How to Use the Blogger Outreach Template [Step-by-Step Guide]

Posted by Will Blunt

Does it ever feel like you’re just spinning your wheels and making no progress with your online marketing?

When planning your content marketing and social media – whether you’re a small business, marketing consultant, or freelancer – one strategy that helps drive serious results is blogger outreach.

What exactly is blogger outreach?

Blogger outreach, or “influencer” marketing, is the process of getting in touch with others who have an already established following and can influence your potential customers.

Bloggers typically have a small but loyal community that drives more engagement than paid advertising. With 81% of people trusting the information and advice they read from bloggers.

But contacting bloggers that will help reinforce your marketing efforts – whether that’s through a guest blogging program, brand ambassador campaign, or as a content promotion tactic – can be a bit daunting.

Who should you reach out to? And just how should you reach out to them?

To help you answer these questions, I’ve put together a step-by-step guide to support our “Blogger Outreach Template” that will help you identify and connect with bloggers and influencers who will significantly improve your marketing efforts.

The “Blogger Outreach Template“ has been downloaded tens of thousands of times as a part of our 33 Web Marketing Templates, and offers a simple 10-step process for contacting influencers as well as an email template for doing so.

If you don’t have a copy you can download one below.

Table of Contents

Why Blogger Outreach?
What’s Your Blogger Outreach Plan?
The Perfect Blogger Outreach Template
What to Expect After You Email
Wrap and What You Should Do Next

Why Blogger Outreach?

The benefits of blogger outreach (when executed well) are straightforward.

• Influential bloggers can bring a larger audience to your brand
• People usually trust friends, authorities, or colleagues before they’ll trust advertising or marketing – connecting with influencers can help build your own credibility and loyalty with a growing audience
• If you play it well, this relationship can be a win-win by helping these influencers build their own credibility/authority in your niche

You know that an important aspect of any marketing strategy is relationship building. So if you’re able to build trust with a customer, if you listen to what they’re asking for and follow what they’re interested in, you might just be fortunate enough to gain their loyalty. A big part of that journey is understanding who they already trust and expect – these are your bloggers and influencers.

It goes without saying that reaching out to these bloggers – who have the potential to make a significant impact on your audience and your brand’s credibility – is an important part of your content marketing strategy.

Below you will find a template for your initial email to these influencers, but there’s more to building the connection than just shooting off a quick message. It’s important to recognise that there’s some legwork you’ll need to do before reaching out in that first email.

What’s Your Blogger Outreach Plan?

The blogger outreach template starts with a 10-step process you can follow to increase your chance of success once you email these influencers. It’s the “Plan” for actually conducting outreach.

Here are some quick tips for executing this plan:

• Identify the influencers/bloggers (in your market) that you want to reach out to – think about their audience size, if their tone/personality fits your brand, and most importantly whether or not your customers trust and respect them.This might seem like a simple first step – and it can be. But you want to find out who your audience already follows, and the influencers that they’re actually interested in hearing from. There are a number of great tools out there to help with this; Twitter Analytics, for instance, is a great place to start, if you want an idea of their demographic information and the trending topics they follow. Another great tool for discovering influencers in your industry is BuzzSumo, below is a screenshot of the influencer tab after searching for “health and fitness”;

• Build out a spreadsheet for keeping track of these contacts – include their name and email address, in addition to any social media accounts they have, number of followers, where they’ve been blogging, etc. Our “Aspirational Contacts Template“ is a helpful place to start for this;

• Follow them on Twitter. Find their profile, add them to any lists that you might have created, and take time to interact with them. Share their blog posts, retweet anything that you might find interesting – these seem like obvious tactics, but they’re important for building that relationship so that when you do reach out to them, it’s not completely out of the blue.
• Read their blog. You should absolutely pay attention to what they’re writing about and posting on their blog! This is a great way to research if the blogger will have an interest in collaborating in some way with you, and can determine the best way to engage with them when it comes time.
• Comment on their blog. This does NOT mean that you spam their blog with links to your articles or website. If you like what the blogger has written about, let them know. Tell them how you’ve used the information or give feedback on the topic. Think about the kind of comments that you like seeing after you’ve posted on your own blog. This is a great way of establishing rapport with someone.
• Subscribe to their newsletter and reply to their emails with sincere praise. Let them know you’re a part of their fan club. Are there tips or links you might be able to share with them that are relevant to the topics they’ve been writing about? Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience or really enjoyed the way they address an issue – let them know!
• Buy their book, or listen to their podcast, and review them. I’ll never forget the first thing I did to connect with Adam and Toby… I read their book and was the very first person to review it on Amazon. This kind of thing really gets you noticed!

Here is an article from HubSpot with some more great tips on connecting with influencers before asking for something in return.

Your goals for this strategy should all point back to one very important thing – building a relationship with these influencers. Be sincere – you should actually read their blogs, buy their books or products, and respond to their tweets in a genuine manner.

Because when it comes time to reach out to them and ask for something, it won’t be a cold contact. You’ll have made some kind of connection with them already. In fact, you may not need to ask for anything after doing all of this, they will probably offer a favour without prompting.

In the words of Adam Franklin, “Lead with generosity and form a relationship before you “ask” for anything”.

The Perfect Blogger Outreach Email Template

So you’ve been talking with (and following) this influencer for a little while, and finally the time comes to ask for something in return.

What actually needs to be said?

Let’s break it down by walking through each stage of the email template. This example is if you were looking to ask for a social media share from someone.

Greeting and Intro

This is friendly, personal, and it’s how you’d talk to someone if you were meeting them in person.

You can include a tiny bit of background without giving them your whole life story – you’re also praising them for their work and this sets the stage for why you’re reaching out.

Lead with generosity; Tell them.

Already you’re telling them how much you enjoy their writing and work. They didn’t have to ask for your support – you’re already a fan! And you have reinforced this by doing all the things I discussed earlier – sharing their content, commenting on their blog etc.

Ask

The request here is simple and easy – and there’s absolutely no pressure. The easier you make it for the influencer to come to the party the better. For example, in the social media share example here, you may choose to include something like a “Click to Tweet” link. That way it only takes them a click on a button to help you out.

Closing

Close your email with some more personalisation to further nurture your relationship with this influencer.

In this example the conversation is light, but also shows that you’re interested in what they’re up to and attentive to any interests they might have (without being creepy).

Your details

Include an email signature with your most important information. That way you don’t look like a spammer and they can quickly remember who you are and where you are from (They most likely get a lot of these requests). Include your title and any social media accounts that might be relevant or helpful for them.

What to Expect After You Email

Let’s say you send out your email, but don’t hear back.

Don’t worry! These influencers get a LOT of emails… so there is every chance that yours slipped through the cracks. Don’t be afraid to follow up with a second email reminding them. The follow up email can deliver some great results.

Also, continue to follow the 10-step process mentioned above and build this relationship beyond a simple email request. Don’t hassle the person; but continue to engage with them as a follower and fan, and you’ll start seeing results over time.

Wrap and What You Should Do Next

Having influencers on your side can make a huge difference to your online presence. Someone helping you access your ideal audience at a larger scale than you could yourself is a bonus, and it brings credibility to your brand. When both sides are able to benefit from this kind of relationship – everyone wins.

Have you seen any success from blogger outreach campaigns? What kind of tips do you have for reaching out to influencers in your niche?

To kickstart your outreach efforts, download the Blogger Outreach Template. The more you do this kind of the stuff, the better results you will see and the easier it will get.