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What Is Blogger Outreach?

by Amelia Taylor, Branndet Marketing Group

Have you ever wondered how brands were able to reach their target audience before the advent of social media and influencers?

The answer is simple: blogger outreach. Blogging is a universal term that can cover things like journalism and personal opinions. While blogging is still around, it’s not as widely used because journalists are less accessible than social media influencers, and marketing as a whole has changed. However, platforms like HARO, Muck Rack, and Cision are great resources for publicists to pitch stories to media outlets.


Back in the day, brands would market a single product and its solution to a common problem rather than the entire brand. For example, Louis Vuitton, at the age of sixteen, noticed how roughly baggage was handled during transport. He went on to craft custom-designed boxes and later, trunks—he saw a problem in the market and provided a solution. Similarly, why was Chanel created? Coco Chanel grew up in a time when women were expected to wear confining pieces, but she had another vision. Chanel’s goal was to design classy garments that were as fashionable as they were comfortable.


Why was She’s SINGLE Magazine created? Founder Lisa K. Stephenson, while going through a traumatic breakup where her partner had fathered a child outside of their four-year-long relationship and physically abused her, realized that after exhausting her friends’ ears with her grief, she needed a support group.


This support group should be non-judgmental, kind, and open to allowing her to process the five stages of grief, no matter how long it would take. Needless to say, it took her eight years and one magazine later, a tribe of like-minded women, and now SSM is a safe haven for single women to lean on each other, cry, complain, and receive unlimited and unconditional support as they maneuver through singledom and dating.


All in all, a brand should solve a problem for its audience. Nowadays, it seems the only problems brands believe consumers have are growing their hair and clearing up their skin—it’s a new skincare and haircare line born every 2-3 business days. This will lead to consumer burnout, and when consumers have too many choices to solve one problem, they will usually resort to something inexpensive that does the trick. No celebrity name attached, no big fuss, and more importantly, no stan wars on social media. It’s simple and useful.


THE PROBLEM TODAY

While we do not expect to see one company having a monopoly over a particular industry or niche, we do want to see which company is going to stand out among them all. Amazon solved a nationwide problem when they first came on the scene, which catapulted them to becoming a household name—fast shipping.


Once Amazon was able to get packages out within 24 hours, or in some cases, the same day, other mail delivery companies had no choice but to change their business strategies to compete. We can say the same for Netflix. The problem? People hated commercials and having to wait a long time to finish their shows. So, no more ads; here is streaming, and here is a show available all at once to complete at your leisure.


If your company cannot specifically identify the problem your brand is solving, then you’re doomed, and you’ll likely be tossed to the wayside unless your prices are super competitive. But in cases like that, you’ll go bankrupt before you even have a chance to scale.


Social media is a great way to get your products out to a multitude of consumers, but to solely rely on it is where many brands go horribly wrong. Platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and so many more are a hazard for your company due to the following reasons:

  • They take a portion of your earnings: Along with credit card processing merchants, this means you’ve already failed at maximizing your profit margins. Always keep your expenses low so the revenue can be higher. That’s what makes a profitable business.

  • The platforms decide when or if your account will remain active: In other words, there aren’t too many second chances. One wrong move, and your platform is shut down, demonetized, or worse, you are banned with your customers receiving no notification.

  • No direct sales: Branding is how you ensure marketing by word of mouth, which again leads to you maximizing your profits while minimizing your expenses. If a buyer sees your brand on the TikTok shop, swimming among a bunch of other brands, they are not buying from you because they like your brand; they are buying from you because maybe your product photo is the nicest, brightest, and/or the price point is good compared to your competitors. But instead of telling a friend they got their product from you, they’ll tell their friend that the product came from the TikTok shop. This means that at the expense of your time and money for your inventory, plus additional money (because TikTok gets a portion of your sales), you’ve just provided the platform with free advertising to earn even more revenue from other shops that are not yours.



THE SOLUTION

So, what is blogger outreach, and is it a necessity for your business? Blogger outreach involves putting your content in front of relevant journalists and bloggers by sending them personalized emails. I'll be honest, this process can make anyone feel defeated because it's seldom that a journalist will respond or even show interest in your product or brand. The best way to ensure a response is to:

  • Cite a problem

  • Explain how your brand solves that problem

  • Cite a collaboration (we'll explain more in a second)

  • Cite the results from that collaboration

  • Offer to share your product with them


For example, let's say you are in the retail industry and you've noticed that on Ballet Tok, many freelance ballerinas complain about having to paint their pointe shoes black for performances and how time-consuming or tedious it is. So, you decide to start a business where you sell already black painted ballet shoes and ship them to companies nationwide for a low wholesale cost.


After doing this, you will need to ship the shoes to as many ballerinas as possible who will work with you in exchange for a Google Review on your business page. In your outreach to bloggers/journalists, you will cite the problem, where you saw the problem, and how your business solves it, referring to your Google Business Page reviews.


REACHING OUT

EMAIL

In this email, you want to introduce your brand and explain why it aligns with the blogger's content or the publication you are reaching out to. It's easy to just hire a publicist to do this for you, but as someone who has been in this business for over seven years, take it from me: most of these publicists are robbing their clients. They do not have the media relationships they advertise; most do not secure coverage based on relationships—it's pure luck from sending the right pitch at the right time using one of those resources I've mentioned above. The same resources you can access yourself.


FREE PRODUCTS OR SAMPLES

This is where it gets tricky because many business owners simply cannot afford to share free samples without some kind of return. Here’s the thing: you need a business where your branding is prominent. If it’s a t-shirt, do not send a plain t-shirt with your branding only on the neckline; send something that has the logo or branding on the front or back. We see this mistake made plenty of times. If you cannot afford samples as a new business, then you should not be in business.


Your first year as a business owner is all about getting the product out. That is the priority—you will not make money. If you do, that’s great, but don’t expect it in the first year. Also, don’t harass the blogger or journalist to produce an article about the product. It comes off as desperate, and you’ll be perceived as someone who does not handle conflict well, which in turn will lead many journalists and bloggers to believe you have poor customer service.


SPONSORED BLOG POST

Interestingly enough, many business owners are not privy to this marketing strategy, but it is quite popular, and celebs do this quite a bit via their public relations agencies. Offer to sponsor a post with a publication or blogger—this post can be provided by you or written by them. Either way, you can get in touch with media outlets and in the subject line, say something along the lines of, "PAID OFFER: Sponsored Posts Request | Judy’s Beauty Bar."


Once the writer responds, they’ll send a list of their prices for the article, and then you can decide whether or not it's something you can swing. More often than not, these articles will not be marked as sponsored, but be sure to ask for the specifics. She’s SINGLE Magazine does accept sponsored posts online; you can email Casey for more information: hello@shessinglemag.com.


AFFILIATE PARTNERSHIPS

Offering a blogger an affiliate partnership is a great alternative if you cannot afford to pay them upfront—but note, some may not be interested in this. However, don’t get discouraged; you should still ask. The affiliate program should be mutually beneficial and still requires a sample to be shipped. As a marketing expert for businesses, it’s not uncommon for startups to have no samples or refuse to give customers a free trial that extends past 3 days.


You have to be okay with losing money at the beginning of your venture. Every large corporation you know started off this way—it’s growth and then profit. You sink money into the business at the beginning with zero return and then watch it blossom after some time. Once it’s done that, you can slowly increase the prices of your products or services to start to recoup some of the money lost during those initial stages. At Branndet Marketing Group, we go into detail about this to give you a good idea of what you can expect during your time with us.


PRESS RELEASES AND NEWS

This can be very impactful because you need an outlet to support your business and build trust with buyers. News is just that—it’s something the general public should be made aware of because it’s either good news meant to delight, national news meant to inform, or bad news meant to warn. In this case, you want your news to be good and worth sharing because it's impactful.


Telling a journalist that you are the one millionth person to launch a beauty or perfume line and that they can check out your website and you are open to sending them a complimentary bottle just isn’t cutting it anymore. Solve a problem, collaborate, and share the news! At She’s SINGLE Magazine, you can submit any press release directly to them to be reviewed by an editor by visiting their ‘submit a press release’ page. You do not need a publicist to utilize this service.


There you have it, some useful information on blogger outreach. I hope this article provided you with much useful information. My name is Amelia Taylor from Branndet Marketing Group, and if you’re looking for a company to manage your business, we’ve got you covered.

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