5 Steps to Build Partnership with Bloggers

This decade is all about marketing using some uncommon techniques. People are so used to the old marketing techniques that they have become very good at avoiding them.

When marketing experts introduced banner ads in the last decade, the CTR was very high. A well-designed banner was receiving around 70% CTR. Soon, it has become so much common that people have started to ignore it. The worst thing is that they do it subconsciously. If they’re reading an article, the eyes automatically go to the starting word of the article. Rest of the things get ignored.

4–5 years ago, marketers have discovered a new marketing technique — influencer marketing. The reason I am using discover, not invented because it existed for years, but no one paid attention to it. With the growth of social media, influencer marketing is getting more and more popular. Various surveys show that more than 40% of people buy a product because s/he saw someone using the same product on social media.

This story is not on influencer marketing but I have brought the topic because it shows how people decisions are affected by platforms like social media, websites, online reviews, etc. 88% people read the reviews before buying a product.

The question is how can you use this for your benefit? Either you can spend several thousand on advertising or you can use the power of peer-based decision for your benefit.

Bloggers are one of the best options you can have for partnership. Reaching out to bloggers in your niche and asking them to write about your product on their blog is one of the best things to increase brand awareness. Hubspot is great at it. Apart from getting customers via its own articles, it has a pool of bloggers who regularly write about Hubspot on their blogs.

A good personal blog has around 10,000 subscribers and around 30,000 unique users per month. The data can vary based on the niche. Fashion blogs receive more views. If you build a partnership with only 5 bloggers than the chances are that your product will be seen by 150,000 per month. Not to mention that Google will find about your product from multiple websites and will give it a better authority.

But building partnership with bloggers are really easy?

You and I often forget what partnership actually means. It is for benefit of both. You should get the benefit and person on the other side should also. If you’re asking a blogger to write about your product then you should have something to give in return (not necessarily money). It could be free access to your product, some affiliate links, or even sharing his blog on your social media. You really need to come up with a way to make the offer irresistible.

So, how can you reach out to them?

Step 1 — Subscribe to their Newsletter

How to reach out the blogger is really crucial. If you cold-email your blogger with the offer then chances are that he’ll ignore your email. Bloggers get more than 100 emails a day and replying to all of them is not feasible.

To break this barrier, you need to do a favor for him. No blogger in the world says that he doesn’t like his newsletter list growing. If you’ve subscribed to it then the blogger already likes you.

Step 2 — Reply on the Autoresponder

We all get autoresponder whenever we sign up for a blog. To reach out to the blogger, reply on that autoresponder. Don’t change the subject line. Keeping the same subject line will attract the bloggers’ attention as they’re the one who chose that subject line for the autoresponder.

Step 3 — Compliment

We all like it when someone says that our product is good. Bloggers are people like us. A sweet compliment will not do any harm. Don’t use phrases like “your blog is awesome”. Make the compliment personal. Compliment what you’ve learned by reading one of his articles. If you read an article on how to wake up early, you can tell the blogger that you can actually wake up early by following his techniques and the things you achieved by waking up early.

Step 4 — Start with a Question

There’s a very good chance that he will reply to your compliment within 1–2 days. If you don’t then follow up 2–3 times. If still you don’t receive any reply then move on.

A simple “thank you” reply is a good start. Reply to that email and ask only one question.

The question can be like — I am wondering if we two can do something that’ll help us both. I am launching a new product and would love if you can write about it. As a return, I’ll be glad to give you 30% commission on each customer that comes via [blog name].

Make sure that you end the email with a question. Don’t write things like “looking forward to hearing from you”, “Please reply”, etc. People hate that. Write “Are you up for this”, “Can we have a Skype call at 3 PM on Thursday to discuss this”, etc. perform better.

Step 5 — Follow Up

If the blogger says “yes”, you don’t need to read this step.

If your offer is not appealing then you will not get any reply from the blogger. If the blogger is a generous guy then he’ll turn down the offer by giving a nice reply.

You need to make 2–3 different offers in the subsequent follow-up email so that you get the most out of your effort. All of the efforts till step 4 will be lost if the blogger doesn’t reply you.

I am Vaibhav, co-founder of I Innovate magazine, and I write stories. Tell me in the comment if this method helped you in any way.

This story first published on I Innovate magazine.