Blogger outreach is an effective way to tap a relevant audience and introduce your brand to a whole new set of readers.
But there’s so much content floating around. How can one successfully put their content across to relevant bloggers and influencers? And most importantly, how can you use blogger outreach to grow your visibility? Learn the importance of including blogger outreach as a part of your marketing arsenal and how to weave a winning strategy to spread a positive word about your brand.
What is blogger outreach?
Blogger outreach or blogger relations is an essential part of a content marketing strategy. Everyone claims to create awesome and authoritative content. But if they fail to combine it with a sound outreach strategy, they’ll not be able to reach and engage your audience.
Through blogger outreach, businesses seek to improve their brand exposure by leveraging the enormous following of influencers. In other words, blogger outreach allows you to work with the top influencers in your niche to create and promote genuine authentic content, thus boosting your online trust and influence. In return, you can either offer them a fee or free access to your services or products.
Why is it important to conduct blog outreach?
Blogging is among the top three primary forms of media used by content marketers today. And why not? Blogging pleases search engines, establishes you as an expert in your domain, builds audience trust, feeds the social media strategy, and generates leads.
In fact, companies with blogs generate more leads, making it a valuable channel for marketers.
That’s probably why you have a blog, right? But is your blog delivering the desired business outcomes? If you are still reading this, then in all probability your response is negative. Trust for customers is as critical as product quality and value. Further, the survey pointed out that influencers and thought leaders are trusted more than brands or the content they offer.
Though blogging has been at the forefront of most digital marketing strategies, leveraging it for brand promotion has become ever more critical today. Customer response to brand promotional efforts is changing. Moreover, businesses have to deal with a lot of competition, making it challenging for them to stand in the clutter and earn customer trust.
Blogger outreach allows you to leverage the influence of thought leaders while helping with:
- Building relationships with your audience instead of merely pushing your content
- Building a strong backlink profile
- Boosting brand awareness, customer trust, and online reputation
- Earning social shares and brand mentions
- Attracting quality traffic
People’s ability to trust your brand is wired to a third-party recommendation or a social proof! Thus, having a niche influencer campaigning for your business is a smart (and cost-effective) move.
5 types of outreach you should conduct
When planning to undertake an outreach campaign, it’s wise to do some research on the type of strategy that’s most relevant to your niche. Read through the five types of blogger outreach shared below to choose the one that takes you closer to your business objectives.
1. Link building
Link building has always been at the center of a business’s off-site SEO strategy. If you look at the complete list of Google’s ranking factors, backlink factors appear right at the top as they form the basis of the Pagerank algorithm. Thus, link building makes an effective outreach strategy, allowing you to improve your online presence.
In fact, a study conducted by Ahrefs confirms the relationship between backlinks and organic traffic.
However, not all backlinks are equally effective in getting you closer to your goals. Make sure you pay attention to the relevance and authority of the linking sites.
Relevance
Links from relevant websites (related to your niche) hold more value. For instance, a beauty blogger would benefit from earning a link from an influential cosmetic blog or beauty magazine.
Authority
Say you’re looking for a search marketing consultant for your business. You have two prospective consultants, A and B. Consultant A is known to receive more backlinks from authoritative sites like Search Engine Land or Entrepreneur in comparison to consultant B. Which one will you trust? Undoubtedly consultant A. Backlinks from influential sites not only improve your ranking but also help you earn customer trust.
2. Guest posting
Guest posting is by far the most effective way to make your business website the hub of your inbound marketing efforts. Statistics reveal 63 percent of readers perceive blogs with multiple authors to be more credible.
Moreover, it’s social proof for your content. If an influential website publishes your content, they are, in a way, vouching for it. This helps improve authority, drive qualified traffic to your site, earn relevant backlinks, and generate leads. So go ahead and contribute to major publications relevant to your niche to get your brand in front of a relevant audience without having to pay a dime.
3. Content partnerships
The best blogger outreach programs focus on developing a symbiotic relationship with the influencer. Developing meaningful partnerships and co-creating content with an influencer can not just improve your brand visibility but also strengthen the influencer’s following. Further, since the influencer stands to gain from this relationship, they will speak passionately about your brand and content.
The BuzzSumo-Moz content partnership has been one of the most successful ones that comes to my mind. The collaboration helped both brands improve their following and most importantly analyze millions of articles to gain market insights. Influencers know what content works best for engaging their audience. Leverage the strong connection they share with their followers by partnering with them for content creation.
4. Email outreach
Email outreach is the process of reaching out to influential people with the objective of networking, earning links, or promoting your content or services. But how do you send an outreach email without looking like a spammer?
Not to forget, the dreaded cold shoulder every marketer gets after attempting a pitch! Almost 92 percent of outreach emails sent are ignored. Hence, it’s wise to send the right type of outreach email that not only helps you achieve your objective but also focuses on building relationships.
5. Social media shares
Has an influencer or authoritative website has already linked your content? Well, congratulations! But don’t stop there. Go ahead and share the post on social channels to amplify your reach and gain more social shares.
Also, set aside a part of your marketing budget to promote the content shared on their site about your brand. The influencers or bloggers will be thrilled at the visibility they have gained by working with you. That’s extra motivation for them to collaborate with you in the future.
3 steps for an infallible blog outreach strategy
In more ways than one, blogger outreach has replaced the traditional marketing efforts like PR and brand advertising. So, if you aren’t including one of the aforementioned types of outreach in your marketing strategy, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to develop meaningful relationships that can boost your brand reputation.
Discover and follow influential bloggers
First things first, make a list of criteria for the website or influencer you want to acquire links from. Use this set of questions to guide you in the process.
- What’s the site’s domain authority?
- How active are they on social media?
- How updated is the website content?
- Does it receive authentic comments?
- What are their guest post requirements like? Authoritative sites are usually strict about their guidelines. They are careful about the type of content they publish.
- What’s the ratio of posts from the blog owners to guest posts? Steer clear from blogs dominated by either. Opt for community-driven sites that offer balanced content from both.
In order to pitch to relevant prospects, look for people who belong to one of the following categories.
- Influencers/websites mentioned or featured in your posts. If you have linked to an influential site or mentioned a blogger in your content, it’s a great idea to inform them of the mention.
- Bloggers writing on a similar topic as yours. If you have an influential blogger sharing their knowledge on the same topic as you have, they will surely be interested in reading fresh content in that field.
A simple search on Google can help you find the top content contributors to a particular topic. Google’s advanced search queries can help you gain richer results specific to your niche. You can also use Ahrefs Content Explorer to identify bloggers who have linked to content on a similar topic.
First, select “Referring domains” to only show articles with at least 10 websites linking to them. Next, sort the results by referring domains (high to low). Finally, use the Site Explorer to examine the backlinks and reach out to those sites. Once you have built a list of high-quality blogs and influencers that match your industry and business needs, it’s time to draw their attention.
Get on their radar and make yourself known to them
All influential bloggers aren’t the same. On a scale of influence, say, one to 10 (10 being the highest), Gary Vaynerchuk may score 10 as he enjoys a large audience and has had notable success in his career. On the other hand, a website like Brand Meets Blog may score 5 as it doesn’t have a large audience but is actively contributing to its niche community.
Would you apply the same strategy to reach out to these prospects? Of course, not! Tailor your outreach the type of the influencer. For instance, an influencer like Gary Vee or Tim Ferriss may not even have the time to respond to your email. To get on their radar, you may have to do something really creative or (if you are lucky!) get introduced to them in person at an event. Conversely, if you are approaching a fairly influential blog, it’s wise to send a personalized email to improve the chances of a response.
Find contact information and reach out directly
The final step involves getting in touch with the identified influencer. Though it may seem easy to connect with a prospective influencer, this step is actually tedious and time-consuming. Most link builders use automated tools or simply copy-paste the contact details instead of investing time in researching about the prospective influencer. They have failed miserably!
That’s quite explainable. According to an infographic shared by Point Visible, editors of influential sites get on an average ten pitches per day. Plus, the email addresses shared are often non-existent or flawed as several lazy link builders take a blind guess without testing the email ID.
Use these quick tips to find the right contact details of the prospective influencer or blog:
- Go through the website’s Contact Us and About Us pages.
- Read about the blog owner or author on the author page. Most influential sites like Entrepreneur and Medium have a dedicated author page.
- Subscribe to their newsletter or email list.
- Reach out to them on their Twitter handle or LinkedIn profile.
4 types of tools you can use for blogger outreach
Though exciting and worth every bit of the effort and money invested, blogger outreach campaigns can be tiring and monotonous. In order to get the best out of your outreach strategy, count on blogger outreach software shared below. From helping you find the most suitable influencers for your business to tracking the number of leads generated, these tools can help you streamline your outreach efforts effectively.
All-in-one blogger outreach tools
Today, several blogger outreach tools are available to marketers. Each of these tools have their own unique way of quickly locating relevant influencers or bloggers, recording their contact information, finding trending content, and measuring the effectiveness of the campaign.
Prospecting and blogger research tools
Blogger research tools can help you look for influential blogs. Some tools can help you discover influential people behind the blog along with their bio. It also shares the number of followers and the social authority, a social metric that also takes into account the level of influence a user has on their followers.
For professional link building, you can also use combined CRM platform plus link-building tools to help you scale your link building efforts or other tools to streamline your outreach process. What’s more, some tools can even help you find email addresses, verify them, and allow users to schedule emails on their own end.
Social media monitoring tools
Social media monitoring tools help monitor various keywords in your niche, allowing you to identify guest blogging opportunities. Moreover, they can monitor mentions of keywords on social media, identify trending topics, and give you a peek into competitors’ backlink data and activities on social media. These social tools are a must-have for outreach campaigns.
Content tracking tools
Effective content intelligence tools help you track trending content, post popularity, influencers involved, and the number of engagements it has received. All you need to do is type in the topic in the search bar.
Blogger outreach email template
Here’s an idea of a simple blogger outreach email template for you to use next time:
Dear [NAME],
My name is [SENDER], and I’m reaching out today to ask you if you’d be willing to give [MY ARTICLE/WEBSITE] a look over and possibly add a link to your [PIECE OF CONTENT]. I saw you have experience writing about [X TOPICS], which is also my area of expertise. If you’re not looking to add links to other content right now, I’m wondering if you’re open to a content swap or guest posts. If so, I’d be more than happy to write for your website!
Let me know your thoughts. We can hop on a call if that’s easier!
Thanks so much,
[YOUR NAME]
[CONTACT INFO]
Summing up
A robust blogger outreach strategy not only connects you to the top influencers in your niche but also fuels blog growth and visibility. Use the insights and strategies shared above to build and implement a winning blogger outreach strategy for your business.
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Guest Author: Hardy Desai is the Co-Founder and Director of Supple , a digital marketing agency specializing in SEO. The company has offices in Melbourne and Sydney, employing a dedicated team of over 135 people globally.
This article first appeared in www.learn.g2.com
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