Blogger Outreach Strategy Failure: Are You Making These 7 Common Blogger Outreach Mistakes?

Here Are The Reasons For Why Blogger Outreach Strategy Is Failing

In simple words, blogger outreach is simply the marketing technique that focuses on a company reaching out to the bloggers with the substantial fan base for promoting their products and services. In today’s world, a company can reach out to millions of potential customers within a few hours via the internet.

A company that is not using digital marketing tools will most likely suffer in today’s world of information technology. Among many digital marketing techniques, blogging and social media marketing are the two major digital marketing weapons for the brands. Today, not only companies have brands, even common people are focusing on building their brands.

The term used for common people building a brand is known as personal branding. If you take a look on the internet, you will observe many bloggers building their personal brands on various blogging platforms and social media platforms.

These bloggers are not only building their brands, but they are also helping many other companies to build their brands and boost their sales. According to the study, an influencer marketing campaign can provide an average of $6.5 for every $1 spent on the campaign if done in a right way.

Why aren’t marketers getting the desired rate of return from their campaigns?

There are two reasons why marketers do not get a desired rate of return from their marketing campaigns. They are either selecting wrong marketing tools to promote their products and services, or they do not have a right marketing strategy.

In case of an influencer marketing, it has already proven its power to provide an impressive rate of return to the marketers. If you’re not being able to get a decent return from your campaigns, you are the one who is committing the mistakes.

Finding your own mistakes can be quite difficult at times. This is the reason why we have decided to list out the seven common mistakes that can affect your blogger outreach strategy. There is a very good chance that you are making at least one of these mistakes. Here are the seven common blogger outreach mistakes that can affect the overall outreach campaign.

1. Starting the campaign without setting clear goals

When business owners hear about others getting a huge return from blogger outreach campaigns, they are in a hurry to get the same type of return for their brands as well. However, they fail to realize that hitting an arrow without a target is not a right way to go.

Before doing anything in business, it’s important for the manager to have clear goals and visions. They must be sure of what they want from the campaign. The goals of the blogger outreach campaign may not be the same for every single brand out there.

Some of the goals that brands expect from a blogger outreach campaign could be a boost in the web traffic, engagement with the website, increasing brand awareness, sales, and so on. Make sure what you want from your campaign before starting off with a blogger outreach program.

Being clear about what you want from the campaign can help you make the list of key performance indicators. Create the list of key performance indicators (KPI) for your campaign to be able to track the return on investment correctly.

2. Selecting the wrong list of bloggers

To run a successful campaign, you need right bloggers to promote your products and services. However, the task of finding the right bloggers for your outreach program is not an easy task. Just randomly selecting the bloggers by Google search and search on social media platforms can hurt your overall marketing strategy.

No matter how awesome your products or services may be, you will not be able to get a conversion by selecting the wrong bloggers for your outreach program. Some brands outsource their blogger outreach campaign to agencies that do not understand the brands well, which can lead them to the selection of wrong bloggers for the outreach campaign.

One of the major reasons for the selection of the wrong blogger is by checking out the volume of traffic and the fan base of the blogger on various social media platforms. Remember, having a large fan base does not necessarily guarantee high-quality traffic to your site. If only numbers were the issue, micro-influencers would have never got so much attention from the brands.

3. Not cultivating the relationship with bloggers

The task of running a successful blogger outreach campaign does not end with selecting the right bloggers and paying them. A brand needs to partner with them to get to know them well. Not knowing the bloggers in your network can eventually harm your brand image instead of improving them.

A blogger needs to know what the brands want, and the brands should make it clear to bloggers what they expect from them. If both parties have a nice relationship with each other, there is a less chance of a failure.

Money is not the major reward that is expected of influencers. The study shows that influencers are more motivated with brand values and their care for the works of influencers than money.

4. Not integrating outreach strategy into the core marketing strategy

There are many brands that still do not realize the importance of integrating outreach strategy into their core marketing strategy. Like your in-house marketers, your bloggers should also be well aware of your marketing goals and strategies.

They need to be updated with your latest plan and offers so that they can create a blog that matches your goals and offers. However, this is not what happens when bloggers and brands decide to work together. The brands keep influencers far off from their core marketing strategy, leaving them on their own, which leads to a failure.

5. Taking collaboration as a one-time deal

Do you often order a blogger to write a single blog for you then move onto the next blogger for writing the next blog for your brand? If you’re also doing this, then it’s time you need to change your mindset regarding your partnership with a blogger. Do not pay a blogger right after making a deal with a blogger.

Being involved in a partnership should be for a long-term, not a short-term because it takes quite a bit of time for bloggers to understand a need for a company they are working with. As time passes by, they get better, and they start delivering top-quality blog posts for the brand.

Do not expect an exceptional result from a blogger with a single blog post. Let them get familiar with your products and services. Make a realistic expectation from a blogger.

If the blogger you have chosen fit all the criteria that you have set, you must focus on establishing a long-term relationship with that blogger for a better return on investment from your blogger outreach campaigns.

6. Ignoring FTC endorsement rules

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) demands a blogger/influencer to disclose the information regarding their endorsement and sponsorship in the posts. Failing to adhere to the laws that are set by the US Federal Trade Commission could hamper both influencer and a brand, which can run a return on overall marketing campaigns.

As a person who is asking a blogger to promote your products and services, you must make a blogger clear about what FTC demands from every single sponsored blog and random posts. Give a clear instruction to a blogger on how to follow the rules that are set by FTC to avoid unnecessary troubles from the sponsored blog posts.

7. Failing to calculate return on investment

According to the report obtained from the study conducted on influencer marketing, around 65% of the marketers confessed that tracking return on investment from influencer marketing campaign was the biggest challenge for them.

Tracking the return on investment solely based on the no. of visitors on the site is not a right thing to do. A brand must track the return based on KPIs that they have set before launching the campaign.

There could be a case where only one blogger out of 20 is producing the result for your brand. Not being able to calculate return on investment can be a reason behind a failed campaign.

Conclusion

The first step of rectifying errors is an identification the errors. When you are well aware of the mistakes that you’re making, you’re likely to make necessary changes that can help you work better in the future. If you manage to get your blogging outreach strategy right, it’s for sure that you can manage to significantly boost your brand awareness and sales conversion.

The study shows that around 47% of the consumers go through at least 3-5 blog posts before purchasing a product. When someone your potential customers trust, an influential blogger, posts something good about your product and service, it will enhance your brand image and sales conversion.

Author Bio

Stevan Mcgrath is a digital marketing professional who possesses expertise in brand design and development. Stevan is passionate about utilizing his diverse skill sets for new and innovative online marketing strategies. He has worked as a freelancer and a contributor to ProvenSEO. Despite having a wide influential reach, he seeks client satisfaction as his topmost priority. He also writes blog posts on recent digital marketing trends. To know his work and more details you can follow him on facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Google+.