Our Pitch to Some Top Bloggers
December 18, 2007 – 6:09 amSeeing as this is a book about, among other things, blogger relations, I thought I’d discuss how we pitched some top bloggers. The strategy went like this:
- We wrote each of them a hand-written letter on pink note cards and decorated them with stickers. We used one of those silver pens that were really popular with girls when I was in elementary school. When you shake the pens, they rattle like a can of spray paint. This, obviously, was to make the letters stand out, and it jibed with the whole ‘dates and relationships’ theme of the book.
- We made personal landing pages on the site for each blogger, and included the URL in the letter.
- We addressed them with my name (I know, or am known, to some of them) and our address in Malta. Not a big deal, but I expect none of them have ever gotten a letter from Malta before. Here’s what they looked like:
- We bought some cheap perfume, sprayed the envelopes with them and sent them off.
- While the letters were on route, we recorded personal messages for each blogger, and posted them on YouTube. You can see one below:
- The video is also embedded in the aforementioned super-secret page, along with copies of the ebook for the bloggers to download.
We Want Your Attention
So, in short, the equation goes like this:
Hand-written letter + Personalized video + Personalized landing page = We want and value your attention
There’s actually two more steps in our pitch process:
- Link to those bloggers in this post. Bloggers often monitor who links to them, so they may notice. Consider it a little link-powered shout-out. This was the list:
Seth Godin
Steve Rubel
Andy Beard
Lee Odden
Toby Bloomberg
Andy Beal
Robert Scoble
Jeremiah Owyang - Send a follow-up email later this week.
We discuss lots of strategies like this in the book. These folks obviously aren’t the only people we’re pitching, but these were the ‘top’ bloggers we wanted to go after. We’re taking paths of less resistance with other pitches–only recording videos, or writing out notes and sending photographs of the notes to people (here are two examples of that successful pitch). It’d be great to take the original tactic with everyone but it’s pretty time-consuming, and often tricky to find people’s snail mail addresses.
Super-Secret URLs
The only dodgy part of this strategy is the concern that one of these bloggers will inadvertently link to the super-secret page we created for them. There’s a free copy of the book on that page, and so we might inadvertently give away dozens or hundreds of copies of the book. See as one of the goals of Getting to First Base is marketing ourselves, that wouldn’t be a total loss. So, it’s a risk that we’re prepared to take.
We take the same risk when we send out a super-secret URL to reviewers (we’ve got 40-odd so far). Any time you create a digital product, you’re going to give away some free copies. Hopefully other opportunities (new clients, speaking gigs, writing more books) compensate for the lost revenue that inevitably occurs.
Tags: blogger outreach, Blogger Relations, letters, offbeat, promotion
18 Responses to “Our Pitch to Some Top Bloggers”
Nice strategy. I’ve not received my perfumed letter yet - but when I do, I can at least explain to my wife why I just received a pink, perfumed letter.
You were right about linking to me - as someone that preaches reputation monitoring, I do practice what I preach.
Now, I just need to figure out what it is you want from me. I guess the letter will tell all.
Cheers!
By Andy Beal on Dec 18, 2007
Thanks for that, Andy. I sent you the super-secret URL in case the letter never arrives.
By Darren Barefoot on Dec 18, 2007
Hey Darren and Julie, This is very clever and creative!
It certainly got my attention. I just went into my partner’s office and sorted through a huge stack of mail (I’ve been on the road the past 2 weeks) looking for a pink letter. Alas, no letter yet.
The only trouble with your book and examples is that soon everyone will be doing it…
Cheers,
Lee Odden
By Lee Odden on Dec 18, 2007
Lee: As I mentioned in my email, I’m blaming the questionable Maltese postal service. Hopefully the letter still comes.
By Darren Barefoot on Dec 18, 2007
I subscribe to Robert Scoble’s Google shared items, and I’ve noticed that he often shares references to himself, even if (especially if?) they’re negative references. So your item 7 seems to be right on target.
Especially since I found this page via a tweet from Steve Rubel. Proves the point, I think.
http://twitter.com/steverubel/statuses/512193312
By Ontario Emperor on Dec 18, 2007
Hi there! Like Ontario Emperor, I found this page through Steve Rubel’s tweet as well. I’m very interested in this kind of personalized blogger outreach and I believe this an extremely well-executed example.
A quick newbie question for you guys: It seems like this approach could be difficult in terms of making an outstanding first impression, since mailing addresses may not be explicitly given. Did you already have these addresses from previous interactions or was this just a matter of digging for them via whois and other means?
In the latter case, should we make some considerations for the recipient, who may or may not be a little creeped out that a potential stranger has access to their mailing address and sent them a letter with unknown contents? Perhaps I’m a little paranoid, but I think a good first impression warrants a little extra scrutiny?
Cheers!
By AdPuppet on Dec 18, 2007
AdPuppet: Thanks for dropping by. The nice thing about pitching professionals who blog, and particularly marketing professionals, is that they generally identify their employers or consultancies. It’s pretty easy to find their snail mail addresses.
In the case of this effort, we only had to ask one person for their snail mail address. I already had a relationship with him and, besides, it’s near Christmas, so I could just be sending him a Christmas card.
If it’s not easy to get addresses, I wouldn’t necessarily go the snail mail route. As I mentioned, for other bloggers, we hand wrote notes, photographed them and emailed the photos to the bloggers. That seems to have worked well too.
By Darren Barefoot on Dec 18, 2007
I found you from Rubel’s twit as well. Lovin’ the groovy pitch notes. Reminds me of one of the first press releases I sent out. I challenged the company (all 11 of us) to make them as ridiculous as possible. Wonder if anyone kept them. They were stunners.
By Catherine Helzerman on Dec 18, 2007
I think this is a really cool example - now doubt the method will create as much buzz as the content of the pitch itself.
I’m curious though guys, how well did you know the people you were pitching this story to?
From my experience the core of blog relations is joining the community, building a name for yourself and getting to know people over time.
If you know the people you are pitching well, they know you and you have a strong relationship they’ll give your pitch a fair hearing.
The gimmick of the letters is cute, and cuts through the clutter - and I love the use of different mediums and repeated content. But if you’ve got the relationships in place for starters, you really could deliver your message spray painted on the side of a cow…
By Paull Young on Dec 18, 2007
PS: I’m now really excited to try to pitch someone with a spray painted cow…
By Paull Young on Dec 18, 2007
Paull: Indeed, I’ve been blogging for five years, and know some of the folks we pitched. That’s the central conceit of our book–the whole thing about social media marketing being about relationships.
That said, creative pitch strategies work with first-timers, too. You just have to match the strategy to the blogger.
By Darren Barefoot on Dec 18, 2007
After following Seth’s Tweet, I requested and received the super secret download link
I was going to read it over the Christmas holidays, but didn’t want to wait. I like the approach and on the face of it, it appears to be working.
I’ve just blogged my bit on it.
By Rosie Sherry on Dec 19, 2007