A common PR tactic is to get influential bloggers to review a company’s products in hopes their readers would be interested. This can lead to a ton of sales as the bloggers’ loyal readers generally trust their opinions. After all, if you read someone’s thoughts day in and day out, chances are you feel like you know them. If they say it’s good, it has to be good!
But the problem many companies run into is how exactly they get bloggers to actually review their stuff. It seems like it would be easy to hand a new product over to somebody for free in hopes they talk about it, but it’s rarely that simple. For one, you’re one of many companies doing the exact same thing, and that popular blogger you adore gets these requests every day. They can’t review everything.
Try the following tips for a better chance of getting your product on the blogs of influential writers all over the internet.
1. Find bloggers whose readers will appreciate your products
Sending out emails willy-nilly is never the way to go. If you’re just compiling a huge list of random bloggers with a high Google PageRank to message in the hopes they will review your stuff on your WePay Store, well, you’ve lost already.
The bloggers you approach with this tactic should be ones whose readers will immediately identify with what you’re selling. If you want the blogger to review your new food processor, you don’t send emails to bloggers who talk about computers. They literally have no interest in your product and neither do their readers.
They’ll appreciate the free stuff, of course. They just won’t talk about it on their blogs.
2.) Tailor your approach directly to them
Another common mistake companies make when approaching bloggers is to send out “blank slate” emails. They don’t bother to research the blogger at all; they just jot down a ton of email addresses and toss out as many emails they can in a day and hope for the best.
Obviously this isn’t the way to go. We all want to feel special, even if we know the other person is faking it. If you take the time to tell a blogger, “Hey, I really like your last blog post about so and so” or “I noticed on your Twitter you said etc.” then they know you took the extra step to get to know them first. And for pete’s sake, call the blogger by name. Nobody likes a “To Whom it May Concern.”
3.) Follow up
Bloggers are busy people. You may have written a blog or two and think you know how much work it takes, but when your entire livelihood involves writing all day, every day, you get a little swamped. So if you’re wondering why a blogger never responded to your inquiry, it may have been because they were banging their head on the keyboard at the time trying to figure out an ending to their 15th blog post that day.
So cut ‘em a little slack. Follow up with another email a week or two later. You may catch them at a better time or just remind them that, yeah, they did get your email and meant to respond.
4.) Always do what you say you’re going to do
This is an absolutely vital point. At no point can you “drop the ball” with your promises to give a blogger free stuff to review. If you do, both you and the blogger can look bad. At that point, the relationship is dead.
Say you find a blogger willing to review your food processor. They’re naturally excited about it so they tease their audience with the review. If you flake and never send the actual product, they’re left out in the cold. They don’t have a piece and you don’t have a review. The audience thinks both of you are flakes, even if they offer a hasty apology.
Remember to follow through on your promises and you’ll be good to go.
Have you ever found success getting a blogger to review your product?
