I am fast approaching my 2 year bloggy anniversary. Looking back over the past 2 years I am amazed at how much I have learned about the world of Internet marketing. When I first started my blog I had only a vague idea of what I wanted it to be. I had hoped to put into words my desire live a greener and healthier lifestyle but I also knew that I wanted to make a little bit of money while I was at it! With a lot of support and advice from experienced bloggers, attending the SITS girls blog conference, and a whole bunch of trial and error I have a much better idea of how to achieve my blogging goals. The Internet is a rapidly growing place and defining your internet marketing strategy can help you succeed while other bloggers may not. So, how can you market yourself to PR companies so that you get noticed? Here are a few tips I picked up from the Bloggy Bootcamp conference I attended last month:
1. Define what you want your role on the web to be: Before you market yourself to a company, you have to understand the product you are pushing…that is YOU! What niche do you want to fill in this otherwise very crowded world of blogging!
2. Develop relationships: Don’t just interact with PR and media people when you want something! While you can’t take hours every day to tweet, like, and comment on every company’s social media pages you also can’t completely ignore them all either. It takes only a few seconds to reply to a company’s tweet about their latest product or to click ‘like’ on a Facebook status update. Maybe you got an email about a new coupon a company is offering? Mention it on your blog and reply back to the media release with a quick “Thanks, this was really helpful” or some such thing. Your name will eventually stick in some PR person’s head and when a new campaign comes along, they might think of you!
3. Perfect your pitch: One of the sessions at BBC ATL was given by 2 marketing professionals and the one thing they really stressed was to keep your pitch short and to the point. Don’t include a media kit but mention that one is available upon request. Put your basic traffic stats and demographics in the letter and include a brief mention of why you are interested in working with them. Short and to the point gets read but long and wordy goes into the trash bin!
4. Act professionally: If you want your blog to be a business, you need to treat it as such. Reply promptly to email requests, let the PR rep know when your package arrives, and complete the work in a timely manner. Make sure to send them the link to the review or writeup you did for them and thank them for their business. Sometimes, mistakes are made and deadlines get missed…it happens, we aren’t perfect. Apologize and see if there is something you can offer to make it up to them.
Remember, you cannot market your blog if you don’t know exactly what you want it to be. If you can find a mentor to help you navigate the world of SEO optimization, html editing, and blog design, even better! I am thinking of taking some marketing and web design classes as soon as I get a free minute or two to breath!
Disclaimer: I am participating in a blogger campaign by Bucks2Blog for an seo company and was compensated. However, all opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone.
Diane has a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology with a Minor in Health Management and Policy. She spent many years working in cancer research, academics, and biotechnology. Concern over the growing incidence of human disease and the birth of her children led her to begin living a more natural life. She quickly realized that the information she was learning along the way could be beneficial to many others and started blogging as a way to share this knowledge with others. While passionate about health and the environment she can’t quite give up her favorite Cheetos and Diet Coke! Learn more about her HERE.
My strategy is to pass needed tasks to a professional marketing expert and think of something I can do to help maximize the ability of my business corner to develop.