How to Develop an Effective Blogger Outreach Strategy in 2021?

• Link Building
• SEO Strategy

Blogging has become a go-to content marketing strategy for many companies today. It is a low-cost high-return solution fit for businesses right from startups. And not only that, consumers trust blogs.  

But how exactly does blogger outreach benefit your business?

Benefits of Blogger Outreach

Expand your market reach

You can upscale your brand and perhaps target a new demographic. One good strategy is to find a blogger related to your niche that attracts a market as its religious readers. They can get their reader to know you better and they could even turn into your new customer base. 

Cost-effective marketing option

Budget is always a concern especially for startups that may not have the luxury of a lavish budget for marketing. The good news is that it doesn’t take much to execute a blogger outreach. You only need to take care of two things – you need to have really good content on your blog and have at least a decent reputation in your niche. These can increase your chances of the blogger saying yes to your request. 

Enhance credibility

With blogger outreach, it is easier to build your authority and trustworthiness to a specific group of people. Getting featured on a well-respected author’s post from their blog could do wonders to elevate your status as a well-known brand and spread your goodwill. 

Upscale your SEO

Link Building is one of the most important metrics of SEO. High-quality backlinks from guest posting can give you the edge when it comes to additional traffic and getting top-ranked by the search results page. 

Build Long term Business relationships

Bloggers and Influencers are willing to build long-term relationships with businesses simply because they can uplift their authority online, and also could have future content to write about. 

Encourages Brand Promotion 

It’s always easier if you can have other people promote your product. With blogger outreach, you can let other people do the promotion on your behalf. Here, you can simply just wait for the magic to work. You can focus your attention on other important aspects of your business.

Get feedback

With product reviews written by a blogger you handpicked, it becomes easy to build a solid reputation for your brand and your product. This strategy can even help readers convert into customers.

How to Prepare an Effective Blogger Outreach Strategy that would actually work?

Find Influential Bloggers of your niche

The first step for rolling out a blogger outreach campaign is to find the top influential bloggers of your niche or the niche you intend to cater to. You can start by doing a simple Google search with keywords catering to your niche. And more importantly, search for informational keywords.

Suppose, you work in the travel industry and want to write for a specific destination like Sri Lanka. Therefore, informational keywords around “best places to travel in Sri Lanka”, “Great Restaurants in Sri Lanka”, etc.

The next thing you would in your SERP is a number of blogs and authority sites. We need to focus on these sites, especially the blogs, and add them to your outreach list. The “Searches related to” area at the bottom is an added bonus for finding more blogs catering to your niche. 

Another method of finding bloggers is to use outreach tools like BuzzSumo, etc., and enter in a broad keyword that aptly describes your blog. If you run a cooking blog, search for broad terms like – “Baking”, “Dessert”, “Recipe”, etc. Post that, BuzzSumo will generate a list essentially focusing on their social media presence and more specifically, Twitter popularity. You can also sort the results according to various metrics like Domain Authority, Page Authority, etc. 

And finally, check out these blogs thoroughly, especially the “Best Of” section that enlists the best blogs in a specific category. 

Research for a List of Bloggers

Finally, you have a list of 20-50 bloggers to reach out to. And the next step that most beginners miss out on doing is blogger research. Because performing appropriate research on these bloggers can help you avoid wasted time on emails that are less likely to be reverted and ensure more success rate on the outreached ones. 

Keep things simple. Start with preparing a database. It should include 6 essential elements for entry – Name, Website name, Total social media followers(focus more on Twitter), Domain Authority, Engagement on each of the social media posts(comments). You can add more details based on your requirement. 

You can use tools like Buzzstream, BuzzSumo to find this information and add it to your spreadsheet or you can directly add it to your ‘People’s list’ in Buzzstream. 

Social media followers need not be the total of all platforms but the one in which they are most active and have an engaging set of followers. If they run a tech blog, they might have an active Twitter, if it’s a health and fitness blog it’s got to be Pinterest or Instagram. How to check the engagement they have on their blogs? Comments especially on their social media posts give you a clear idea if your blogger has built up a strong active community. Because, there could be bloggers with a huge number of followers, but could get nil engagement on publishing a post, hence it is important to have a good community network in their following.

Get them to know you

Before you dive into their email inbox, let them know that you exist. Because they are more likely to respond to you if they have heard about you before. No rocket science, just a simple approach. 

Follow and engage with them on social media. Leave helpful, insightful comments on their posts that add to the discussion. Also share their content by mentioning something peculiar about their post. You can also try mailing them with a personalized approach, but at the same time, don’t really ask for anything in the first contact. Just appreciate what you find good about their blog. This could really work well if they know you already. If they reply, it would be great, if they don’t, no worries. You could always use the trial method. 

Reach Out to the Bloggers on your List

I. Sponsored Posts

These are posts that are paid to either publish or to write as well as publish, with links to your brand website. Ideally, it is a rule that the blogger must always declare when they’ve received money for the post with a disclaimer at the end/starting of the post stating it. 

These bloggers usually have a “write for us” page or feature “Guest Posts” from different authors of their niche. You would most of their contact information from there. Next, look out for what content performs best on their blog for example, “Guides”, “Infographic”, etc. And then finally, reach out to them with your pitch. Use brief pointers and also offer them an outline after that so that they have an idea of what content you’re trying to offer. 

II. Sharing of Content via Influential Bloggers

If you want to give your content more visibility, reach out to influencers that share content just like yours. But note while reaching out that you shouldn’t directly ask for a share. 

Your email script should go something like this:

Hi [Name],

I recently published [the content with a brief description]. 

I have observed that you have an interest in this topic[elaborate about their interest], and I thought you might want to check it out. 

[Link]

I hope you will enjoy reading it.

Thanks,

[Your Name]

III. Authority Blogs

You can get backlinks from authority blogs by asking for a link back to your content. But the main thing to remember is that the content you have produced must relate to their content. In other words, you must specify the exact page on which you would want to link your content. And of course, it must be brief and to the point – no one likes lengthy emails. 

Why Most Blogger Outreach Campaigns Fail

There are many mistakes you can make that would result in a failed campaign. 

Using Email Templates

Let’s be honest, mainstream email templates for outreach are a thing of the past. And influencers without hesitation could hit the trash button because they can spot templates immediately. This could leave you with a bad impression. Try to give it a more personalized touch. 

No personalization

Take some time to know them and their blog, and always address them by their first name. If your email starts with something like “Dear Sir/Madam” or just “Hey” then you inevitably have poor chances of even getting a revert back. 

Being too pushy

You shouldn’t really be asking for the backlinking or posting in the first email itself. Asking too early for something could be a turn-off and no blogger is going to hook you up without knowing who you are or you haven’t helped with something. Make sure you give a brief about yourself first. 

Conclusion

Regardless of whether you are an experienced or a new blogger, you should have a clear direction for your blogger outreach campaign by now. Starting a blog is easy, but growing it is a different story. Networking with established bloggers and influencers provides a faster way to put your brand out there and reach your goals. Make sure you try these strategies!

Hire Us for Blogger Outreach

If you wish to hire a blogger outreach company that has a widened reach to bloggers of a variety of niches, IndianMarketers could be your right choice! 

Our professional outreach service would take care of everything right from researching to executing the outreach until it is successfully published on your blog. 

Avail our Services today!