Need help raising awareness of your brand, attracting new audiences and sharing your expertise with the world? If the answer is yes, yes and yes then you should consider creating a guest blogging strategy.
Why should you write guest blogs?
There are so many benefits to guest blogging. Having a good strategy that sees your work published on the right blogs will help you:
- Be seen as an expert in your field
- Share your brand messages with new people
- Build your authority
- Attract a wider audience
- Build your online presence
- Land new clients / customers
Guest blogging offers you some fantastic opportunities to grow your business, but the challenge you face is finding the right bloggers who match your brand ethos and have an audience you want to get to know.
It’s important, before you do anything, to identify these bloggers then begin the process of pitching to guest blog. Here are 7 ways to perfectly pitch your guest blog.
#1: Do your research
I know this seems like a really obvious thing to do, but you’d be surprised how many people pitch blindly. Before you create and personalise your pitch, make sure you review the content from the editor. Take a look at:
- The topics they tend to write about – maybe you can identify a gap you can fill or post a follow up on something already published.
- Their tone of voice – you can use the same tone in your pitch, just matching it to your own style.
- The types of comments they receive on their site – it might inspire you.
- Their readers – who they are, what they like, dislike etc.
This will really help you create a pitch that appeals to the editor. It will show your knowledge of them, the blog and will give you ideas on what topics to suggest that fits in with their content and their readers. Do your research before you do anything else.
#2: Write a good subject line to get that open
This is an oldie but a goodie. When it comes to press releases, email marketing campaigns and pitching for guest blogs your email subject line is so important. Why? Because for someone who has a busy inbox, this can be the decider on whether or not they actually open your email!
If you can persuade the editor to open your email then you’re halfway there. You need to offer value and encourage intrigue in one simple sentence.
For example, a good subject line might say something like:
The future of [INSERT TOPIC] lies within …
OR
Are your readers missing the opportunity to [INSERT TOPIC]
On the other hand, there is the more boring subject lines, like this one
Guest blogging query
OR this one
Open this email for my guest blog ideas
The subject line needs to appeal to the editor in a way that makes them want to click open, not drag and drop your email into their bin.
Feel free to be creative with this. In fact, the more creative you are, the more chance you’ll have grabbing their attention. Think your subject line through carefully before you press send.
#3: Personalise your pitch
This is the point of the process where you need to make a genuine connection with the editor of the blog. To do this you need to use the knowledge you’ve gained from your research (described in point 1).
Before we talk about your actual pitch, let’s take a step back a bit. Are you contacting the blog editor cold? If you are then you need to seize some opportunities to get your name in front of them a few times before they receive your email.
This means following them on social media – commenting, sharing and liking their posts / tweets, getting involved in conversations they’re in and posting comments on their blog. Do this all ahead of sending your pitch over a period of time, so the editor has the opportunity to see your name, headshot / logo pop up in their notifications.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll be ready to send a personalised pitch that has more power behind it with the added credibility of you being able to reference your online interactions. Alongside this, you can personalise your pitch by:
- Referencing the editor and blog by name
- Mention some of the content they’ve published, products they offer etc and the impact it has had on you (don’t go too far with this because sometimes it comes across as disingenuine.)
- List your blog title ideas and why you think their readers will get value from it.
The main aim is to make the editor who receives your email feel like you know their blog, understand their readers and have sufficient knowledge to share with them.
#4: Be specific
Get to the point. There’s nothing worse than receiving an email that is paragraphs long with lots of detail but very little substance. I don’t know about you, but if a person doesn’t get to the point in the first paragraph then I don’t tend to read on, especially if it’s a pitch.
So you need to be specific. In other words, tell the editor 3 main things – what you want to teach their readers, how you can add value and your post ideas. That’s it.
#5: Prove your value
This is hard to do in an email, but trust me, this is essential. You can prove your value by focusing on the readers of the blog, not yourself.
You might be tempted to introduce yourself in a way that shares the story of your business, but don’t do that – that’s what your email signature is for and the editor will click on it if he or she wants to know more about you.
They just want to understand what you can do for their readers – what you can bring, how you can help them and have an impact.
That’s what you need to focus on. That’s how you’ll prove your value.
#6: Offer blog topics
Hopefully when doing your research you will have been inspired with lots of ideas about what topics to write about in your guest blog, but what if you haven’t? What if you can’t think of anything?
If you’re at this stage and having an issue with blog topic suggestions then it’s time to get creative. You need to use your knowledge of the blog and its audience to come up with some suggestions that make you, as an expert, standout.
I’d recommend you include a maximum of 3 ideas in your pitch and give your recipient a week to think things through before you follow up.
#7: Make it short but sweet
Popular bloggers receive a lot of pitches every day, so the challenge for you is to not only standout with a good subject line to get it opened, but also write a good, short pitch that doesn’t waste their time.
This is why being specific (point 4) will really work to your advantage. It will help you keep the email short but packed with the right information to get your key messages across.
My final thoughts …
It’s really important to personalise your pitch to each blogger, but at the same time you don’t want to lose your personality. In fact, you’ll standout more if you share it … after all, that’s what will come across when you write your guest blog anyway.
I think it’s important to end this blog in a place where you’ll begin your pitch. What is it you want to achieve from guest blogging? Keep this goal in mind throughout the process, don’t expect every response to be a yes and always focus on the audience.
These things, combined with a perfect pitch, will help you achieve the success you desire.
Do you want to learn how to build influence and become to go-to expert in your industry? Check out my membership site Headliners: The PR & Digital Marketing Academy to learn more.
I would love to meet you on Instagram. Follow Kathryn | KD Communications to see my updates and feel free to share this post on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
You may also be interested in reading:
