LogMyCalls webinar May 2014 !

How to get Bloggers to Write About Your Business

Hugh Anderson Co-founder, Inkybee

www.inkybee.com

What We’ll Cover Today

• Why blogs are so important for marketers

• The benefits of blogger outreach

• How you can get your business talked about by bloggers and reporters

• How to find the best and most relevant blogs

• 5 ways to reach out to bloggers/reporters

CONTEXT: !

The changing world of consumer consumption

Why blogs matter: stats• 78% of internet users conduct product research online.

• Greater than 70% of consumers state that blogs affected their purchasing decisions.

• Trust in online customer opinions of 70%, vastly outstrips traditional media.

• The average budget spent on company blogs & social media has nearly tripled in three years.

• There are more than 180 million blogs globally

Sources: Hubspot, Econsultancy, eMarketer, Nielsen

Why blogs matter

• Earned media = Trust

• Consumer point of research

• Engine that drives ideas on the Internet

• The realm of experts

• Panda/Penguin updates

Benefits of blogger outreach

• Precise: rifle-shot target audience

• Create loyal communities & brand advocates

• SEO performance

• Measurable: campaign & business

Working with Bloggers: Key Points

• It's about developing relationships

• You need to be creating compelling content

• It's a two way process

• You have to have a lead capture strategy

• It requires an investment of time & energy

Step 1: Set Objectives

• Know your business objectives (how much money do you want in the bank by what date)

• e.g. generate £4K of sales for ‘Our Debut Album’ by the end of July 2013.

• How many physical conversions does this translate into (total money needed / unit cost price = conversions required)

• e.g. get 571 people to download ‘Our Debut Album’ by the end of July 2013.

Target Audience

• Know your target customers

• Who are the people who are going to deliver the business objectives by actually spending their cash?

• Where do these people ‘hang out’ on the Internet?

• Why is this audience going to care about your offer?

Reaching out

• Be sane and be normal

• Follow on Twitter

• Read their blog

• Retweet occasionally

• Get to understand them

• Comment sensibly once in a while

• Behave like a friend

The content offer• Devise and create a compelling content

offering that will appeal to your audience (customers and influencers)

• Teach, don’t sell

• Educate, entertain, and be relevant

• Think about the expertise you have and how it will help your target audience.

• Prepare a content strategy

• No spammy emails or press releases!

Types of content• Videos

• Infographics

• Ebooks

• Interviews

• Surveys

• Event invitations

• Samples

• Etc.But, make it really genuinely useful.

And make it compelling.

Measurement• Weekly meeting

• Visibility achieved?

• Engagement achieved with the offer?

• Conversions to leads?

• Are the numbers going up?

• Discuss ideas to increase conversion

• Assign actions to improve now before next week

Finding the bloggers: What criteria?

• Big does not equal best

• A small highly engaged audience is likely to be better than a large disengaged audience

• Find the sweet spot: the “magic middle”

• 3 Principles: relevance, visibility and engagement

• And then look deeper: activity, social media presence, SEO indicators

Finding the bloggers: How?

Google blog

search

Finding the bloggers: How?

• Blog Directories

• Up-to-date? Ability to filter or drill-down?

Finding the bloggers: How?

• Other tools

• Not just blogs. Depth of insight?

Finding the bloggers: How?

• The Inkybee blog search engine

• Fast. Powerful. Insightful.

Finding the bloggers: Filtering

• Also drill-down by language and location;

• Then filter by activity and SEO factors.

Finding the bloggers: Review

Case Study

• ‘The Best Practice Guide for Effective Blogger Outreach’ eBook

• Released July 2012

• 12 main influencers

Landing Page

5 Ideas for Reaching out

1. Offer a “Giveaway” to their audience;

2. Product reviews

3. Shared content, e.g. an ebook

4. Competitions or event invites

5. Sponsored posts

In Conclusion

• Embrace influencer outreach - it’s here to stay

• Blogs are central to it

• Think strategic goals, not tactical gains

• Compelling content/story is key

• Be human - it’s about relationships

• Demonstrate value

Hugh Andersonhugh@forthmetrics.com@hughforth@TheInkybee

Thank You!

www.inkybee.com