Blogger outreach can take up a lion’s share of your entire email outreach effort.
Whether it’s for partner recruitment, link building, or just growing your network, almost every business that has a blog deals in blogger outreach.
But how do you actually find bloggers?
In this blog post, we’ll be talking about:
- What is blogger outreach and its applications
- How to find bloggers and their contact information
- How to reach out to bloggers and spark up collaborations
Let’s dive into it.
Link building cheat sheet
What is Blogger Outreach?
Blogger outreach and blog writing in general can have a number of content marketing goals, but ultimately, it is the process of finding and reaching out to bloggers within your niche.
Typically, it’s carried out through email, but it’s not uncommon (and is actually advisable) for the outreach to also be done through social media.
Let’s walk through the most prolific applications of blogger outreach for businesses (especially SaaS ones).
Link Building & Guest Posting
Link building and guest posting is the bread and butter of off-page SEO.
While it can be somewhat managed through networking, true, at-scale link building relies almost entirely on cold blogger outreach.
Partner Recruitment
One of the most popular forms of partner recruitment is none other than affiliates.
And since bloggers often publish affiliate links on their websites, they make for great choices for prospective affiliates.
Product Reviews & Sponsored Collaborations
Product reviews are also often published for affiliate links, but not always.
These are often part of a sponsored collaboration, which bloggers also eagerly participate in – since their blog is very often extensively monetized.
Creative Writing & Social Media Marketing
Bloggers are often skilled in creative writing and can bring a unique flair to your content. Many bloggers are open to side jobs, making it possible to outsource some of your content creation tasks to them.
This is particularly useful if you’re looking to produce engaging content that resonates with your audience.
For instance, you can hire writers who specialize in various niches to diversify your blog’s topics and keep your readers intrigued.
Blog writers who are adept in specific subjects can provide depth and expertise that may be beyond your in-house team’s capabilities. If you’re looking to maintain a consistent posting schedule, a freelance blog writer can be particularly beneficial, ensuring that there’s always fresh content for your readers.
Additionally, many bloggers offer blog writing service packages, which can be a cost-effective way to manage your content needs. These services often include everything from research and writing to SEO optimization and social media promotion. By leveraging such services, you can ensure that your content is not only high-quality but also reaches a wider audience.
In summary, outsourcing content creation to bloggers can significantly enhance your content strategy, providing you with [blog writers] and [freelance blog writer] options.
Whether it’s through a dedicated blog writing service, leveraging a freelance blogger, or inviting a guest blogger, the opportunities for producing [engaging content] are endless.
This approach not only fills your content calendar but also enriches your social media marketing efforts.
Find Bloggers with Google
Finding bloggers is very simple.
All you need is Google, and one simple search operator:
Inurl:blog
Just paste it into the search bar with your niche keyword and there you have it:
Every blog that has ever been published and relates to your target keyword.
From here, you can pick and choose who you want to collaborate with.
You may also leverage tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to gain a deeper understanding of each blog’s reach, traffic, followers and rankings:
The only issue with this approach is that it doesn’t help you get the bloggers’ contact information, doesn’t help with the actual outreach, and, of course, just takes forever.
Find and Contact Bloggers with Respona
Respona was designed to solve this exact problem.
It brings the entire blogger outreach process into a single, streamlined process, and finds both outreach opportunities and their contact information for you on auto-pilot.
Let’s walk through a blogger outreach campaign with Respona.
Choose a Template
First, you may choose a campaign template or start a custom campaign.
Let’s go with the “Blogger outreach” template – although it also has separate templates for link building, guest posting, product reviews, and other types of outreach.
To use it, you only need to fill out two fields:
- Your target keywords
- An incentive for collaborating with you
You can enter as many keywords as you like – Respona will run separate, simultaneous searches for each of them.
In the incentive field, enter a relevant incentive for the type of collaboration you’re looking for – be it links, your affiliate marketing terms, or a sponsorship offer.
This field will be pulled directly into the email sequence, which is already pre-set.
But, after you click “Use this template”, you can completely change it, add variables, check for spam words, add an unsubscribe link, etc.
When your template is ready, click “Next step” to start finding relevant bloggers.
Find Opportunities
Respona’s search engine pulls search results from Google, and, as we previously mentioned, can run several queries simultaneously.
All keywords you entered at the campaign template page will be transferred here, and the “inurl:blog” search operator will automatically be applied to them.
Click “Continue” and set additional SEO optimization parameters to narrow down the results:
Moz filters are available to all users by default, but if you have a Semrush or Ahrefs account, you may also connect it to Respona and use their proprietary filters instead.
Click “Continue” and set up the contact search automation:
Fill out the job title and seniority fields with the desired titles and seniority levels of your prospects (such as blog writer,blog manager, content, SEO, technical writer, etc.).
For better deliverability, we recommend enabling both the “Skip catch-all domains” and “Use generic emails as needed” options.
You may also choose to make your search recurring. This means that Respona will automatically re-run both the blog content and contact searches at your set time interval, saving you hours of time every week.
If you enable recurring searches, all you will have to do is log in to Respona every once in a while and personalize new opportunities.
Click “Run automation” to start it.
Opportunities will start filling up your screen as they’re found.
Review & Launch
At the last stage of campaign creation, you can review each individual email, and make additional, manual personalizations.
Before launching, Respona will also run additional checks to make sure you’re not trying to contact anyone in your unsubscribe list or have been recently contacted in another campaign.
Here, you can also change your sending strategy (no-reply, CC, or send-all), and set up auto-cc and auto-bcc.
Once verified and launched, all that’s left for you to do is manage responses.
Manage Conversations
Respona comes with a shared inbox that allows you to track all of your email addresses in a single place.
Here, you can reply to all of your contacts without having to juggle multiple tabs.
Link building cheat sheet
Now Over to You
Need help finding bloggers and sparking up collaborations?
Don’t hesitate to start your 14-day free trial with Respona to see it in action.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How do I identify bloggers in my niche for collaboration?
Start by using Google and social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, focusing on hashtags and keywords related to your niche to discover active bloggers.
Additionally, leverage specialized blog directories and forums, or even employ tools like Respona to automate the process.
What’s the best approach to reach out to bloggers for collaboration?
Craft a personalized email that compliments their work and clearly outlines the potential benefits of the collaboration for both parties.
Be concise, professional, and friendly, and provide a clear call to action, suggesting a conversation to explore opportunities.
Can I collaborate with bloggers who have a different but related niche?
Absolutely!
Collaborating with bloggers in adjacent niches can introduce your content to a broader target audience and add diverse perspectives.
Ensure the partnership is mutually beneficial and your audiences can find value in the crossover of topics.
What are the most effective collaboration strategies with other bloggers?
Guest posting, co-hosting events or webinars, joint giveaways, and cross-promotion on social media are highly effective strategies for brand awareness.
These collaborations can widen your reach, bring fresh content to your audience, and build professional relationships with fellow bloggers.
How do I gauge if a blogger is the right fit for collaboration?
Evaluate their content quality, engagement level with their audience, and the relevance of their niche to your own.
Analyzing their online presence and audience demographic is crucial to ensure that collaborating will advance your goals and resonate with your target readership.
Should I hire a freelance writer for my blog?
Sure, bloggers often run side gigs – so by posting a job ad can attract professional writers to your website.
Make sure your job posting clearly outlines your requirements and expectations.
However, in our opinion, an in-house article writer is preferrable to freelance content creators.