Do you constantly try to find keywords that work for your business? Trying to figure out which social media sites bring you the most traffic? Looking for the best spot online to focus your time and energy?
Well, today we’re going to talk about how to get your business featured by blogs. It’s a great way to get new people to your products! There are many reasons why this shouldn’t be overlooked in your marketing plan.
Follow these tips and you’ll find it gets easier and easier to have your business featured on top blogs!
Why Would You Want to Have Your Business Featured on Blogs?
Trust me, it’s awesome. Well, let me tell you a bit more…
- One mention on a popular blog can get you tons of sales!
- Links into your shop or {blog} from high ranking blogs can help grow your SEO power, juice, rank…you get the idea. It’s a good thing.
- The more links the better!! {I can’t stress this enough!}
- You reach new people…HELLO, that’s what you need!
- You are building your brand recognition with each mention or featured post.
- You are being endorsed by that blogger to their audience. If their favorite blogger loves you, your golden!
- Traffic is worth money! Usually your return for working with a blogger is a big benefit to you…cost per click could be super low.
How Do I Know Which Blogs are best?
- You want to reach your target audience. If you’re on Etsy you most likely will be contacted by some bloggers asking to feature your items. You don’t want to work with every blogger that contacts you. Your target customer is usually just like you! Make sure you think their blog is awesome!
- You’ll want to know that the blog has traffic. Ask the blogger or check out the blog ranking at Alexa.com. This won’t tell you everything you need to know, but you will know right away if it’s a blog with 200 people visiting a month or 200,000!
- The best way of knowing a blog’s reach is to check out their social media sites…all of them. When a blogger writes a post they share it multiple times across all their social media accounts. This can be huge!
- Make a list of 10 bloggers that have content that attracts the kind of people you want to reach. This will take lots of research, but it will pay off.
- Check the ads in the sidebars to see what type of businesses promote themselves through advertising on the blog. Are they the same type of business? Are they handmade businesses? Do you think their target customer is like yours? It’s a good thing if they are!
- Read the content…yes, I know it takes time. This will give you a feel for the blog and blog readers.
How Do I Reach Out to Bloggers?
- Find their contact info on the blog. Sometimes there are contact forms, but email them if you can find their information. Make sure you find their first name to use in the email.
- Never send a form letter to all the bloggers you’re trying to reach. It needs to be personalized or it will just blend with all the other emails they get looking for promotion.
- Make sure you have read the blog some and know a bit about their regular content. This will also keep you from sending an email to a blogger that would never promote your item because it doesn’t go with their content.
- Make your email short and to the point. Be sure to mention that you’ve read the blog and maybe refer to a post that you liked. Two to three paragraphs will be all you need. Longer emails will only get scanned if the blogger is busy.
- Add a beautiful large photo or two so they easily know about your products and style. Great photos are a must! Bloggers will need images to feature you, and if you have bad lighting you will not be featured no matter how great your products are. This also saves time for them by showing them what you sell without them having to click through to your website or shop.
- Tell them what you are offering. Don’t make them try and guess what you actually want. If you want to do a giveaway because you think their audience would love your products…tell them. If you want to promote a special item or sale…mention it now.
- This one might make some of you roll your eyes, but it’s a big deal. Offer to send them a sample to review. Yes, it will cost you money. If you are going to be getting lots of exposure for your shop you will need to respect the blogger’s time and not ask them to do it for nothing. If this is something you will never do you might notice other shops getting lots of reviews and features while yours doesn’t…that’s the truth of it.
- Some blogs charge to be featured along with a sample of your products. Don’t be offended by this if they respond with information on what it will cost. Companies pay quite a bit to featured on blogs and most bloggers give a reduced price to handmade and small businesses right from the start. It’s just like a magazine, but online. So, you wouldn’t expect free advertising in a magazine at your request, would you? You’ll need to decide whether the cost and value line up. Do they have the perfect audience? Will they take some photos of your products that you can use later? {most bloggers are great photographers} Whatever you do, just don’t be offended. Bloggers have to eat and this is their job.
Working with bloggers is not an exact science and you can’t think it’s a fail if you don’t have massive sales the very day you are featured. Your feature stays on that blog forever! Search engines will always know where to find it. It’s not like a newspaper that gets thrown away…it lasts. You can get sales months and years later from one link! Pretty cool, right?!
So, hopefully this gives you an honest look into how to get your shop featured on blogs and why you should count it into your marketing plan. Yes, it could just happen because they found your shop and love it. But, you’ll be able to grow your brand faster by reaching more people through more blogs.
I’d love to hear what has worked for you! Please share your experiences with blog features so everyone can learn from it!
~Kim
I love to get to know my readers so leave me a comment on any post and you KNOW I'll get it!
