal…it’s their baby and
they’ll only let certain people in if they know and trust them. Engaging rst is most
important with these kinds of bloggers.
How can you engage with them?
Comment on their blog posts.
Especially posts that are relevant to your story, without coming across as “pitchy.”
Make sure you’re contributing sincere, comfortable and valuable comments. You
want them to remember your name more than your company, so that they recognize
you when you pitch them.
Reply to their tweets, and ReTweet their links.
Replying is the most important action on twitter. Same as in blog comments, you
want them to remember your name so that when you reach out to them, they recognize
you.
Replying is more important than retweeting. Bloggers, especially popular ones, tend
to glaze over ReTweets.
If you comment on a post and then share the link with their twitter name in there,
you’ll stand a better chance of getting their attention.
Email them.
You don’t have to wait until you pitch to make the rst email contact. Send them a
message to share your thoughts on their latest blog post. Ask them a question.
Email can be a great way to build an initial relationship. Then, when you actually want
to pitch them, you have the option of replying to the existing email thread.
Involve them in your project from the start.
If you’re building a new tool, conduct market research by interviewing bloggers. Get
them involved in the building process so they feel like they own a part of it.
You can also ask them for a quote that you want to include in a blog post. Or even do
a full interview with them on your blog. Most bloggers are really receptive to doing
interviews.
This will help you get their support early on, without asking for too much.
With BlogDash, you can create lists of bloggers, and respond to their tweets and blog
posts right there. Tracking your engagement with bloggers is really important so you
know where you stand before pitching them.
Step 4: Pitch
Now, the part you’ve all been waiting for… the pitch. All your hard work to this point can
go down the drain if you don’t do this part correctly.
But hey, here’s the good news. If you’ve already done all the hard work to research and
engage the bloggers, the pitch becomes easy. It becomes a “soft sell”.
There are several components to remember when pitching a blogger:
1) Write captivating email subject lines. As media relations trainer Michael Smart
reminds us, “The sole purpose of the subject line is to get the blogger to open the
email.” Don’t get too cute or sensational with your subject. Just get them to open it.
That doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want in the subject line just to get them
to open the email. If it’s not honest, and consistent with the message, you’ll fail fast
once they open it.
2) You must ALWAYS personalize the email message. At the very least, use their
rst name.
Sometimes, it helps to start the pitch with a reference to one of their blog posts and
share a quick thought on it.
The point here is to make it very clear that this message was written for them, and
only them.
Want a sure way to show that a message was personalized for that speci c blogger?
Send them the pitch in video format. Just you, in front of a camera, talking to the
blogger.
3) Remind them of previous connections. If you’ve connected with them before,
you could remind them. If you contacted them by email once before and they
replied, you may even want to just reply to that last email thread when you pitch
them. It will remind them that you spoke before.
If they don’t respond to your initial contact, it’s okay to send them another email in a couple weeks. Sometimes they don’t see it.
4) Beauty in brevity. Keep it short. No more than four paragraphs.
5) Be a knowledgeable and helpful resource. How can you provide as much
information and multimedia as possible while still keeping it brief?
You can attach separate les to the email message. If you insist on adding a press
release, it’s best to add it as an attachment. Don’t paste it in the email message.
It may be smart to use a service like Pitchengine where you can package and share all
of your PR assets with bloggers without including it in your email. This way, you can
keep the email short while providing all the additional information and multimedia
(videos, pictures, etc.) on your Pitchengine page.
Pitchengine will also allow your content to be found on Google. That means that
coverage opportunities may come to you.
6) There are more channels than email. According to Technorati, around 80% of
bloggers reported using Twitter. The most popular reason for using Twitter was to
promote their blog. 56% of bloggers link their Twitter account with their blog.
87% of bloggers use Facebook but only 34% of bloggers have a Facebook page
dedicated to the promotion of the blog
If you’ve done a good job of connecting with the blogger on Twitter or Facebook, it
can be e ective to initiate the pitch in a private message. Send them a quick direct
message saying “Hey, wanted to run a story by you. Mind if I email?” This way they’re
expecting the email and will be more receptive to it.
LinkedIn could also be a good place to message the blogger. If you message them on
these platforms, and they use them regularly, chances are they’ll at least see the
message.
"Some bloggers prefer receiving pitches through these platforms because it ensures
that they’ve connected with you before. Others hate it. Do your research rst.
7) Give First. Remember to make the pitch about the blogger and his/her readers.
Sometimes, a good story is enough. Other times, a blogger may need more.
One way to provide value is to literally give them something either to use, or to give
away to their readers. You could give them the product you want them to review, or a
free account to the site you’d like them to cover.
Another option is to send tra c to their blog. Can you link to their blog from your
site? Perhaps you can add a section to feature bloggers that write about you.
Sometimes, a blogger may just want payment.
The point is, the more clear value you o er them, the more receptive they’ll be to
working with you. Remember though, if you give them anything, they have to
disclose the relationship. It’s the law.
There is no single solution for all your pitching needs. The value in personalizing your
message cannot be stressed enough. That said, it can help to see an example of how you
can set up a pitch in a speci c situation.
Step 5: Track
You thought that was it didn’t you? Once you pitch, your job is done, right? Wrong!
This is where you start tracking the conversation and following up.
To be sure you know when the blogger writes about you, use Google Alerts, Tweetbeep
(Twitter alert) or other tracking tools so that you’ll know as soon as that post goes up.
Then you should join in the discussions and content sharing. Help them spread the post
across social platforms. Respond to any comments they get personally.
Even after it’s all said and done, they’ve written about you and you reported the results to
your boss or client, stay involved! You never know when you might want to reach out to
the blogger again.
Blogdash will help you track and report on your blogger outreach campaign as well.
TRACK
Schedule
Now what?!
So now you have a basic game plan for your next blogger outreach campaign. Easy
…right?
When you approach it the right way, it can be easy.
True, it’s still time consuming, but that’s where we hope to help with BlogDash.
BlogDash is built to help you go through each of these steps easily and e ciently. It helps
to do blogger outreach the right way.
Bloggers will even provide “pitch preferences”, letting you know up front what they’re
open to being pitched about, and how they expect to be pitched.
You won’t have to fumble around with excel spreadsheets anymore. Our list management
tools help you keep everything nice and organized throughout your campaign.
Whether you use BlogDash or not, we want you to feel comfortable with blogger
outreach. If you have any questions at all about blogger outreach in general, or about
BlogDash speci cally, email David@BlogDash.com any time and I’ll respond personally.
Happy outreaching!
The rst step in blogger outreach is to nd the bloggers you might want to reach. All of
the bloggers that you nd now may not be the ones you ultimately pitch, but rather a
starting point for whom you might want to reach out to later.
Find as many bloggers as possible in that industry. In some niches, you may not be able
to nd as many.
Either way, this step will allow you to get the big picture of the bloggers
in the space, which you can narrow down in the following steps.
Where can you nd those bloggers? It’s not always easy. Here are some resources that
have been used:
Blog Databases
- Technorati
- BlogCatalog
- Alltop
- WeFollow
- Twellow
You can nd twitter chats by searching for their hashtag, and joining in the scheduled
chat.
- Blogchat
- Journchat
- pr20chat
These are all great tools, but none of them were made for blogger outreach. They’re just
what exist, so it can be tough to nd the bloggers you’ll want to include.
Another option is to buy a list of bloggers. This is a lazy shortcut as the list won’t be very
targeted and you’ll probably still have to do most of the research. Lists also tend to be
very expensive for the value you’re getting out of it.
The lack of e ective tools is a large part of why we started Blogdash. It provides a new
solution for nding the bloggers that match your brand or product. You can lter through
thousands of bloggers by keyword, category, klout (online in uence) score, Google page
rank, location and much more.
Step 2: Research
This is the most important step in your entire campaign. The quality of your research will
determine whether you’ll be successful in your outreach.
It’s important to learn everything you can about the blogger for two reasons:
So what information should you look up? You don’t necessarily need ALL the following
information, but the more you can learn the better. Here are some questions you want to
be able to answer:
- What does the blogger write about? Also, what kinds of posts do they write?Reviews? Opinion? Lists?
- How “professional” is the blogger? Do they make money? Do they have ads? Have they worked with businesses in the past? (Usually, if the blogger has a more professional approach, they’ll be more receptive to pitches.)
- Who is the blogger’s audience? What are their demographics? (ie. Age, location, sex etc…_)
- Are they in fluential on other social networks? What is their total reach?
So now you need to get the answers. Here’s some information you might want to nd
about the blogger:
1. Recent posts
2. Geographical location
3. Social accounts
a. Twitter
b. LinkedIn
c. Facebook
4. Other publications they write for
5. Frequency of posts
6. Klout score (Klout is a measurement of someone’s online in uence.)
7. Network—other bloggers they are connected to
8. Site analytics—get an idea of their tra c.
a. Google page rank
b. Compete score
c. Alexa ranking
Once you’ve gathered all this information, you should know which bloggers you need to
focus on.
Narrow it down to around 10-20 bloggers. It’s enough that you can really make an impact
in the space, without having to disperse your focus across too many bloggers. If you
choose the right ones at the tipping point, when they write about you, the rest of the
bloggers will follow.
Step 3: Engage
So you’ve searched and researched. Now, if you want to increase your chances of nding
success in your campaign, you should begin to engage with the bloggers.
How much and how long you should actually engage with a blogger depends on the
blogger.
The more professional bloggers are comparable to traditional journalists. They’re on the
lookout for great stories and opportunities, so they will be receptive to a pitch assuming
it’s targeted and personalized. In this instance, engaging is less important.
Many bloggers aren’t so professionally minded. Their blog is personal…it’s their baby and
they’ll only let certain people in if they know and trust them. Engaging rst is most
important with these kinds of bloggers.
How can you engage with them?
Comment on their blog posts.
Especially posts that are relevant to your story, without coming across as “pitchy.”
Make sure you’re contributing sincere, comfortable and valuable comments. You
want them to remember your name more than your company, so that they recognize
you when you pitch them.
Reply to their tweets, and ReTweet their links.
Replying is the most important action on twitter. Same as in blog comments, you
want them to remember your name so that when you reach out to them, they recognize
you.
Replying is more important than retweeting. Bloggers, especially popular ones, tend
to glaze over ReTweets.
If you comment on a post and then share the link with their twitter name in there,
you’ll stand a better chance of getting their attention.
Email them.
You don’t have to wait until you pitch to make the rst email contact. Send them a
message to share your thoughts on their latest blog post. Ask them a question.
Email can be a great way to build an initial relationship. Then, when you actually want
to pitch them, you have the option of replying to the existing email thread.
Involve them in your project from the start.
If you’re building a new tool, conduct market research by interviewing bloggers. Get
them involved in the building process so they feel like they own a part of it.
You can also ask them for a quote that you want to include in a blog post. Or even do
a full interview with them on your blog. Most bloggers are really receptive to doing
interviews.
This will help you get their support early on, without asking for too much.
With BlogDash, you can create lists of bloggers, and respond to their tweets and blog
posts right there. Tracking your engagement with bloggers is really important so you
know where you stand before pitching them.
Step 4: Pitch
Now, the part you’ve all been waiting for… the pitch. All your hard work to this point can
go down the drain if you don’t do this part correctly.
But hey, here’s the good news. If you’ve already done all the hard work to research and
engage the bloggers, the pitch becomes easy. It becomes a “soft sell”.
There are several components to remember when pitching a blogger:
1) Write captivating email subject lines. As media relations trainer Michael Smart
reminds us, “The sole purpose of the subject line is to get the blogger to open the
email.” Don’t get too cute or sensational with your subject. Just get them to open it.
That doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want in the subject line just to get them
to open the email. If it’s not honest, and consistent with the message, you’ll fail fast
once they open it.
2) You must ALWAYS personalize the email message. At the very least, use their
rst name.
Sometimes, it helps to start the pitch with a reference to one of their blog posts and
share a quick thought on it.
The point here is to make it very clear that this message was written for them, and
only them.
Want a sure way to show that a message was personalized for that speci c blogger?
Send them the pitch in video format. Just you, in front of a camera, talking to the
blogger.
3) Remind them of previous connections. If you’ve connected with them before,
you could remind them. If you contacted them by email once before and they
replied, you may even want to just reply to that last email thread when you pitch
them. It will remind them that you spoke before.
If they don’t respond to your initial contact, it’s okay to send them another email in a couple weeks. Sometimes they don’t see it.
4) Beauty in brevity. Keep it short. No more than four paragraphs.
5) Be a knowledgeable and helpful resource. How can you provide as much
information and multimedia as possible while still keeping it brief?
You can attach separate les to the email message. If you insist on adding a press
release, it’s best to add it as an attachment. Don’t paste it in the email message.
It may be smart to use a service like Pitchengine where you can package and share all
of your PR assets with bloggers without including it in your email. This way, you can
keep the email short while providing all the additional information and multimedia
(videos, pictures, etc.) on your Pitchengine page.
Pitchengine will also allow your content to be found on Google. That means that
coverage opportunities may come to you.
6) There are more channels than email. According to Technorati, around 80% of
bloggers reported using Twitter. The most popular reason for using Twitter was to
promote their blog. 56% of bloggers link their Twitter account with their blog.
87% of bloggers use Facebook but only 34% of bloggers have a Facebook page
dedicated to the promotion of the blog
If you’ve done a good job of connecting with the blogger on Twitter or Facebook, it
can be e ective to initiate the pitch in a private message. Send them a quick direct
message saying “Hey, wanted to run a story by you. Mind if I email?” This way they’re
expecting the email and will be more receptive to it.
LinkedIn could also be a good place to message the blogger. If you message them on
these platforms, and they use them regularly, chances are they’ll at least see the
message.
"Some bloggers prefer receiving pitches through these platforms because it ensures
that they’ve connected with you before. Others hate it. Do your research rst.
7) Give First. Remember to make the pitch about the blogger and his/her readers.
Sometimes, a good story is enough. Other times, a blogger may need more.
One way to provide value is to literally give them something either to use, or to give
away to their readers. You could give them the product you want them to review, or a
free account to the site you’d like them to cover.
Another option is to send tra c to their blog. Can you link to their blog from your
site? Perhaps you can add a section to feature bloggers that write about you.
Sometimes, a blogger may just want payment.
The point is, the more clear value you o er them, the more receptive they’ll be to
working with you. Remember though, if you give them anything, they have to
disclose the relationship. It’s the law.
There is no single solution for all your pitching needs. The value in personalizing your
message cannot be stressed enough. That said, it can help to see an example of how you
can set up a pitch in a speci c situation.
Step 5: Track
You thought that was it didn’t you? Once you pitch, your job is done, right? Wrong!
This is where you start tracking the conversation and following up.
To be sure you know when the blogger writes about you, use Google Alerts, Tweetbeep
(Twitter alert) or other tracking tools so that you’ll know as soon as that post goes up.
Then you should join in the discussions and content sharing. Help them spread the post
across social platforms. Respond to any comments they get personally.
Even after it’s all said and done, they’ve written about you and you reported the results to
your boss or client, stay involved! You never know when you might want to reach out to
the blogger again.
Blogdash will help you track and report on your blogger outreach campaign as well.
TRACK
Schedule
Now what?!
So now you have a basic game plan for your next blogger outreach campaign. Easy
…right?
When you approach it the right way, it can be easy.
True, it’s still time consuming, but that’s where we hope to help with BlogDash.
BlogDash is built to help you go through each of these steps easily and e ciently. It helps
to do blogger outreach the right way.
Bloggers will even provide “pitch preferences”, letting you know up front what they’re
open to being pitched about, and how they expect to be pitched.
You won’t have to fumble around with excel spreadsheets anymore. Our list management
tools help you keep everything nice and organized throughout your campaign.
Whether you use BlogDash or not, we want you to feel comfortable with blogger
outreach. If you have any questions at all about blogger outreach in general, or about
BlogDash speci cally, email David@BlogDash.com any time and I’ll respond personally.
Happy outreaching!
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