How to Pitch a Blogger

I have been the editor in chief of two industry trades and a blogger for almost five years. i have seen thousands of press releases and by-and-large they are pretty uninteresting. Actually most of the ones Iread end up being pretty much a waste of my (and the sender’s) time.

When email became widely accepted the abuse of the press release escalated. It made it easy for PR professionals to blast their press releases to anyone that might even have a remote interest in their story. That has lead to an increased level of noise in communication.You need to stand out to get your message across. You need to be more effective in your communication.

I wrote this guide because i thought the following might help reduce the amount of “junk” email I receive and help improve the way news is distributed to the blogosphere and even traditional media. Maybe my assumptions are wrong and I welcome feedback from other bloggers.

Introduction

As a PR person you probably know how to pitch traditional journalist(though I can give you at least a hundred of examples of your brethren that aren’t doing such a good job). You probably have realized that the new influencers on the web are bloggers. You and your clients should pay attention to them just as you would the traditional media.

Bloggers can not only raise awareness and provide third-party validation but we also help your search engine optimization (SEO) and overall web traffic. They communicate in way that amplifies their voice and allows people to click right to your customer instantly,that’s powerful. This is what’s often referred to as viral marketing, it can have a huge impact with very little upfront investment, often nothing more than your time.

Traditional media websites usually attempt to captivate their audience and not forward them away from their site. A glowing review for your product may only yield small benefits if there isn’t an easy path tofind the reviewed product or service. In contrast a blogger will likely link right to the relevant information on your website.

The following guide should help your blogosphere savvy and improve your success getting your message to the people who communicate with your buyers

Press Releases Are Dead, Try News Releases

Well they aren’t dead but the traditional style and format are not ideal in the electronic age. You probably will send press releases ina conventional way for the news wires because that’s what is expected of you. However,let’s look at ways to get your news into the hands of a blogger.

The blogger medium is HTML not print so make your content HTML friendly include links in your emails , lots of them and don’t use fancy styles or images that will make us do extra work. We will likely copy and paste the relevant information, having a well-formatted email makes it easier for bloggers to link to you news.

Beyond the traditional format you need to take a look at what really is remarkable, in other words is your news worth commenting on? For example, if you are the first one to develop a commercially viable way to achieve cold fusion that’s remarkable. If you are the fiftieth person to sign a partnership with a company that is identical in terms to everyone else, that’s not very remarkable. (Read Seth Godin’s Purple Cow if you want to find out about remarkable.)

Manufacture News

I think that the distinguishing factor between a good PR firm and a great one is the ability to manufacture news. I don’t mean make up things, I mean tell a story that’s relevant.

For example, if you make security software and a story breaks on the evening news about an electronic security breach at a major bank, be opportunistic. If your client/company’s product helps prevent the same thing from happening develop a communique telling what the problem is what the solution is and then ways you can help others avoid such a catastrophe.

[Update 9/10/2007 -Thanks to David for the following update]

Don’t tell us what your product does (that’s boring and usually just goes down a rat hole of gobbledygook). Instead, tell us how your company solves problems for your customers.

Also, bloggers are likely to comment on the story as it’s unfolding,sending an email to them as they comment on the evening news might get you mentioned and picked up by others who are commenting on the story.

The key to getting pickups is to make sure the story stands on its own without your product pitch. If it does and your product’s included as part of the story it’s likely people will investigate what you have to offer.

Blogger Release Format

Even though bloggers or citizen journalists are different from traditional pubs they are still interested in writing a useful story or offering insight. That’s why your pitch should be in a format that makes it easy for them to digest the news.Avoid ostentatious claims and use natural sounding language like you were talking to a friend. Avoid extraneous technobabble that clouds your story.

My advice is to send a simply formatted HTML email with the following format.

Salutation

One of the best ways to catch someone’s attention add their name, and the name of their blog during the lead-in to your pitch. It’s no different than calling someone by name in a regular conversation, it grabs their attention and helps let them know this is not spam. Plus it demonstrates that you are smart enough to use mail merge.

Dear Mark,

I enjoy reading your open source blog, EncoreOpus, and I thought you may have interest in the following open source news.

The Six W^s of Blogger Releases

When writing journalists are taught to capture the Six Ws - Who, What, When, Where, ,How, and Why.So why not make these elements easy to pick out. Drop the standard positioning statement too, we don’t care if about positioning unless you are the first, best, or only solution in your field (and even then you better be able substantiate your claim). If you use the term next-generation or leading provider as your lead in, the release is going straight to the trash.

Always, send a list complete with hyperlinks to supporting information.

Who: Who is the news about (include a link to company backgrounder and website especially if the blogger isn’t aware of whoyou are)
What: What is the news spelled at succinctly and clearly no marketing fluff
When: When is the news happening
Where: Not always relevant in the electronic age
How: Self explanatory
Why (Does this Matter): This is the important part, your pitch should be no more than three sentences and it should be compelling.Easier said than done.

Signature

Include your signature next with your contact information. If your client has a blog include it in your signature or somewhere else in your message.

Warmest Regards,
P.R. Person
Agency Name
Email
Phone

On behalf of

Company Name
Read the blog @www.companyblog.com

Traditional Press Release

It’s likely that you are going to be pitching bloggers and media in conjunction with a traditional press release. So include the press release complete with links at the bottom of your email. Don’t include an attachment, that’s likely to get caught by a spam filter and provides one additional unnecessary step for bloggers to see your news.

Embargo, Schmargo

Embargos are nothing more than a nuisance to bloggers who want to take the news and post it in real time, potentially posting minutes after or even while receiving the news. it’s hard for us to honor an embargo butwe will if asked nicely we will honor them.

Blog software often has the ability to publish via a time stamp specify the exact release date. A blogger may might be able to set the publish date to coincide exactly with your news.

Develop Relationships with Bloggers just like Press

Business is often as much about relationships as they are about the exchange of goods. PR professionals that are effective often have strong relationships with the media that they leverage to get news stories placed. The same should apply to bloggers.

Ask Permission to Send Future Communications

I highly recommend on your first interaction with a blogger you ask permission to send him future news. No one likes SPAM. Most bloggers will be amenable to receiving email if you provide something useful to them. Alternatively if you can supply news via RSS that’s helpful too,bloggers read their news feeds often and are as likely to see that as they are to read email.

Do a little research

You can find bloggers through a search engine like Google but there are blog specific search engines designed to search blogs:

• Technorati - Technorati is probably the most widely used blog search engine use their Advanced Search to find the best audience for your blog releases.
• Ice Rocket - Another search engine for blogs.
• Blog Pulse - A service of Neilsen Buzzmetrics. What’s really useful is their interesting toolset to show how much blog buzz a topic has.

How to Build a Dialogue

Now that you have an effective press release, don’t just blast the release out. Do a little research. There is a reason the act of distributing news is often called a pitch– which means to sell someone on something. If you were selling something or going for a job interview you would probably want to learn as much as you could about that prospective client or employer beforehand.

Pitching a blogger is no different. Ideally you would actually read the blog before pitching them (it’s surprising how many PR people pitch me that have never read my work). Especially if you think they are key to your client’s success. There are bloggers whose endorsements can send tens of thousands of visitors to your site so it can be worth your investment. Other bloggers can spread your news through their network and have the same effect.

Bloggers may not be full time like the typical journalist they probably are schmo that likes to write after work for enjoyment or to showcase their knowledge. That being the case you will likely have an email only relationship don’t be insulted if they can’t take a phone call. If they can be prepared to do a phone briefing outside of regular business hours. Remember bloggers deal in the electronic world and phone calls just can’t be time shifted.

Show some “LinkLove”

Bloggers gain authority via the amount of incoming links they have. If your client/company has a blog and you want a relationship with that blogger suggest that the client blogroll the blogger (include a link on their blog to perspective blogger).Technorati counts links in your blog posts towards the blog authority.If someone blogs about your company, it’s a nice gesture to point your readers to it.

Markets are Conversation, Whenever possible engage in one

It’s the first thesis of the ClueTrain Manifesto (see reading list below). That means that communication should be two-way. Engage the blogger in a conversation, before you even send them email. One way to do this is to comment on their blog if you can (it will likely help reinforce who you are before you email them directly).Ask them if they agree with your news, invite them to comment (Be wary they may berate you as easily as offer praise — then again is there such a thing as bad press?).

Measure Your Success

Typically you might send 50 press releases to get five or ten briefings to get three or four stories written. PR pros should still to look at blogger placements as a metric. You should also look closely at the article on many sites it shows how many time a story has been read,another good metric. Finally, you might want to add click-thrus to your metrics. A click-thru is valuable because not only did someone read the story but they ended up at your clients website. Your client probably tracks website traffic anyhow, give them a list of all the sites that picked up the story to demonstrate the effect of these placements. You might even include custom URLs specific to the press release to more easily segregate traffic from others. Coordinate with the webmaster of your client’s site it shouldn’t be that big a deal.

Be Efficient, Be Genuine

The most important bit of advice is to be efficient in your communications and be genuine with your intent. If you have a good story and you show a little respect and understanding of your audience you will have a much higher placement rate for your news.

Bonus Exercise — Make a Squidoo Lense
Once you have content,maximize the value of it. If you took copious notes on a product release that you boiled down to a mere 500 words. Think about republishing a different format that might appeal to web readers. One of the most interesting ways to do this is via a Squidoo lense which focuses your topic and give you the ability to include links, video, and other corroborating information. It also can be helpful to your client in building web traffic and provide Search Engine Optimization benefits.

Here’s an example of a Squidoo Lense that compliments this FAQ.

Additional Reading

• Cluetrain Manifesto, Searls, Weinberger, Levine, Locke
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott
• The New Influencers, Paul Gillin
• Naked Conversations, Israel, Scoble
• How to Write a Social Media Press Release, CopyBlogger, Muhammed Saleem
• Catching Flack, bNet, Travis Van (one of the best PR pros I have ever dealt with)
• Seth Godin - Uber-Marketing Blogger
• Chris Brogan - Some Differences Between Pitching Mainstream Press and Blogger (added May 3rd)
  

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