- Howdy Ninjas, it's Tim here head Ninja at Exposure Ninja.
And in this video we're gonna be talking
about Blogger Outreach.
what it is, how you can use it and the different
types of Blogger Outreach, which make it suitable
for a whole range of businesses you'd never think
could actually use it.
Let's do it.
(upbeat music)
So first up, what is Blogger Outreach?
So Blogger Outreach is a strategy that you can use to get
your businesses products or services featured on blogs.
Now blogs have taken a lot of the eyeballs,
of traditional media like newspapers
and magazines used to have.
There are blogs in all sorts of niches from the stuff
that you'd expect, like fashion blogs, and lifestyle
and health blogs to stuff that you really wouldn't expect,
like electricians, blogging about the products
that they're installing on a daily basis.
Pretty much whatever business that you're in,
there'll be some sort of blog, which is relevant for you.
Now, you might have heard about Blogger Outreach
and heard about some of the scandals like the Irish cafe
shop owner that banned everyone from going
into their premises who had a blog, 'cause they're worried
about blogger backlash, or you might have heard
of the blogger blackmail scandal.
But actually blogs have a lot to offer business owners
as a useful promotional channel.
The key is to know how to do it properly.
The basic principle behind Blogger Outreach
is if you love your products, and you have a great products,
then when a blogger tries it out, and they love it,
they're probably gonna write about it if it's relevant
for that audience.
And it's as simple as that.
The blogger has influence over their audience when they talk
about your product to your service that is likely
to influence their audience.
Now, if you're thinking the Blogger Outreach
is just for makeup brands and fashion labels,
then think again.
Actually, lots of businesses outside of the typical
kind of hipster friendly fashion scene can benefit
from Blogger Outreach and should do so,
because that stuff is much less crowded.
If you're a new makeup brand or a swimwear brand
trying to get visibility through Blogger Outreach,
it could be really tough whereas if you are selling
something that's maybe considered to be "boring,"
then actually, it can be a nice way of getting
some visibility because not many in your space are doing it.
So what are the different types of Blogger Outreach?
Well, type number one is sponsored posts.
With a sponsored post, you essentially pay the blogger
to write about your product.
This is kind of similar to the old advertorials
that you'd see in magazines, where the magazine will be paid
in order to run a piece about a particular product
or you might have seen in association where,
when you open the free newspaper, and the whole front page
is covered by the local vauxhall dealer
talking about the different cars and with these car reviews.
And you'll see at the top, it'll say "in association with".
Well, that's kind of the equivalent
of a sponsored post on a blog today.
The amount of money that you'll need to pay
for a sponsored post,
depends on the authority that the blogger has,
the number of followers that they have,
and a lot type of stuff,
and also what you're wanting them to do.
If you want this makeup blogger to blog
about your new eyeshadow, that's gonna be a whole lot easier
than if you want this makeup blogger to blog
about your new range of toilet brushes,
because it might not fit with the audience.
You're much better going for something like man versus food
if you're after visibility for your toilet brush company.
It's important to note that the Advertising Standard Agency
the ASA, requires the bloggers announce
when the post has been paid for.
So you're likely to see a tagline at the top or the bottom
which says that, "This is being part of a paid promotion."
The second type of Blogger Outreach is product reviews.
And with product reviews, you're basically sending products
out to bloggers in the hope that they like it
and they feature it on your blog.
And this is why the top bloggers
don't have to pay for anything.
They wake up in their bed, which has been sent
by the bed company in their lovely bedding
which has been sent by the bedding company,
they walk downstairs and they make their breakfast
in their kitchen company provided kitchen,
and then they go for a drive in their car company
provided car and they live their life in a completely free
and happy world, because people are just sending
them a whole bunch of stuff
so they don't ever have to pay for anything.
And you yes, you could be part of this.
Now, there's no guarantee that a blogger
is gonna feature your stuff.
So you might want to combine this with a sponsored post,
where you actually reach out and pay the blogger to feature
the product that you've sent them.
Type number three is the product feature.
A little bit similar to the product review.
In a product feature,
a blogger is just going to talk about your product,
they're not necessarily gonna feature it
it and run a full review.
So for example, if you're selling backpacks,
and you wanna go after travel bloggers,
'cause you know that your audience is travellers,
then what you might do is send them a backpack
and they will use it while they're going around
a tour of Barcelona, whatever, they might take some photos
and while they're on that tour,
and they might say, "Hey here you can see me
"in my Ninja Backpack."
So that's a way of getting featured you might get posts
on their social as well, but they're not necessarily
focusing everything on you.
You know, the typical lifestyle shot
with fitness influencer, who's got the protein shake
in their hand and they're looking really buff.
So they're featuring it, they're showing it
but they're not going all in and creating
a whole post about this and saying,
"I love this protein shake because XYZ,"
they're just using it as part of their content
that they're publishing.
Strategy number next is giveaways.
Giveaways are great Blogger Outreach strategy,
because they're a good way for you to leverage
that blogger's audience.
To here's how a giveaway would work.
You might send a blogger, a product to review
or product to feature.
And you might also offer them the chance for their audience
to win one of the things that you're giving away.
And you might also offer their audience
the chance to win one of the things that they featured.
This is great because you can imagine, you know,
here's an influencer holding the backpack
and they're saying, "Hey, I've loved using this backpack
"on my tour around Barcelona,
"if you wanna win one, click below."
And then you the backpack company will then run a contest
for that audience and they can enter the contest by engaging
on social media or clicking something
or submitting their email address or whatever.
So it's a really good way of getting
on that audience's radar because now all of a sudden,
they're thinking, "Oh, yeah, do you know what I do really
"like that backpack and I would like to win one.
"So yeah, I'm gonna win to that."
That's the first step towards actually making a purchase.
So you're on their radar, and they've kind of confirmed
in their own head, yeah,
you know what I do want one of these,
if they don't win the contest, then hey,
maybe they'll buy one down the line.
It also looks great for the influencer,
because they're essentially giving
something to their audience.
They're providing additional value other than just sharing
the stuff, you know, oh am following this person,
and they run all these contests to win this great stuff.
So there's a bit of an added value
there for that audience as well.
For fans of the real world, whatever that is,
you can also run blogger events.
I just wanna talk you through an example blogger event
that we've run to give you a bit of context
as to how this works.
So what we did is we were working with a hotel client
and we wanted to get more visibility
and attention for this hotel.
So what we did is invite loads of local bloggers
and influencers to an event which we put on at the hotel.
We invited local brands and also some large
multinational brands as well, to provide products and people
at the event so they could talk to these bloggers.
So it's a bit of a win, win, win.
Now our client got loads of attention for that hotel
because all of these bloggers came and they did a review
of the hotel While they were there and said,
"You know this is amazing"
The brand's one, because they were getting featured
by all these bloggers as well,
and the blogger's one, because they got to go to this place,
they got put up in an awesome hotel,
they got all of this free stuff from these amazing brands
that they love, and they had content to post on their blog.
So running, something like that can be a really good way
of building relationships with lots of influencers at once.
But also connecting with some relevant brands too
because we were working with some really, you know,
top, top companies and it was a great way
for those companies to meet other local providers.
The downside of these types of things is they can take
a fairly considerable amount of time and energy
and possibly money to organise.
So you need to know that it's right for your business
and that you can get enough people
there to make it worthwhile, but they can be a great way
of getting on the radars,
particularly if you're a local business.
So what about some of the pitfalls to avoid
when you're doing Blogger Outreach.
The main mistake that people make
when they're doing Blogger Outreach is they treat
the blogger as if they should be happy
to work with this company.
If you think about what the blogger brings to the table,
they're giving you attention, they're spending their time
and sharing your thing with their audience.
So they're not gonna just be happy
to do that out of the goodness of their heart,
there has to be something in it for them.
That's why a lot of bloggers now charge a fee
or a sponsored content fee for a feature,
or you have to be giving them something
which is so valuable, that there's high perceived value.
If I want you to feature my products on your blog
and my products is worth five pounds,
that's gonna be really difficult unless that product
is totally revolutionary, because the blogger
might put in a day's worth of work to take all the photos
to write all the stuff about that product,
and then post it out to their audience
and what are they getting in return?
They're getting a five pound thing.
So you've really got to think about the blogger as a person.
They are your customers in this situation,
and in that regard that always thinking what's in it for me.
So there has to be a justification for the blogger
to do that thing that you want them to do,
otherwise, they're just simply not gonna act
and your Blogger Outreach is gonna be totally ineffective.
Another pro tip is not to rely on one outreach email.
When you're reaching out to these bloggers and influencers,
they are busy.
Just because they don't reply the first time doesn't mean
they won't reply the second time.
But when you do contact them, don't go around the houses,
don't talk about loads of fluff,
don't talk about how your great auntie
started a business in 1902.
They don't really care about that stuff
that's gonna be relevant later on.
To begin with, you just wanna be very open about the fact
that you're looking for bloggers to collaborate with,
here's what you got, here's why you think
it'd be relevant to that person.
Make sure that you spend sometime checking out their blog,
so that you know what you're selling or what you're offering
is a good fit for their audience.
If it's not a good fit, they're not gonna feature you
just because they have high domain authority
and you want a fat-link to help your SEO,
doesn't mean that that blogger is gonna compromise
on their values and the audience that they've built
just to push your product.
So you've gonna make sure it's a good fit.
So I'd suggest reading through some previous posts,
making sure that you following people on social
and reading blogs in your space,
so you keep up to date with who's doing what,
and the people that are making the biggest noise online.
So I hope you found this guide to Blogger Outreach useful
just to recap, Blogger Outreach is a strategy that you can
use to grow your business by getting visibility
in front of a bloggers audience.
There's a few different strands of Blogger Outreach.
We've talked about sponsored content,
we've talked about product features,
we've talked about product reviews,
we've talked about blogger events as well,
and the different types of Blogger Outreach
are most relevant for you are gonna depend on the products
and the service that you sell,
and the market that you're going after.
You're gonna be a nice human when you're talking to bloggers
and you're gonna remember that person's perspective.
What's in it for me, is all they really care about.
It's all any of us really care about.
These bloggers are busy if they're successful, they're busy.
They're getting a lot of emails.
So cut straight to the point and make sure
that what you're offering is compelling
for them they actually want to say yes,
not just a do you a favour.
So I hope you found this video useful,
and if you need any help with your Blogger Outreach
or your websites digital marketing more generally,
then you can check out the Exposure Ninja free website
and marketing review at exposureninja.com.
What we'll do is ask you a few questions about your business
and your marketing goals will then put together a review
and plan of everything that you've been doing,
what your competitors are doing,
which is working particularly well.
And what they're not doing,
which you might be able to exploit will wrap
all of this into a 15-minute video which we'll send
to you over by email showing you where to focus your time,
energy and resources over the next six to twelve months
to increase the volume of leads and sales
that your website is generating for you.
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