In an attempt to grow your blog and increase its exposure, you may be considering the notion of appealing to new writers and bloggers who can fulfil the demand for particular niches made by your audience. Many blogging outreach programs have great success and ultimately help flourish the online marketing efforts of any blog or business. Unfortunately, though, there are many bad stories for every success story. If you are considering opening up your products and services to new writers, then please consider the following pieces of advice on what to avoid so that your outreach can be as successful as possible.

Be Selective

The best thing you can do from an overall brand preservation standpoint is to be selective in who you approach for product and service reviews. Experience is a large factor, but so is the writing style and level of involvement on the part of the blogger. Targeted audiences also play a key role in determining which bloggers you will wish to appeal to via outreach. Depending on your current scope, you may even be able to find bloggers who are already sympathetic and loyal to your product or service; these will obviously make for the best writers (generally speaking) when it comes to blogger outreach.

Do Your Homework

Before approaching any blogger, you must first be pinging blogs of interest in order to determine what subjects they cover. This includes blogs that cover aspects of your market: if you approach a particular blogger, you will want to know beforehand what it is they write about and what particular angles they usually take in covering products and services. Many bloggers receive loads of requests and will ignore those that seem cookie-cutter or otherwise generic; stand out from the rest by knowing what the blogger covers and incorporate that into your pitch.

Provide Incentive

There has to be incentive not only for you to reach out to other bloggers, but for those bloggers to consider and subsequently benefit from your requests. If you are offering a deal to the blogger, consider offering an additional bonus that the blogger can provide to their readers. By pinging blogs with valuable coupons, discounts or promotions, the blogger’s readers will not only have a positive impression of your brand but also of the blogger in question. This in turn gives the blogger more incentive to continue interacting with your brand and will help you build a strong, long-term relationship with the blogger.

Measure Your Results

Before you begin reaching out to bloggers, ask yourself: what are the goals? Are you seeking additional traffic, more sales or greater social clout? Once you have outlined the key metrics you wish to measure, you can then proceed to work toward achieving concrete goals. It really makes no sense to randomly reach out to bloggers if you do not first understand what it is you need. In addition to this, it can be unfair to the bloggers as you are asking them to assist you with something without understanding what it is you truly are seeking.