Getting Second-Tier Bloggers to Write About You

You should not focus solely on mainstream media and a few most visited blogs. Second-tier bloggers deserve your attention. If they like your product, they will become your most vocal evangelists in a way that a journalist or top-tier blogger never would. I spoke about second-tier bloggers and how to reach out to them with one such blogger, Dianna Huff. She is the author of B2B MarCom Writer Blog and a B2B marketing consultant.

What’s keeping you busy these days? I know you work on several different projects at the moment and that you also run a B2B MarCom Writer Blog.
I do have two separate websites and two different approaches going on. I have my main work, which is business-to-business marketing communications. And for about the last two or three years I’ve had a number of consultant type people call me asking for help, so I started “The Profitable Consultant” to offer coaching to those people. And then I have my B2B MarCom Writer Blog.

When did you start your blog?
I started it in 2006, because I had a number of clients asking me about blogs.

Who are your readers? Has it changed from when you started your blog?
When I first started the blog, I thought I’d be writing about copywriting, but I found very quickly that I didn’t want to write about copywriting. There are already so many people writing about it. For the first six months I really stumbled around as to my focus. It took me a little while. Now I focus on business-to-business marketing communications, and specifically within that, what I think my clients find interesting. However, what’s really interesting is that my clients don’t read the blog. Other marketing consultants read the blog.

How do people find your blog?
My posts come up in organic search results. For example, from September 2008 through March 2009, I had 5,800 people come from Google alone. And, I have people come from other blogs. When people call me, I always ask how did you find me, and they usually say: “You are all over the internet.”

How much time do you spend blogging?
Not enough. I would say probably 1-3 hours a week. I am just so busy. I don’t have time.

When did you start seeing pitches arriving in your inbox?
When I first started getting pitches, I was writing for MarketingSherpa, and I didn’t quite understand why I was getting these things. I would think, “Why are people sending me these press releases?” As I started blogging more, I started getting more. I kept getting pitches like I was a journalist. I emailed David Meerman Scott to tell him about it and he said: “That’s good, people think you are important.”

Once I figured it out and my blog improved, I started getting more and more pitches, but I still wasn’t sure what to do with them. I deleted them. Then I started paying closer attention and would sometimes email back and say sure, can you tell me more about it? Now I am inundated with this stuff. I delete most of them.

How are the pitches you are getting?
Most are awful. For someone like me, who is a part-time blogger, I already have my own business and work, and blogging is somewhat a side pursuit. I am not a journalist, I don’t have time to go around and find all this information. I need someone to help me write a better blog post.

A lot of people send me pitches and don’t use my name, so you can tell automatically that it is a blast. They send you the full press release and some of these things are really long. They make your eyes glaze over. I often wonder, “Why are you sending me this?!” I delete them and do not read them.

If I get a pitch, I want just two or three sentences, so I can read it very quickly and respond yes or no. I don’t want to read through six paragraphs of dense copy.

What are some other mistakes PR people make?
They don’t use my name and it is totally untargeted. I get a lot of stuff from companies that are business-to-consumer, product reviews – that’s not what I do! It is not personalized and doesn’t say why I should find it interesting.

On the other hand, a good one I recently received was from a guy who perfected a way to get around gatekeepers, people who answer telephones. I posted about it, included it in my newsletter and he posted a link to my blog on his website from which I now get traffic – that was really good.

Would you be open to twitter pitches? What do you think about it?
I have not had anyone pitch me over twitter. I don’t know if I would be open to it. I like the conversational part of twitter. I don’t think I want to be pitched more. I feel guilty I can’t follow up on all the pitches.

What recommendations would you give to someone starting with blogger outreach?
Read the blogs. I would say find five blogs that you want to follow and start reading them. Bloggers let out their personality and their personal stuff. Anyone who reads my blog knows I have a son, they know he is a geek and they know I have two dogs. I had someone email me a pitch and she started of the pitch writing about dogs and barking. Anything personal is good.

When you make the pitch, it has to be on target. There is a big difference from pitching a journalist and someone like me. Someone asked me, why would I want to pitch someone like you? I look for content, tools and data that is of interest to my clients. Once I speak with you, you get the write up and link to your site, and I become an evangelist for you.

There is so much underground talking going on that you can’t even measure. For example, when I recommend a product to my clients. I also use a lot of my blog posts in my presentations.

Thank you, Dianna! Check out Dianna’s blog at www.marcom-writer-blog.com. I also recommend reading her post “Blogger Relations: How to “Pitch” to Me.“