Soliciting bloggers is tricky. These are real people you’re dealing with after all. And unlike buying ad space from the ye-olde-Google machine, having a blogger or influencer carve out some space for your brand requires a special kind of human touch. We work with several of our clients on doing blogger outreach right. Many clients want to do this because of all the benefits blogger outreach brings.
Let’s take a look at work we did with a nationally recognized publisher. In support of their young adult reading campaign, the client only had a handful of weeks to put together a strong list of bloggers to help support the weeklong young adult reading initiative.
They needed to get the right bloggers on board, and they needed to lock them without delay.
We worked with them in crafting the right solicitation strategy, and we’re going to share this strategy with you right here:
The Golden Rule
Before we get started, remember that you need to treat people like well, people. It might seem like an obvious statement, but we sometimes forget that there is another person on the other end of the computer screen. Not literally of course. If some random person emailed you out of the blue with a curt attitude would you respond? Probably not.
When we reached out to bloggers for this campaign we made sure to always be friendly and polite. As we do with all of our campaigns. By treating people the way you want to be treated, you are far more likely to get a response.
Cater to the Individual
This human touch doesn’t just extend to how you say things, but also what you say. Most bloggers are aware that you are sending out some variation on a prefab email, but that is no excuse to sound like a robot. It may seem time consuming, but reading through their blog beforehand helps to craft a personalized message.
When looking at different blogs for this client we made sure they covered young adult books relevant to the campaign. There is no point in reaching out to people who aren’t an authority on what you are promoting.
Not only does it help weed out irrelevant blogs, but it also allows you to complement their work. We always made a point of commenting on a well written review or post in our initial outreach.
Do Your Research
On a similar note, making sure you are aware of each blog’s offerings is a must. Many blogs will have a page dedicated to what kind of promotions they are open to. You will find blogs that won’t take any money all the way to ones with their prices listed right on the page.
When working on this campaign, we found that bloggers were much more responsive when we made sure to acknowledge their business model in the intro email. Not only did this make them feel like we were paying attention, but also helped to expedite the process.
Be Available and Responsive
Given that the client only had a small window of time to get bloggers on board it was very important that we made sure to stay in contact. By quickly and consistently responding to bloggers emails we ensured that things would run smoothly.
Not only did things run smoother, but we also showed that we cared about fostering a partnership. We know that we have a good group of bloggers to reach out to for similar campaigns in the future. Not having to do another search later on is always a plus!
Keep the Momentum Going
By following these steps the young adult reading campaign went great! We were able to gather a solid group of bloggers in a timely manner. But we didn’t stop with just the tips listed above. Each blogger you interact with may call for an altered approach. So it’s always good to be flexible as you go.
Like the advice you see here and want more? Give us a call at 855.628.6278 or visit us online.
