Right now there are thousands of
products out there waiting to be discovered and most are waiting for that
special blogger to send them over the top! Not convinced a blogger has that
kind of influence? According to Chief Marketer Research- 1 of 5 Niche
businesses not only utilize Blogger Outreach but thrive on it! Chief Marketer
Research also indicates that display ad spending will hit $15.4 billion in the
US this year, climbing to $26.7 billion by 2016 which demonstrates their
primary focus on ad spending for most companies to be increasingly digital. While
Nieche business, in most cases, do not have the kind of money to compete in
such a market they can get far more bang for their buck by utilizing Blogs! A
blogger can empower a product or business simply by providing content thru
their blog which will get picked up by their users, shared with their users
“friends”, increases organic web presence thru web crawlers which will read
said content and display your product in search engines thru relative terms!
IMAGINE for example you own a local
flavored nut company which offers a wide selection of flavored nuts. You’ve
been in business for a year and while you are content with the local business
you get, you have the web and social network pages (AND UPDATE THEM
CONSTANTLY!!) but you KNOW you can do better! But how? PPC campaigns get
incredibly costly, TV and Radio ads are running but you know that will really
only generate a few new local customers and print is a waste of money…. What’s
a cheap and EXTREMELY effective way to generate buzz? You guessed it! BLOGGER
OUTREACH!
HOW TO GET STARTED
WITH BLOGGER OUTREACH IN 5 SIMPLE STEPS!
1. Research to Find your Bloggers! You
want to consider the factors that are specific to your business. For example
the Local Nut Company; you’re a local small business so look locally for your
blogger! Local bloggers have an incredible influence on local customers not to
mention they have an already founded local following that you should be looking
to take advantage of! After you have
found your niche bloggers make sure you read their blogs! Know your contact,
KNOW THEIR BLOG!
2. Engage your Bloggers! You probably
won’t get every blogger you contact so be sure to cast a wide net! Send out
several emails but be sure to write each one specifically! DO NOT SEND A
UNIFORM EMAIL TO SEVERAL BLOGGERS! They can smell them and if they even get
opened at all I would be surprised! Show them that you made the effort,
compliment their posts, ask them questions about their opinions and make
specific references so they know you know who they are and what they post!
3. Work with your Bloggers! They will not
know your business, your product or your goals if you do not tell them! Let
them know what you wish to accomplish with the campaign, be their go-to source
for any and all questions they may have and make it very easy for them to get
answers. Offer to send them a free sample of your product to review or even a
few that they can send to their readers. Offer a guest blog post directly from
you the owner or a member of your staff to give a more personal appeal to the
readers. INCLUDE CONTACT INFO AND LINKS!!!
4.
Develop
a plan for your Blog Campaign with each Blogger! Who do you want to reach?
What kind of message do you want to send? What kind of information do you want
to be sure to convey? What kind of image do you want to project? Do you want to
offer discounts, give-a-ways or other kinds of promotions? Be steadfast in
having a core message and specific goals! Your bloggers are a lot busier than
you think and odds are they’re working with other local businesses as well so
be sure to keep your blogger hooked with more than just free samples. Offer
compensation based on conversion if you can.
5.
Track
your progress and develop a compensation plan for your Blogger! Nothing is
free, if you get a blogger to dedicate his/her time to writing a post for your
business for a single bag of nuts than more power to you, but even if you do-
how good is that review going to be compared to a compensation plan that
completely depends on the traffic the blogger can generate? All internet
traffic can be mapped with ease, it would be a cinch to assess how much traffic
to your home page, social sites and even calls that result directly from the
campaigns you have set up with each blogger.
