Here’s a quick tip for companies or individuals pitching to bloggers to link to their products, services, events, sites etc:
Make it a Win/Win/Win interaction!
A Quick Story
Yesterday I was pitched to on my photography blog by a company running training events for photographers. They felt that they had a useful training event that would help my readers and as a result thought it’d be great for everyone if I linked up to it and gave it a little promotion.
I went to the event page and it did look like a useful event – however I came away from the pitch feeling a little less than inspired to promote it because it wasn’t really a Win/Win/Win situation.
- I could see how dPS promoting it would be a win for the company running the event – we have 3 million or so readers and a certain % of them would sign up for the event.
- I could see how promoting it might be a ‘win’ for my readers – they learn something about photography.
- But I struggled to see the ‘win’ for me and the site. Yes, helping my readers could have some benefits for us as a site – however there was no direct win really.
The thing I fed back to the event organiser was that I’m asked to promote events most days of the week so I’m a little selective in what I promote partly because I don’t want to overwhelm our readers. I’m also ideally looking to promote things that provide value for readers (and so reject some events simply because they’re irrelevant or don’t see to be high quality) AND also want to see some benefit to my site also as a result of it.
I fed back to them that while that might seem a little greedy and self interested – that I’m running a business here (as they are) and if I’m promoting a commercial event then I have an expectation that not only the organisers of the event should benefit. I’m looking for mutually beneficial partnerships.
How to Make Your Pitch a Win/Win/Win Pitch
If you’re pitching bloggers – don’t just look to get something out of it for yourself – you need to be pitching in a way that the bloggers readers will benefit (this is mainly about promoting relevant and high quality products) and hopefully where the blogger/blog itself will benefit in some way.
This doesn’t just mean financial wins for the bloggers (although that should certainly be considered if you’re benefiting financially) but it could include numerous things. Here are a few ‘wins’ for bloggers that might increase your chances of a successful pitch:
- advertising – one obvious type of financial win is to buy advertising on the site. Whether this be a banner ad, an in-post ad, a newsletter sponsorship or some other kind of ad – this at least compensates the blogger for promoting your event.
- affiliate deal – paying the blogger for a conversion/sale is a good way to go for you because you’re only paying for conversions and good for the bloggers as it gives them real incentive to promote your product/service/event.
- promotion – an exchange in terms of promotion could work – if the blogger is promoting you, why not agree to promote them back either at your event, on your site etc. Promoting them as a sponsor or partner won’t cost you anything but helps the blogger to do something that they’re on about – growing their blog.
- product – many bloggers will accept products either as payment or to give away to their readers as prizes. In a sense this is payment (and most bloggers will want to disclose it) but it’s going to cost you less while still delivering value to the blogger for their promotion.
I’m sure there are other ways you could bring some value to a blogger (feel free to share some in comments) – the key is to find a way to not only deliver value to yourself and their readers – but to them also.
