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Blogging Outreach: How to Perfect Your Pitch and Get Published
Contrary to popular belief, your own blog isn’t always the best place to publish your most valuable posts. If you can get a far larger and more influential outlet to share your work, it could reach a potentially huge audience of qualified leads.
Unfortunately, convincing successful bloggers and influencers to publish your guest posts is not an easy job. The more popular and influential the blog, the stiffer the competition from hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of other guest publishers.
Nevertheless, you can give yourself an edge by focusing on the three cornerstones of successful blogger outreach. Each of which will help ensure your pitch makes it past the recipient’s inbox and is given their full consideration:
1. Carry Out Plenty of Research
Simply firing out hundreds of identical emails to as many publishers as you possibly can and hoping for a bite is a terrible strategy. Chances are, the overwhelming majority will be of no value to you or relevance to your intended audience.
It is far more effective to conduct plenty of research, in order to ensure you only target appropriate publishes. Do they regularly publish content along the same lines as yours? Do they have an established audience and track record within your exact niche? Are they based in a suitable location and targeting a viable demographic? Do they write in a voice and tone similar to that of your brand?
Frankly, it is a waste of time to target any publishers who are clearly not the ideal outlet for your content. Doing so will simply waste your time and theirs, so nobody wins.
2. Carefully Consider What You Have to Offer Them
While paying bloggers to publish your content is an option, it is rarely the recommended option. The same also applies to tangible gifts and rewards, or freebies of any kind. While this may be how most businesses get influencers on board, it removes every trace of authenticity.
Instead, therefore, you need to think about how the content you submit could benefit the publisher, if they share it with their audience. Will it help them attract more readers? Will it provide their readers with insightful information of some kind? Could it be the start of a mutually beneficial collaboration between the two of you?
Sideline your goals and think carefully about what’s in it for the publisher, as that’s exactly what they will prioritise when considering your content.
3. Perfect Your Email Pitch
Last but not least, writing the perfect e-mail pitch may seem like a daunting prospect, that can actually be quite simple. Above all else, you need to be upfront, clear about what it is you’re proposing and concise.
Don’t beat around the bush - get straight to the point and tell them what you have to offer. Make the e-mail as personal as possible, using the (correctly spelled) name of the recipient and demonstrating an understanding of their brand and/or website.
Nothing generic, nothing pushy and nothing copied and pasted. Every e-mail pitch should be written from scratch in accordance with the recipient, making it clear at a glance what you’re proposing and how they stand to benefit from it.