Guest post by Kristen Matthews
Unfortunately, blogger outreach isn’t a one size fits all brands. But this doesn’t stop many brands from reaching out to any blogger with a lot of followers and calling it “a job well done.” Finding the right blogger and having them produce the right kind of content for your blog is essential to a successful content marketing campaign.
Just the other day, one of my contacts was telling me about a fashion company that reached out to her to see if she’d do a product review for one of their clothing items. This wouldn’t be a strange request if she didn’t write about fitness. And trust me, the clothing item dying to be reviewed had nothing to do with fitness apparel. Bad fit.
And what if my contact had taken the offer to review this piece of clothing? Her audience probably wouldn’t have appreciated it because they visit her blog to learn about fitness. The clothing brand probably would have looked a little desperate because this form of advertisement would have stuck out on my contact’s blog like someone wearing a neon green t-shirt to a funeral.
Blogger outreach done well is based on contextual relevance. Once you find bloggers that fit snugly with your brand, the word of mouth marketing they bring drives traffic more than any fading outbound tactics.
Once it’s understood that bloggers are unique to every brand and often times, every brand’s campaigns, it’s pretty easy to locate the ones that are a good fit.
Get in to the head of your target audience
It’s a good excuse to daydream. You already know who your target audience is and maybe you’ve even developed buyer personas.
Picture an audience member who falls in to the genre you are targeting. Close your eyes and put yourself in the space that member would fall in to during the day. What trends and topics would they want to read about on a regular basis? Decide what types of blogs they’d want to read from their desk, kitchen table, iPhone, etc.
Pick two target post topics
Now think about the types of posts that would spark your daydreamed buyer’s attention. Would they want something informational on a new tool that may help their productivity? Is your target audience a mother who needs tips or inspiration? Or perhaps your audience member is a fashionista and just loves visually driven posts on high risk trends?
If your brand sells organic cookies, you wouldn’t just look for foodie blogs, you’d want to target bloggers who write about organic products. This narrowing down by affinity will really improve your response rate so that you can reach out to fewer bloggers but get bigger results.
Determine which stats are best for your brand
Bloggers have all different types of reaches. Most of them tend to be very active on other social media channels so those social media channels may be important for your campaign.
Food and fashion campaigns tend to be visually driven so often times I’ve seen these campaigns request bloggers to have a strong Pinterest and/or Instagram presence while other brands simply want bloggers with high traffic data or a decent Mozrank.
Put it all together
Once you’ve gotten in to your target audience’s head and have determined types of blogs and post topics that would appeal to them and have narrowed down an appropriate reach for your brand, it’s time to put it all together and find those snug fitting bloggers for your brand!
If you’re going to be doing a lot of blogger outreach a tool to streamline your efforts like GroupHigh can help you locate bloggers in your genre and narrow down by post topics and traffic, SEO data and social media presences.
If you’re still unsure about blogger outreach and don’t want to invest in a tool, you can always try Google blog search and read through the blogs or Inky Bee’s free version of their tool which is still in testing phase.
What do you look for when finding bloggers who are the right fit for your brand? Cheers to a good discussion in the comments below!
For more tips on enhancing your social media presence, check out Infusionsoft’s e-book, “How to Convert Fans and Followers into Customers.”
Kristen Matthews is the marketing and community manager for GroupHigh in Boulder, Colorado. She loves the collaborative elements of modern marketing so feel free to contact her for anything at Kristen@grouphigh.com and follow her on Twitter @Kristenwords and @GroupHigh!
This post Using A Guest Blogger Program and Finding the Right “Fit” was first published on the Big Ideas Blog.