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Boost Your Brand with Effective Blogger Relations: How One Company’s Strategy Resulted in 35% Surge in Sales and Tripled Website Traffic

Discover the Power of Blogger Relations with this Real-Life Success Story!

Learn how a simple outreach to a popular blogger resulted in a glowing review, thousands of comments, and a viral effect that boosted product sales and website traffic. Find out how you can leverage the influence of bloggers to get nearly free publicity, valuable feedback, and higher ROI on your marketing efforts. Read on for the details and actionable tips.

Here’s a real-life example of a successful blogger outreach program: A friend’s company found a popular blogger who had spoken highly of the company’s product + brand. Just prior to launching a new product, the company sent the blogger a free sample, inviting him to review it with “no strings attached.” Long story short, after a back-and-forth conversation with the blogger during his review, he (the blogger) wrote a favorable review that generated a flood of comments. The company got nearly free publicity and feedback for a future version of the reviewed product. This blogger is trendy on a viral blog with thousands of followers as well as content that is syndicated. Product sales surged 35% right after the article/review was written. The traffic to the company’s website from the blog tripled (as tracked by google analytics data).

This successful blogger outreach strategy is just one example of how you can harness the power of bloggers to amplify your message and grow your business. By identifying influential bloggers in your niche, engaging with them authentically, and providing them with valuable content or samples, you can build strong relationships that benefit both parties. Not only can you get valuable exposure, social proof, and SEO benefits from blogger reviews and mentions, but you can also tap into their loyal followers and build your own community of brand advocates.

How to Reach the New Media Influencers

Media is one of the most powerful groups out there. Whether your a big company or a small company, developing relationships with all kinds of media is crucial for your PR campaign. Knowing how to pitch the media is also crucial. Most of the online media world hate PR flacks. The influencer’s such as review site editorial, niche bloggers, or the online and hard copy magazines all have different ways they would like to be approached. For example. I know of one very influential hi-tech gadget blogger that will not look at a PR email blast or a canned email asking to review product. Instead, this blogger wants people to get involved in his blog community first, then pitch him on his FaceBook wall or Twitter. He doesn’t have time to read canned PR email. He wants a 1-2 line pitch he can read FAST and from a person whom he sees in his blog feedback section that’s active in his blog.

How do you find the names, websites, blogs or email address of the influencer’s within in your industry?

Try these resources:

www.highbeam.com (Enables searching the blog library, RSS feeds, web to research facts, articles, and journalists in your chosen industry).
www.vocus.com (provides a web-based software suite to help find and manage key journalists, analysts, bloggers).
www.cision.com (Cision’s MediaSource software enables professionals to compile a general or TARGETED media lists online).

These resources can also have the value benefit of answering questions on how a journalist or blogger accepts pitches or how they like to be contacted. Bloggers are increasing within the media world everyday and attract millions of eyeballs. Within my company I have created a “Bloggers Relations” group inside the Media Relations department. We concentrate on these blogs and establish working, friendly relationships with them. When its time to actually pitch the product or service, our blogger relations people have an easy time convincing the blog editorial on our newest product or service. mediabistro.com is also a great resource for pitching tips and classes.

Utilizing a Blogger(s) to Spread the Company’s Message

A quick “blogger relations” example: A friends company found a popular blogger who had spoken highly of the company’s product + brand. Just prior to launching a new product, the company sent the blogger a free sample, inviting him to review it with “no strings attached.”

Long story shot, after a back and forth conversation with the blogger during his review, he (blogger) wrote a favorable review that generated a flood of comments. The company got nearly free publicity and feedback for a future version of the reviewed product. This blogger is a very popular on a very popular blog with thousands of followers as well as content that is syndicated. Product sales surged 35% right after the article/review was written. The traffic to the company’s website from the blog tripled (as tracked by google analytics data). Welcome to Marketing Web 3.0