Why Blogger Outreach is Important for Your Business

Investing in digital marketing is crucial these days if you want to outrank your competitors. There are plenty of ways to do so, such as through search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing, which are popular strategies. 

Another viable option is through blogger outreach. The process entails contacting those who run blogs that are relevant to your industry and tapping onto their networks to promote your brand. 

With so many influencers and micro-influencers nowadays, you can definitely find the right one to give you access to a new set of audiences. It’s even expected that, by 2021, the number of bloggers would reach 32 million in the United States alone. (1) 

If you’re still doubtful about starting a blogger outreach campaign, here are reasons that it’s important for your business:

1. Boosts brand awareness

With digital marketing, the overarching goal is to make you more visible to your target audience. You want to become so familiar to them that they remember your brand right off the bat when thinking about the products and services that you offer. 

For instance, if you think about carbonated beverages, Coca-Cola or Pepsi might come to mind. For footwear, you may easily remember Nike or Adidas. In this way, these companies have succeeded in making consumers aware of their brand since they’re at the top of most consumers’ minds when it comes to their industry. 

The process of blogger outreach entails having the blogger publish an article, which you can write yourself, or have them create one for you that includes a link to your own site. Take note that the content must be relevant and interesting for the blog’s following to make the strategy work. 

When those subscribers read the blog post with your link, and they want to learn more about your brand, they can easily click on your backlink and follow it to your website. You can then market to them directly and keep them engaged enough to nurture your new relationship with these potential customers. 

Boosting brand awareness promotes trust for your brand. After all, if many people write about your products and services positively, it means your merchandise actually provides the solutions that other consumers might need.

It also strengthens your products and services’ association for relevant actions. If you sell gardening tools, you want your target audience to think about your brand every time they take care of their plant, which blogger outreach can help you achieve. 

To supplement your blogger outreach campaign, here are additional ways to boost brand awareness: 

• • Offer freemium – Freemium is a popular pricing strategy where you allow users to use a product or service for free and only charge them for features that are considered premium. Most mobile games employ this tactic where you can play the game for free, but you have to pay if you want boosters and other additional features. 

• • Publish free content – Creating a personal blog and publishing free content is also a great strategy in positioning yourself as an authority in your field. This way, when consumers associate you with your brand, it’ll be easier for them to trust you since you’ve established yourself as a valuable source of information. 

• • Organize events – It has become more convenient for businesses to sponsor events amidst the pandemic since everything’s online. You can hold a conference for your own customer base or sponsor events in your industry. 

• • Produce a podcast – This medium has seen rapid growth in its usage and following with more than two million shows and over 48 million episodes that have been published already. Brands should seriously consider podcasts as a viable platform for boosting brand awareness.
    

    

2.  Connects you with your target audience

The World Wide Web encompasses a massive digital space. It’d be nearly impossible for you to reach every single prospect without using too much time, effort, and money. Fortunately, being strategic about blogger outreach can put your brand in the spotlight for your intended audience without jumping over too many hoops.  

Think about it. The publishers you contact already did the groundwork of finding and maintaining their readership. Knowing this, you’re actually maximizing their popularity and authority. You should also note the importance of finding relevant blogs within your industry or niche since the people following them are the ones who would most likely be interested in what you have to offer. 
If you’re unsure about which audience to target, here are some tips to help you: 

• • • Analyse your customer base – Understanding your current clients can help you identify the demographic groups that could convert easily to paying customers. For instance, if you sell food processors and you notice a lot of new mothers are buying them, you should definitely reach out to mommy bloggers and parenting websites for a feature. 

• • Perform market research and look for trends – Aside from your current customers, you can also check the market for other possible groups that might be interested in your products and services. Going back to the food processor example above, you can consider reaching out to restaurateurs or other people in the food industry. 

• • Check what competitors are doing – Another way to draw inspiration when looking for how to find clients is by looking at who your competitors are catering to. Then, you can target people who fall into the same category or demographic. 

 3.  Builds credibility for your brand

Remember earlier when we said you should make sure to prioritize reaching out to bloggers in your industry or niche? That’s because your placement needs to make sense to the target audience. Otherwise, your brand would lose credibility. 

Let’s say you sell dental chairs. It doesn’t make sense for you to reach out to a fashion blogger since they won’t likely have your target audience as subscribers.  

If they do, it might only be a small portion of their follower base and this wouldn’t give you any significant leads. It would also be off-brand for you and the blogger, which would have an adverse impact both reputations. 

Additionally, you should check the domain authority of a potential blog. DAs around 20+ are a good place to start.  

You want your brand to be associated and promoted by a trusted source of industry information so people’s positive perceptions would rub off on your company. 

According to usability.gov, web users are now more discerning of the data they find online. As such, consumers don’t want to do business with a brand that contains misleading, or worse, fake information. 

The primary benefit of being perceived as a credible business is that you can retain customers and even your employees. When they see you and your company are consistent and deliver on promises, they won’t hesitate to invest their time and money in your organization. (4) 

4.  Saves you time and money
Lastly, digital marketing, including blogger outreach campaigns, have always been a more cost-effective option than traditional advertising methods, like TV commercials. On average, a TV ad that’s air on a national network can cost USD$115,000 for just 30 seconds’ worth of content. (5) 

Even if you hire a content marketing agency or video production company to create write-ups or videos for your brand, blogger outreach remains to be way cheaper than traditional methods. The cost of video production ranges between USD$1,200 and USD$50,000. (6) 

Although you still have to pay for creating content and having it published on a blog, this type of targeted exposure can result in more conversions. This is because you’re aiming at people who’ve already expressed interest in your industry simply through the blogs, and profiles, they’re following online.  

Moreover, you can even write blog posts or create video content yourself, especially if you have a knack for content writing or filming and video editing. You can then reach out to relevant blogs in your niche and arrange with them how to publish them. 

Just remember to always include a backlink to your website to make it easier for people to reach you. This is a more proactive way of driving traffic to your domain rather than waiting for them to search for your brand on search engines after they’ve read your content. 

Takeaway 

Blogger outreach is a digital marketing strategy that entails contacting influencers or micro-influencers in your industry or niche to promote your products and services. They can do this by posting on their blogs and introducing your brand to their readers.  

One of the best reasons to start a blogger outreach campaign is to boost awareness for your brand by enabling you to connect to your target audience. This targeted exposure can increase the chances of conversions since you’ll be visible to people who are most likely to purchase your products and services based on their browsing and purchasing history. 

This strategy also builds credibility for your brand, especially when you make sure to reach out to high authority websites in your industry or niche. Lastly, you’ll save time and money when you invest in a blogger outreach campaign rather than traditional advertising methods while getting substantial returns through leads and conversions. 

References: 

1. “Blogging Statistics 2021: Ultimate List with 47 Facts and Stats,” Source: https://firstsiteguide.com/blogging-stats/
2. “10 Powerful Podcast Statistics You Need to Know in 2021 [Infographic],” Source: https://www.oberlo.com.ph/blog/podcast-statistics
3. “Credibility,” Source: https://www.usability.gov/get-involved/blog/2009/10/credibility.html
4. “Establishing Credibility in Business,” Source: https://www.marcuslemonis.com/business/credibility-in-business
5. “Everything You Need to Know About TV Advertising Costs,” Source: https://fitsmallbusiness.com/tv-advertising/
6. “How Much Does Marketing Video Production Cost?,” Source: https://www.lean-labs.com/blog/how-much-does-marketing-video-production-cost