When businesses and bloggers come together and create content for the promotion of products or services, it can be called blogger outreach. In blogger outreach, samples of a business’ products are provided to bloggers usually.
In return, the bloggers create product reviews or a series of articles for the businesses. In these articles, the bloggers try to influence their followers or target audience.
Blogger outreach is quite a new process. Most of the bloggers are in their 40s or 50s and others are relatively younger. Sometimes, working with bloggers might become a difficult thing. This may be due to a variety of reasons such as the type of content the blogger creates, the type of person the blogger is, etc.
But this problem can be encountered while working with or in hiring other professionals such as doctors, plumbers, engineers, lawyers, etc. It is the character and nature of bloggers which determine their amicability and suitability for certain projects. Selecting or assigning the right person for an outreach campaign can play an important role.
Blogger outreach simplified.
Blogger outreach is not very complicated, actually. If a person or business has a product or service that bloggers might love, the bloggers could be contacted. They could then be requested/asked to write about those products or services in their blogs and/or social media content. The bloggers can provide a link or reference back to our site in the concerned posts.
Blogger outreach can also be a good way of link-building strategy. The different bloggers provide links to a business website, increasing the relevant links it earns. But this must be done cautiously, as sometimes the search engines might see this tactic as link-buyback and might penalize websites. It should be done over time as the website gets a reputation and the bloggers must be selected in limited numbers.
One may also think that the bloggers might not care about our products. It may not be entirely true. There are a variety of bloggers, ample in each category and not just limited to travel, product review, fashion, food, sports, etc. Whatever might be our product or area of specialization, there might be a blogger who loves to blog about it. The only thing is to find and target those bloggers.
To summarise, blogger outreach is a content marketing strategy. This strategy can work for everyone, businesses or individuals, products or services. One just needs to find a suitable person for the task.
There can be varieties of blogger outreach. The type of blogger outreach depends upon our business and requirements. Some of them are:
- Sponsored posts
These are paid posts. Bloggers are paid to write and publish posts that talk about the products or services being offered by the business. They also provide links to our brand or websites.
Depending upon the popularity and influence of the blogger, the amount of money is charged. The amount also varies according to the type of post being requested or the specifics such as post length, research, versatility, etc. Before any commitments are made, it should be ensured beforehand that terms and conditions are agreed upon.
Also, at the end of such blogs, a disclaimer usually should be placed to let the reader know that the content was sponsored.
- Product reviews
The business sends a lot of free stuff to different ‘targeted’ bloggers. This they do, so that they get a favorable review in the form of blog posts, videos, or photos and posts on social media. If the bloggers love the ‘free’ product, they would love to tell this to the world.
- Product features
Like a product review, a product feature instead informally mentions the product or service as a part of a broader topic. For instance, a trip to a city might casually mention some specific taxi service and how friendly, affordable and convenient it was.
Besides the three mentioned types, other types can be used to engage with bloggers and get them to mention or write desirable blogs on our products or services.
Blogger events
Blogger events are organized so that real-life interactions with target audiences could be maintained. Bloggers, let’s say them influencers also, are invited to attend an event that showcases our brand in exchange for blogging about it. This has a huge advantage because we get coverage from lots of bloggers at once and it might give our product/brand the much-needed boost.
Blogger events may take a good amount of time and effort to organize. But the reward and the return-on-investment in such a program is worth the pain and expenditure.
The benefits blogger outreach offer
For a blogger outreach to be effective, it should bring benefits for both – the business and the blogger. If our outreach attempts don’t provide incentives, then our marketing campaign might not become much successful. Therefore, try to keep incentives such as free products or free trials of a service, for the bloggers.
The rewards for businesses in engaging with bloggers are many. They may gain backlinks, create a new audience, target a community that might show more inclination to use a product, etc. Bloggers devote years to creating a loyal readership or audience.
Post(s) or a series of tweets about a product or brand from the bloggers can help create a lot of social media shares, traffic, and leads. Such is the power of engaging bloggers. If the blogger is almost a celebrity and has followers in million(s), then it might act as a jackpot.
Therefore, all we need to do is to find the right bloggers, build good relationships with them, and we would have a relevant, ready-made audience to pitch our products to. This can work like a charm, especially for a small or new business that doesn’t have a huge online footprint or presence.
Best practices for blogger outreach
Some of the best practices (in concise form) for blogger outreach are as follows:
- Bloggers should be chosen with care. Choose carefully the relevant influencers who specialise in a niche. Before deciding, invest some time to understand a blogger and his ways, topics he writes about, writing styles etc.
- Popular bloggers might be hard to reach as they get hundreds of request emails a day. Create well-crafted concise message with a suitable and promising subject line in order to draw their attention and get a conversation started.
- Our USP (Unique selling point) should be emphasised to the blogger. What makes our business different from our competitors and how the blogger would be in an advantageous position in engaging with us; all these things must be highlighted.
- To build lasting relationship with the blogger, be transparent about the nature and scope of our offers and what is expected of him. This can help in effective and affordable ways to increase traffic and get more leads. Trust building from day one might ensure the blogger’s keenness in working with us. This also helps in sustaining relationships over the years and the benefits accruing from it.
- When one proposes ideas for sponsored posts or giveaways, the need for novelty and creativity is of paramount importance. It must be ensured that our campaign attracts the blogger and their audience.
At last,
Blogger outreach can work wonders if approached in the right way. The product or service should fit in neatly with the type of blogs being targeted. Misfit and irrelevant targeting of audiences should be avoided; for instance, talking about expensive clothing in budget clothing blogs would not work.