June 6th, 2008 in Communication, Featured

How to Get a Blogger to Promote Your Product

You have a product or service to promote. You’ve heard great things about “conversational marketing”, “viral marketing”, and the like. On the surface, it seems easy: identify a few big bloggers, schmooze with them a little, and wait for the flood of sales as your chosen bloggers start talking up your product.

It’s a good idea. So good that thousands marketrs and PR folks have been deluging bloggers from the Technorati Top 100 on down with press releases, insulting emails, even bullying tactics to get them to promote their products. So good that Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani posted a list of PR spammers and blocked emails from their domains. So good that the best way to get bad PR from bloggers these days is to try to get good PR from them.

What went wrong?

One reason this wonderful idea isn’t working the way it was expected to is that while bloggers have something pretty valuable to offer marketers, marketers so far have had little to offer in return. Likewise, while it costs marketers little to reach out to bloggers, it can potentially cost bloggers quite a bit in terms of lost integrity and lost audiences. Offering a blogger your product for free seems nice, but a blogger can quickly lose their readers’ goodwill if they’re perceived as a shill for some company.

Another reason marketers have had a hard time connecting with bloggers has to do with control. Bloggers are, as a rule, a pretty independent bunch. They often feel used when marketers approach them, out of the blue, and ask them to promote their product or service. And bloggers don’t like being used. Most popular bloggers are strong writers and good marketers; they could easily be working in the media, in advertising, or indeed in public relations or marketing if they wanted to (or were able to) sacrifice their independence.

But all is not lost…

Reaching out to bloggers is still a good idea, though. Good bloggers have a special kind of rapport with their audiences, and are pretty adept at getting near the top of search engine result pages. Which means that a few kind words about your product on the right kind of blog can have a lot of life — piquing the interest of their regulars and turning up again and again in search results.

The trick is to treat bloggers with respect, both for them as people and for their relationship with their audience. Which means rather than the drive-by pitching that has characterized most efforts to reach bloggers so far, you need to think in terms of building long-term relationships with bloggers.

A few pointers

Do your research. Instead of spamming hundreds or thousands of blogs with pitches for your product, identify a handful of bloggers whose audiences will find the most value in your product. Show respect by learning something about the blogger — we make it very easy!
Take them seriously. Bloggers fight an uphill battle for legitimacy. You can show a great deal of respect by recognizing both the hard work and the talent that goes into creating a successful blog.
Explain yourself. Show that you’ve done your homework by explaining clearly what your product has to offer a blogger’s audience and how you think you can work together.
No strings. If you’d like a blogger to have a look at your product, make it absolutely clear that you don’t expect a positive review. Show your respect for the blogger by allowing him or her to make up their own mind about a product and to explain their opinion to their readers in their own way. Asking a blogger to lie for you is the quickest way to a) lose their interest, or worse, b) pan your product mercilessly.
Offer gifts, not bribes. This follows from “no strings”, but often marketers want to send t-shirts, pens, or other schwag to bloggers they work with. Nothing wrong with that, but again, make sure you’re not offering goods in return for positive reviews. Offer a gift as a thank you for a blogger’s time and consideration.
Do the groundwork. Treat a blog just like any media outlet — provide the blogger with everything she or he needs to properly evaluate your product or service.
Follow through. Keep in contact after a blogger has written about your product. Send them a thank you note, a testimonial, figures showing any impact their work might have had on your sales. Link to them from your site. Remember that a lot of blogs are businesses, and a lot of bloggers do related work as their day jobs — knowing their writing helped you increase sales 43% can help them sell ad space, gain new clients for their freelance business, or benefit them in other ways.
Ask for private feedback, too. A lot of bloggers will write a selective review of your product geared towards their readerships, while holding a separate personal view of the product. SHow your respect for them as an individual by asking if there’s anything they’d like to say that they chose not to include in their review.
Take your lumps graciously. Don’t attack bloggers who pan your product or service; if you’ve done your research and selected appropriate bloggers to pitch to, they’re disinterest in your product is probably a very important piece of information for you! Thank them for their time and move on — don’t, under any condition, “go after” them!

Remember, with rare exceptions, bloggers don’t make a lot of money blogging, and so their audience and their standing in the blogging community are their main rewards. Approaching them with respect for their position and their needs will gain you a lot of respect in return, and you may well find that the blogs you maintain relationships with have become a central part of your marketing strategy — and a set of important relationships in and of themselves.

WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY

Dustin Wax

Dustin M. Wax is the project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

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15 Responses

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Alexandra Levit says on June 6th, 2008 at 11:31 am

Dustin, thank you so much for this extremely useful post. As a career advice blogger who has been around for a few years now, I remember the days when the blogosphere was a tight-knit community where everyone knew each other. Now, though, bloggers are as respected a bunch as journalists in traditional media, and the demands on their time are many. It’s critical that we advise on protocols for communicating effectively with them. Thank you for starting that dialogue.

Best,

Alexandra Levit
Author, Success for Hire
Blogger, Water Cooler Wisdom
http://www.alexandralevit.com
timgray says on June 6th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

Blatent plug: If you want me to review your product. SEND ME ONE FOR FREE.

it blows my mind how many of these companies do not understand that. I review some products on my own when they make a major impact. If it’s really good, I praise it on my blog. If it sucks bad, I make sure I tell people why on my blog.
Aaron Stannard says on June 6th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

I wrote one reaction post to this article on my personal blog and I’ll actually be publishing a second one on monday. I thought this was a great post and I think it’s a good conversation that bloggers and marketers should have.

As someone who is both a blogger and a marketer by trade I think this is a major issue. One of the things that I, as a marketer, try to do is contact bloggers who already own our products and ask them if they’d like to share their experience with us, either privately, in a case study, or in an entry on our corporate blog.

Again, great post.
Glen Allsopp says on June 6th, 2008 at 2:14 pm

For me, it helps if I know the person on other social networks before they try and pitch me with something i.e. we have communicated well before the “pitch”.
Dustin Wax says on June 6th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

Alexandra, Aaron, and Glen: Thanks to all of you for commenting.Glen, I agree — that’s the ideal, but I recognize that it’s impractical for every marketer or business person to maintain a set of relationships in every niche they might possibly one day need to reach. That’s understandable — but if you’re going to reach out to people you don’t already have a relationship with, you need to at least be relationship-minded. Aaron’s point about contacting people you know already use the product is in this vein — you are extending the relationship they already have with your product or company into a personal relationship.
Zac Martin says on June 8th, 2008 at 5:51 am

I think there are many marketers out there who should be reading this. I think the most important point here is that you’re much better targeting bloggers with the most appropriate audience rather than aiming for the Top 10 or 100. Great post.
ClubEddy says on June 8th, 2008 at 6:05 am

I would like to add a point:

* Be a Blogger Now
- Write posts as a blogger. Experience how and what situation a blogger would like to write. Figure out emotional factor that the bloggers think in their mind.

Cheers
Dustin Wax says on June 8th, 2008 at 2:31 pm

ClubEddy: I think that’s great advice too. And, on a practical level, it’s a good way to start building the kinds of relationships that will become natural channels for promotion later on.
Simon Oboler says on June 10th, 2008 at 9:26 am

Great article Dustin!
I think the main issue behind getting a blogger to promote a product, is the potential backlash both the company and the product could recieve as a result of trying to get a blogger to promote a product. This could be from the blogger trying the product and not liking it as well as a blogger writing a piece about “how company X wanted me to promote their product.”

All in all a great read, and if my blog actually reaches the stages of companies asking me to promote their products, I hope they have read this post.
Ellen Hart says on June 10th, 2008 at 5:05 pm

Thanks for the insight, Dustin! Great tips on how to get a product evaluated in a way that respects both the blogger’s time and audience.
Chef JoAnna says on June 10th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

There are a couple companies that send me books & products to review on my blog.

If I enjoy the item, I’ll post something really descriptive and complimentary. If I didn’t, I probably won’t post anything at all. (*) For example: One company sent me their new “chinese dinner kit”, and it was AWFUL. When the publicist sent me a note asking if I’d tried the kit, I wrote her back, politely stating that it wasn’t going to be a positive review, and that I opted to not review it. Her reply was kind of snotty! I wondered if I was the only person who didn’t like it, so I googled the product’s name and couldn’t find a single positive review from anyone else!

But as timgray notes above, yes, you do need to send the item to me, free of charge. I don’t see how anyone could consider it a bribe! There is no reason for me to go out and purchase your $50 cookbook, read it, buy ingredients, make a recipe, take photos, upload the photos to flickr, and then write a 500+ word post for my blog.

(*) this doesn’t apply to stuff I spent good money on. if I bought it and it sucks, I don’t hesitate to share my true feelings
Chris Bates says on June 11th, 2008 at 6:07 am

Great post, Dustin.

As a writer I would be ecstatic about a blogger even taking time out to read a book I sent for review … demanding a good review on top of that would simply be obnoxious.

A good product helps when it comes to viral marketing. So too some common decency towards your targeted bloggers … something most PR people probably haven’t figured out yet.
Lisa Guidarini says on June 11th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

I hit it big with my blog when I was mentioned in the New York Times as one of the blogs authors turn to for promotion (as opposed to hitting up Borders with major dollars), after interviewing author Amy Cohen for ‘Public Libraries.’ Since then I’ve been mentioned on Harper’s blog, and in various and sundry other places. I get so many books I could line the walls with them, and occasionally I get other things like promotional items, which are fun. But my favorite “gift” so far? BELGIAN CHOCOLATES.

I CAN BE BOUGHT. (winkie, winkie)
Abby says on June 12th, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Hi Dustin,

As a young PR professional (and the first one thats posted I think) I adore your post. I have grown up in a blogging, social networking, online era so the personal connection is much more prevalent to me than many of my colleagues but I applaud you for putting it out there. What is the best way for you to get information about a company? I know visual and physical is probably the best option but what about press releases or just teasers? I would love to know which avenues are most effective in your world!

Thank you so much for your insight
Abby
Dustin Wax says on June 13th, 2008 at 2:39 am

Abby: Thanks. I’d say, why not ask them? Once you’ve identified bloggers that you think would be interested in your product or service, email them ans say “Hey, I think you’d be interested in this, would you mind if I sent you some information? What kind of information would help you to understand this best?” I mean, I’m simplifying, but I think you get the idea. Press releases probably aren’t going to cut it with most bloggers, since they smack of corporate boringtude (then again, a blogger who prides herself or himself on getting news about new products out first might like being in the loop). The point is, what works best will differ from blgoger to blogger, hence the need to build relationships rather than just sending out a thousand emails or press releases or even sample products.