Blogger Outreach: The Effective Way to Boost Your Campaigns

Blogger outreach is a process of reaching out to bloggers regarding possible partnerships and collaborations. Depending on your goal, it can be either about getting a backlink to your website, promoting your services or products, or launching a campaign.

It is a skill that many marketing professionals learn during the early days of their careers. Usually, in large organizations, there are outreach specialists who help companies find opportunities for external collaborations, link exchanges, and so on.

This process requires a consistent approach. If done correctly, it can bring several advantages and help companies boost their marketing and advertising efforts.

There are at least three main benefits of doing blogger outreach. All three of them are synergetic and can be achieved regardless of your main goal:

1. New partnerships. You can build partnerships with publishers and other brands. For example, something that starts as a simple guest blog exchange can later develop into a co-hosted webinar or a promo campaign, or a featured placement in a newsletter. Working together with an influential blog writer can open doors to a wider reach.

2. Search engine optimization (SEO). Blogger outreach leads to gaining backlinks to your website. In most influencer campaigns, promotion is done on social media and doesn't have a direct effect on your search engine ranking. If done correctly, a collaboration with bloggers can lead to a growing number of backlinks and dofollow links from authoritative websites.

3. Brand awareness. Not all bloggers are ready to include a backlink to your website and not all of them will participate in link exchanges. If you reached out to someone and they are not hot on the idea of a link exchange, don't cross them off your list. You can still get a brand mention and increase your brand exposure to a new audience. The success of your marketing campaign will depend on the number of touchpoints you can have with your potential clients and customers.

If you are new to working with bloggers (or any influencers in general), it might feel overwhelming at first. There are a few things that you can do to make the process less stressful and more effective:

Blogger outreach is similar to how you would reach out to any other influencer for your campaign. First, you need to set the criteria for high-quality blog posts.

What topics are you interested in? These don't have to be topics directly related to your industry. Your main goal is to find your target audience. They have many more interests besides your product and services, so don't disregard the importance of shoulder niches.

Before reaching out to a blogger, check the quality of their content and publication:

• How much organic traffic do they usually get?
• What is the quality of the posts they publish?
• How often do they have guest authors (if any)?
• Do they have any editorial guidelines?
• What is the website authority score?
• Can you check their ranking on Google?

When reaching out to bloggers, use different channels. Some people use LinkedIn while others prefer emails.

If you don't know where to find an email address, check the website's Contact Us page. If the website is run by a single person, they usually include their email address there. If it is a company blog that is run by multiple people, try finding a decision-maker or the author of the blog post that you think is relevant for you.

What is your end goal? Companies have different goals and ways to achieve them. For example, some brands need link exchanges, others are interested in guest posting. At some point, you might focus more on brand mentions and one-off collaborations while others look for long-term partnerships with bloggers. Every goal will require a different blogger outreach strategy.

While looking for publications, start creating a database. You can use either a simple spreadsheet or a CRM with some follow-up functionality. You can also use SEO tools to find publications where your competitors are mentioned.

No one likes cold calls and cold emails. People receive dozens of emails every day and it's getting harder to get noticed. Try using a unique angle when reaching out. For example, when you find a suitable blogger, check their LinkedIn profile and find out what they've published recently. Make sure to mention this in your email or message to make it personal. This will show them that you did research before contacting them.

It'll take you several emails and messages to get a reply. And this is completely fine. Some of them will reply, others won't. Sometimes a blogger might be too busy with work or go on holiday. Your emails can end up in the spam folder or get deleted by mistake. There are many reasons why you are not getting replies, so you shouldn't be discouraged by the silent treatment.

This is why follow-ups are extremely important. Make sure that you always think about the next action that you need to take with every new influencer. By trial and error, you'll find the success formula.

Reaching out is not an easy task. You need to do research, shortlisting, diversification of channels, and personalization. Ideally, you also need an SEO tool and a good CRM. On top of that, you need to follow up regularly and keep the conversation going.

That's why many brands outsource this task to influencer marketing agencies. Contrary to internal teams, agencies already have relationships with hundreds and thousands of influencers. They also have message templates and refined processes.

If you decide to partner with an influencer marketing agency, make sure it is a full-service one. In this case, you won't have to work on any aspect of the blogger outreach and can easily focus on other marketing tasks.

The first stage involves setting and defining the objectives of the campaign. Is the goal raising awareness or increasing conversion? A clear objective is a roadmap to success.

The whole process follows and requires close collaboration with the entrepreneur to creatively align the objectives with the audience's interest. Choose micro and nano contributors with high engagement rates. They should be willing to promote or review through their channels.

Next, coupons, vouchers and giveaways are offered to the audience through tracking links that measure the campaign's effectiveness. Measuring and analyzing data and feedback provides consumer insights to better your services. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail.