Sending bloggers free stuff isn’t just good for them. Organising reviews and giveaways could be awesome for kickstarting your content marketing campaign. It’s also not as easy as it sounds. Running a review or a giveaway for your products means knowing how to connect with bloggers at the right time, in the right industry, in the right way.

These two kinds of blogger outreach strategy are useful for building a reputation for your brand, as well as boosting SEO. If you’re a new eCommerce company, chances are there won’t be a lot of people talking about your product in the digital sphere. Sending samples to bloggers can get things moving.

How to find bloggers by topic and by location

Before you contact a single blogger, you need to make sure that you have the right blogger for the job. That’s a whole separate skill which is worth learning and which we have covered in a page on how to identify bloggers.

How To Ask Bloggers To Write About You In 3 Steps

1. Read the blog

Nothing will send your email to the trash faster than a generic email. With the average open rate for a cold email at around one in four, you should take a while to read through the content and make sure your product would appeal to the blog’s target audience. Show some evidence in your pitch that you’ve read and enjoyed the content.

2. Don’t be too formal

Bloggers are awesome precisely because they show their human side. Whether it’s a travel blog, a finance blog, or a baking blog, there’s a distinct personality to every successful blog. The best ones get their own personality across in everything they do, so your pitch shouldn’t be a dusty old “Sir/Madam” affair.

3. Set out your terms

Don’t flirt around why you’re contacting them. Clear, reasonable terms will make the blogger’s decision far easier; it shows that you’re co-operative and generally awesome. If you’re after a backlink, say it. If you’re after a certain number of social media shares, say it. Your content marketing strategy should never be hazy.

A blogger outreach email example for a review or a giveaway

Now it’s time to construct an awesome pitch. The aim is to try and get a friendly blogger to accept a product for a review or a giveaway.

In this example, we’ll be acting on behalf of a (fictional) kids clothing line called Ninja Kids Clothing.

Hey [name of blogger],

I hope you had a super weekend. My name’s [insert your name here], and I own a small, awesome UK business that I thought might interest you.

The name of the business is Ninja Kids Clothing. We create organic clothing at a reasonable price. Our goal is to make ethical clothing available to everyone.

I’ve been reading [state name of blog] for a while now and love the content you put out. [Include genuine examples of why you admire this blogger’s amazing work.]

We were wondering whether you might be interested in reviewing one of our products.

We have a selection of products that we think you’ll both love and that are also relevant to your readers. We’d also be happy to arrange a giveaway for your readers, if you’re interested.

Feel free to take a look at the product page on our website and see if anything catches your eye:

www.ninjakidsclothing.com/products

All we would ask in return is a review, in the form of a blog post, and a link to our product page.

We’re looking to spend [insert amount you’re willing to spend here — don’t be afraid to negotiate]. Do let me know your thoughts on this and hopefully we can chat some more.

Best wishes,

[Insert your name here]

Why is that blogger outreach email so awesome?

1. It’s friendly and approachable. It’s clearly not a generic, send-to-all email.
2. The pitcher justifies why they’re contacting this particular blogger. It shows a level of research that bloggers appreciate.
3. It gives the blogger the option to review and/or hold a giveaway, depending on what they think is best for their readership.
4. The pitch stresses that their products would be relevant to the blogger’s readers. Fitting in with existing content is a big plus for blogger outreach.
5. The terms of the deal are clearly stated, with the pitcher asking for a review and a backlink in return for a free product.

Now that you’ve seen a couple of pitches — one for sponsored content, one for product reviews and giveaways — you should have a pretty good idea of how to connect with bloggers. Have a go at crafting your own pitch and let us know how it went.

If you need some more top tips on pitching, check out Thinkplus’s number one best-seller on content marketing. It’s jam-packed with nuggets of wisdom about the world of blogger outreach.