Five Guidelines for Pitching Bloggers

As a follow-up to my “Wrong Way to Talk to Bloggers” post, here is a list of things you should keep in mind when reaching out to bloggers:

1. Know who you’re talking to.
2. It’s a marathon not a sprint.
3. Stroke the ego, but don’t ingratiate yourself.
4. Don’t bullshit.
5. Make it easy.

   Plus 6 Tips that will make it easier

1. Know who you’re talking to.

This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s sadly the exception rather than the rule. The best way to do this is to follow the blogger you want to reach out to for a few weeks before actually emailing them. Subscribe to their blog and their twitter feed. Read what they write. Get to know them. Read their bio and about page. That way when you finally do want to reach out and pitch them a story, you won’t make any dumb mistakes like calling them by the wrong name, or mentioning a post they didn’t even write.

2. Blogger outreach is a marathon, not a sprint.

TechCrunch, Mashable, and ReadWriteWeb get hundreds of pitches every week. The better option is to reach out to lower and middle level bloggers who would be excited to cover your new product, rather than begging the top dogs to give you a side glance. This is the same theory that many of my friends use when seeking investors: don’t pitch to investors just because they’re the most visible, instead try to find investors that are as passionate about your industry as you are. You shouldn’t really have to do much selling at all.

Blogger outreach is the same way. There are hundreds of thousands of blogs. Why go after blogs with the broadest reach? Instead, reach out to blogs with the narrowest niche audience that aligns closest with your target market, then branch out and up from there. Make a hierarchical list of target blogs starting with the most niche and expanding to the least niche but in your market. Set a goal to reach out to a certain number every month, or every quarter. Don’t do it all at once or you’ll risk overexposure amongst overlapping audiences and bloggers who read each other.

There are tools out there like BlogDash that supposedly make outreach easier, but I haven’t used them and can’t recommend one over another. I just use good ol Google and Twitter.

3. Gently stroke the ego, but don’t degrade yourself.

Your goal in the first email is to make the blogger feel important and valuable. This should not be hard, considering the fact that they are inherently both of those things if you’re taking the time to write them a personal email. They have the power in this situation, and you should acknowledge that without ingratiating yourself like a hungry dog.

Good Example: Your little markup explainer was useful, considering I just started switching from XHTML to HTML5.

Bad Example: Your posts are so clearly written and wonderful! I absolutely loved the way you explained the new HTML5 tags! Genius! Are you single?

4. Don’t bullshit. Be honest.

When you’re in launch mode, you are so excited about your new product that it’s easy to forget how other people see it. Don’t make a bunch of crazy claims about what your product can do, or how disruptive it is, or how it is going to be the next X except better. Just talk about who it is for, and what problem it solves for those people. That’s it. This paragraph should only be a couple sentences long, and focus on value not features.

5. Ask for something.

Many pitch emails are just open-ended rambling about the product. Have a clear action that you want the blogger to take, but don’t be pushy. If you want them to write about you, say so. Give them reasons to do so. Give them ways to do so, and ideas to make it easy for them. If you want to buy an ad, say so. Tell them how much you’re willing to pay, and what you expect in return. Be clear and straightforward in your ask, and you will save yourself and the blogger a lot of time and frustration. But this is not the time for convincing them of the importance of your product, or the great “exposure” they might get from talking about your thing. That’s a deal-breaker!

Tips

1. Use RSS to keep track of the bloggers in your industry.
2. If you can afford it, offer to buy an ad. In the rest of the media world, advertisers get written about first. It’s just the way it works.
3. Sweeten the deal. Offer free accounts for them and 10 of their readers, or a discount for all of their readers. Offer to wash their car. Offer to buy them a car.
4. Don’t reach out until you’re really ready for users. It’s tempting to want to spread the word as soon as you reach MVP, but that could be a recipe for disaster. Visitors will stumble over bugs, and all the outreach work you did could be for naught. If possible, wait until you’ve tested with an alpha group for a couple months before advertising.
5. Keep it simple, keep it short. My rule of thumb: If you have to scroll to read the whole email, it’s too long. Keep it short enough to fit above the fold.
6. Go overboard. If you have time, make a short video for every single blogger you reach out to and post it on Vimeo or Youtube with password protection. This guy Max Yoder did this with great success. It takes a certain personality to pull this off, but it’s proven to be effective. Video in general is a much more personal way to talk to people. If you can, do it.

In conclusion: be honest, be grateful, and be nice. And have something worth writing about.

Thanks for reading,
Adam @Quirk

Before you go, here’s an important question: