A blog focused on helping bloggers and online retailers make more money online.

So last week, I talked quite a bit on providing product reviews on your blog. We touched on the reason’s why bloggers should provide product reviews and offered suggestions on how to get started in the field!

So, I’d like to give you a little perspective from the opposite side of the fence! Ever wonder what retailers or professionals are thinking when they are looking to attract bloggers to review their products? Well, lucky you! I’ve got a couple of examples of this in action, as well as some insights from a couple of different sources that I’ll provide to you over a couple of posts (don’t want to overwhelm you!). I hope you can take these examples for what they are and put them to good use when you start approaching retailers to provide quality reviews of their products.

I find LinkedIn Groups one of the most useful subscriptions that I get sent to my inbox. I get email updates on popular topics within the groups I have joined, and just about every day I can see what people are discussing and often chime in when I feel I have something relevant and useful to say. Interestingly enough, not too long ago I noticed a new topic pop up in my email from a Public Relations and Marketing-type group and it completely caught my eye. It was called “How To Pitch To Bloggers”. Admittedly, I was taken aback. I at first thought, is there really substance to this? Wouldn’t it just be like pitching to any other group you’re looking to retain services from? So I clicked. And was interestingly surprised at just how many comments were received on the topic.

So for your reading pleasure, I’ll run down some of the key things I noted from the conversation. Keep in mind, this is from the marketer’s perspective, but it’s very useful to understand what’s going on in the minds of the marketers or retailers when they think about bloggers as part of their marketing strategy. Here’s what was said:

• When it comes to your media relations strategy you can’t forget about the bloggers
• Successful bloggers have a targeted and engaged audience that you would love the opportunity to reach out to
• The blog’s community looks to the blogger as someone who represents their voice and provides new and cool insights into what’s cutting-edge in their niche
• You can’t pitch bloggers like you would pitch the traditional media, consider pitching more like relationship building
• Don’t pitch every time to all the bloggers on your list. Instead be selective and tell talk about things they are interested in covering
• READ THEIR BLOG! Know what the bloggers’ interests and areas of expertise lie
• Spend the time to individualize pitches to each blogger to help them better see how writing about a product will appeal to their readers
• Establish one on one conversations, never cut and paste into an email pitch
• Once you’ve pitched, don’t nag. If they don’t respond after a period of time, send a follow up message and leave it at that. If they do respond, don’t delay in getting back to them. Time is of the essence
• If you have the time and have the contact on hand, don’t send an email; pick up the phone for your first point of contact
• If you can, engage in the bloggers’ community prior to the pitch. Become a regular contributor if it can make sense
• Remember, there are two camps of bloggers; bloggers tied to a publication and independent bloggers. Be sure to keep that in mind when it comes to your contact approach. When reaching out to independent bloggers, be more calculated with your outreach. Rarely reach out to them in advance with news unless you have a solid relationship with the blogger and know they’ll honor the embargo

Interesting, huh? What did you take away from this? Have you seen this type of relationship-building pitch in action? Are there any red flags that throw you off as soon as you’re approached by a PR professional or merchant?

In my next post I will talk about ways in which these same professionals search for bloggers, and how they set up their communities to encourage product reviews and comments from bloggers who try their products. Stay tuned!