Blogger Outreach Strategy: Beginners Guide [2022 Edition]

Are you looking for an easy-to-use and effective blogger outreach strategy? 

In the Post-Penguin world, it’s almost impossible to build high-quality backlinks. 

Similarly, it’s extremely difficult to improve search engine rankings without acquiring backlinks from other sites.

So what’s the best way to build relevant links to your site in 2022?

If you said “blogger outreach”, you’re absolutely right.

What Is Blogger Outreach?

Blogger outreach is the process of strategically connecting with other bloggers to achieve specific goals including;

• Building backlinks
• Promoting your products or services
• Increasing your brand awareness
• Landing guest post opportunities
• Generating more traffic to your site, etc

Did you know that over 81% of online consumers trust information from blogs? 

According to HubSpot, 54% of decision-makers say they spend more than one hour per week reading and reviewing thought-leadership content.  

Blogger outreach strategy is one of the best strategies to improve your content marketing and SEO efforts.

Blogging is evolving and if you want to build a profitable online business, you must create buzz around your blog. Here’s where blogger outreach comes in handy. 

It’s all about building relationships with other bloggers in your niche and using your relationships to build your brand and generate more traffic and links.

It’s a win/win approach and you can’t succeed in this strategy if you don’t focus on creating value for others.

Benefits of Blogger Outreach Strategy

So why should you craft a blogger outreach strategy and why do you even need to spend time connecting with other bloggers? 

Here are some of the BIGGEST benefits of spending your time on the blogger outreach strategy.

• When a top blogger or influencer tweets or links to your stuff, you’ll get a lot of traffic, sales, and subscribers.
• It increases your blog’s popularity and helps you create and grow awareness of your brand.
• It increases your overall social media and online presence.
• Blogger outreach helps you build quality and relevant backlinks to your website. 
• It helps you build strong relationships with other bloggers in your niche.

In a nutshell, a blogger outreach strategy will not only help you boost your blog traffic but can open the doors to building high-quality links from top blogs without spamming others.

Are you now convinced about reaching out to other bloggers to make your blog successful?

Let’s now discuss creating a great strategy that opens the door for building high-quality links to your websites.

How to Create a Solid Blogger Outreach Strategy In 2022?

1. Find a blogger

If you want to create an outreach strategy, first of all, make a list of all the relevant bloggers in your niche. Divide them into two tiers, List A and List B bloggers.

• A-list bloggers are usually the top bloggers and influencers in your niche
• B-list bloggers include the people who have a good number of comments, and social shares on their posts

Make a list of at least 10 bloggers in each list so that you’ll have a list of 20 bloggers in both lists.

Now, focus on one blogger at a time instead of contacting all of them at once. Remember that slow and steady wins the race. So don’t rush if you want to get better results from it.

2. Build the relationship

Now that you figured out a blogger to contact, it’s now time for you to build a connection with him. This is to make sure you’re not spamming others for building links.

Here’s a step-by-step process for building strong relationships with other bloggers.

Step 1: Start with a tweet. Follow the blogger on Twitter. Frequently connect and leave comments on the links they tweet.  Repeat this until you get a response from the blogger.

Step 2: Leave a comment on their blog posts. Make sure to read the entire post and leave thoughtful comments to continue the conversation.

Step 3: Send an email to the blogger you want to build a relationship with. Don’t ask for any links yet! But send the email just to tell him how much you enjoy reading their blog posts.

Step 4: Ask for a review about your website or product you promote. Meanwhile, keep linking to his blog posts and email him whenever you link out!

Step 5: Ask for the mention or link if you have posted something awesome on your blog. Tell him how his blog audience will benefit by linking to your content or by tweeting it.

And that’s it! That’s how you build a connection with any blogger. You just need to make sure that you are not emailing anyone begging for links or shares. Be genuinely interested in offering free help to others first.

3. Measure your success, rinse and repeat

Whenever someone links to your blog posts or tweets your stuff, make sure to measure your success. Find out how many comments or visits you got after someone tweeted or linked to your content. This way, you can spend more time outreaching other bloggers who give more exposure to your posts.

Consider it as an ongoing process instead of treating it as a one-time step. You will eventually attract more attention, traffic, and links to your blog if you have a great network around your blogs.

Rinse and repeat the above two steps to build a successful outreach campaign. The key here is to be consistent with what you’re doing.

Bonus tip: Make sure to follow up with the bloggers. Few bloggers are extremely busy. So if you have sent an email a week ago and don’t get any response, try contacting them again gently. That way you’ll get a tremendous response.

How to find the email addresses of other bloggers?

Whether you are creating this strategy or just want to build relationships with other bloggers, you need their email addresses.

Personalization in other words sending personal emails to others is the best way to get a response. See, no one will link to you if they don’t know you or like you. So you need to build a connection with others first before getting a link from them.

Reaching out to other bloggers through emails is the easiest way to network with someone you don’t know.

But finding the email address of other bloggers is a tedious task.

One QUICK way to find the email address of anyone is to use Hunter. It not only helps you find others’ emails, but it also gives you access to the best-performing cold email templates that you can use to get replies from other bloggers.

You can also find any blogger’s contact address by going into their blog’s about page or contact page. If it’s not showing up, then you can try the above method! It works almost every single time.

Top 5 Outreach Techniques for Beginners

Here are a few amazing influencer outreach techniques and tips you can use to get more out of it as a beginner in 2022.

1. Aim to attract relationships, not links

If there’s only one technique you can follow, it is this: “focus on building relationships with other bloggers, don’t look for links”.

If you’re doing outreach just for one sole reason: which is attracting links or social shares, you’re doing it wrong. You’re not going to get better results that way. If you are playing it for the long term, you need to focus on people, not links.

Take Ryan Biddulph from Blogging from Paradise for example.

He writes a lot of guest posts, blog posts, and publishes videos regularly. Almost all the time, he promotes other bloggers (including newbies) without expecting anything in return. He’s also one of the few bloggers who has been focusing more on people than links for years now.

That’s why Ryan is so successful. By giving links and shout-outs to other bloggers, he’s being loved by everyone and most of the people reciprocate the same. That’s how you should treat this strategy, it’s not a numbers game. Focus on people, not links.

2. Go-giver > Go-getter

One of the best tips is to become a go-giver. What happens when you focus on giving more? You’ll open more doors to attract links and exposure automatically.

In blogging, you’ll succeed faster if you become a go-giver instead of a go-getter. The main difference between the two is, that the go-giver focuses more on giving more whereas the go-getter solely focuses on getting more.

3. Follow a solid approach

When it comes to using this strategy to get faster and better results, you need a solid approach. Here are a few ways you can use it smartly.

• Understand the need (you need to figure out what other bloggers and marketers really need and want)
• Set proper goals (don’t expect to get a link from authority sites in the first go, set realistic goals)
• Find relevant bloggers (there’s no point in reaching out to bloggers from the fitness industry if you’re into real estate, find relevant bloggers to collaborate with)
• Measure results (find out what’s working and what’s not by tracking and measuring results)

Above all, make sure to know your ROI. How much time and money are you spending on this strategy and what are you getting in return? Once you know the results, it becomes easier to scale up your outreach campaigns.

4. Send personalized emails the smart way

One smart way to get more out of this strategy is to email popular bloggers including influencers and other relevant bloggers in your niche.

There’s no need to send long and boring emails. But make sure your emails are personalized uniquely for every single blogger. Don’t send bulk emails as no one likes such spam emails.

Here’s a powerful example of how you can send personalized emails to outreaching others.

Hi [Name],

My name is [Your Name].

I follow you on [their website or social media handle] and noticed that you shared one of my favorite articles [Article Title].

That is such a great post.

Recently some of my readers are asking me for something more in-depth about the topic so I went ahead and created this post: [URL]

If you have time I’d love for you to check it out. I’d love to know your feedback

Best,

[Your Name]

If you see the above email pitch, you can notice that it’s a short email that is not asking for any links or even shares. We’re just emailing them to check out the post.

If they really like it, they will respond back to you or they might even share or link back to it if your content is super helpful to their audience.

5. Build a “highly relevant list” of bloggers to network with

This is an easy yet most powerful tip. Build a list of people who actively promote others, comment on other posts, and link to other resources in your niche.

This makes it so much easier to connect with them, engage with them and get links and shares from them. There are so many bloggers out there who do roundup posts, and weekly best posts roundups which you can use to attract links to your best posts.

4 Blogger Outreach Tools That Can Save Your Time 

Finding relevant bloggers and building relationships is really harder and it’s often a time-consuming process.

To develop a perfect blogger outreach strategy, you need to have access to the right tools. 

Unfortunately, there are thousands of tools available out there and it’s really hard to pick the right one.

Here are FOUR blogger outreach tools that can come in handy when you’re reaching out to other bloggers.

1. Semrush: Semrush is the most powerful SEO toolkit that offers over 50 tools under one platform. The pricing starts at $119.95 per month where you can get many tools including;

• Keyword research
• Competitor analysis
• Site audits
• Brand monitoring
• Content marketing tools and much more

The main reason to go for Semrush is its competitor analysis capabilities. It also gives you access to “Competitor PR Monitoring” which is extremely helpful to track your competitors’ mentions. 

So what are you waiting for?

Try Semrush Free for 30 Days 

2. Hunter: Hunter is an incredible software that you can use to find and verify professional email addresses. Hunter is used by 3,000,000+ professionals and it currently has a huge database of over 100+ million email addresses.

If you want to find an email of a blogger, simply enter their website’s address and Hunter.io will show you all the associated emails with the domain.

Here’s what it looks like;

Hunter.io also offers a free version that helps you find up to 25 email addresses per month.

Get 25 free searches/month 

3. Ninja Outreach: If you’re looking for an exclusive influencer marketing tool to automate your outreach process, you should try Ninja Outreach.

Using it, you can easily discover social media influencers in any niche. Just enter your keywords and you’ll find a ton of influencers along with their email address.

Here are some of the benefits of using Ninja Outreach;

• Business Lead Generation
• Find Instagram Influencers
• Find Twitter Influencers
• Influencer Marketing Agency Software
• Link Building Software and much more

The pricing starts at $155 per month. It also offers a 7-day free trial.

Try Ninja Outreach Today

4. Buzzstream: If you’re doing blogger outreach solely to build backlinks, you should definitely invest in Buzzstream as it offers all the tools you need for link building.

It gives you everything to simplify your outreach process. You can easily navigate the prospect list, add contacts to your campaign, and automatically get the website and social media metrics.

Here are some of the features offered by Buzzstream;

• Contact info discovery
• Open, click, & reply tracking
• Email templates
• Email scheduling & reminders
• Automated followups
• Twitter conversation tracking
• Email performance reports
• Link monitoring and much more

The pricing starts at $24 per month and goes up to $999 per month based on your requirements.

Try Buzzstream Today

Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid While Reaching Out to Other Bloggers

Are you looking to use blogger outreach to take your blog traffic, leads, relationships, and networking skills to the next levels? Here are a few fatal outreach mistakes you must avoid if you want to get better results.

1. It’s only about YOU

What happens when your influencer strategy is too self-promotional? No one gives a reply. Even worse, few bloggers move your emails to spam or trash. It is not about YOU, it’s about them.

Ask yourself “what’s in it for them” before trying to connect with any blogger in your industry. Find out ways to offer help instead of promoting yourself. That’s how you succeed while reaching out to others bloggers.

2. Not tracking your emails

Tracking your emails has so many benefits including;

• Easily find out when someone has opened your email (which also lets you know whether your subject line worked or not).
• Easily see who has opened your email (your email may have been forwarded to someone else within a company).
• See how many times a person has opened an email

So if you’re not tracking your emails yet, start doing it now as it makes outreach so much easier.

Here are few tools you can use to track your emails easily.

• Boomerang
• Mailtrack
• Yesware
• Mail Tag

3. Be personal, not a robot

One of the biggest outreach mistakes most people make is they send emails without being personal. Don’t send bulk emails to multiple people at once. It will never work.

Make sure to reach out to other bloggers or influencers in your niche one by one. By personally emailing them using their names, product names, website names and so on. That’s how you can build an emotional bonding with them, not by sending bulk emails like a robot.

4. You don’t follow up

We usually follow up once 5 to 7 days after the initial email, and depending on the opportunity, once more a week later or two. It seems persistent, but the casual emails are spaced out far enough that they act as gentle reminders so if you’ve not get any response in the initial email, you’ll mostly get one in your follow up emails.

5. Not doing any research

Before reaching out to any blogger, make sure to find out their name, website address along with the email and social media profiles. Make sure to read some of their blog posts, watch videos, listen to their podcasts to see what type of contents they create.

Buy their books or online courses if they are useful to you so you can easily talk about those resources before reaching out to other bloggers. Doing proper research helps you a lot and saves your time by producing you better results.

6. You’re reaching out to the wrong person

If you’re a newbie and complete beginner, don’t expect any replies or links (or anything of that sort) from an expert blogger or influencer in your industry. Don’t do that mistake as a blogger.

Reach out to micro bloggers who have decent traffic, subscribers and fans on social media. For example, you’ll have high chances of getting replies or links from those bloggers who have 5 to 10k fans on social media rather than targeting influencers who have a million followers on Twitter. Are you getting it?

7. Your email is too long and boring

Don’t write long and boring emails. No one reads it.

No blogger has the time to read long emails especially when they are all about you, your products or website. Keep your emails really simple, short and compelling which can be consumed by others within a minute or two.

8. “No” doesn’t mean the end of the world

We know influencer outreach is hard. It’s a hustle. You will feel like it’s a daunting task and when you hear the words like “no, I’m not interested” in email outreach or when a blogger rejects your proposal (be it for guest posting or sharing your stuff), don’t get disheartened.

In fact, rejection is the first step to success. Get into the habit of getting rejected a lot and that’s how you can move up to the ladder. NEVER take things personally. After all, you’re just trying to reach out to others to increase your content visibility.

9. Not caring about email subject lines

As we discussed earlier, this strategy mostly depends on how great your email pitches are. When it comes to writing captivating outreach emails, your subject lines matter a lot. Yes, email subject is the first thing people notice and read.

If they are crappy, no one’s even going to open your emails. As they say, 8 out of 10 people read your headlines first and then copy. The same thing applies to your email pitches as well as majority people open your emails only if they have great subject lines.

Try to think creatively. Don’t use long and boring subject lines. Keep them short yet powerful. Try to add personalization by including their name or website so you can attract other bloggers attention with your subject lines.

10. Asking for help without any prior interaction

This is another biggest mistake. Don’t ask for help such as links, shares, comments etc if you don’t have any prior interaction or connection with other bloggers. It doesn’t work. Take your time to connect with them first. Build rapport. Only then, you can go ahead with other things.

Influencer outreach best practices

So by now you already know how effective this strategy is. Let’s now get into the details of outreach best practices to get the most out of it.

• Be helpful. Always offer free help before seeking help from other bloggers. Don’t email others begging for a link. Instead, create a platform where others will link to your stuff naturally.
• Link out to other bloggers too often. If you want to get more shares, share others’ stuff first. If you want to get more links, frequently link out to other blogs. It’s as simple as that.
• Be networked. Introduce some other blogger to someone you already know. Be a connector who connects two bloggers either through emails or personally. This often goes a long way to creating a successful outreach campaign.
• Be extremely passionate about your blog topics. The more curious you are about your topics the more passionate guys you will attract. The more you interact with like-minded people the more you will learn about building a successful blog online.
• Don’t waste others’ time. Ask yourself “What’s in it for me? Why would anyone link to your stuff?” to create a better blogger outreach strategy. You should be able to give incentives such as sharing their stuff frequently, linking too often etc to earn a link from other bloggers. Just having good content doesn’t mean that everyone links to you immediately after you email them begging the links! So stop wasting others’ time on links. Instead, think about creative ways how you can offer free help first.

Getting the attention of an influencer is really hard and it takes time to learn the art of getting an influencer’s attention. Just don’t write cold pitches asking for links or shares. That won’t work EVER.

You need to be creative while reaching out to other bloggers. So make use of the above-proven outreach best practices to get a response.

How to reach out to other bloggers without sounding like a sales guy?

Make sure to keep in mind that it takes time to get rewarding results from an online strategy of reaching out other bloggers. No one will link to you or share your stuff immediately when you email them.

You need to first get to know other bloggers then make them like you. Only then you can persuade them to do whatever you want.

Another important thing to keep in mind while reaching out to other bloggers is to know their wants and needs. For instance, if you want to write a guest post for someone, instead of randomly pitching them about a topic, think about their blog audience needs.

That way, you can easily come up with perfect blog post ideas that will attract their blog audience. And it’s the easiest way to convince any blogger to publish your guest posts.

Blogger Outreach Plan: A 7-Point Checklist for Bloggers

Here’s a quick checklist for those who want to create a perfect blogger outreach plan in 2022 and beyond.

1. Know and understand your goals for outreach. What exactly do you want to accomplish? Is it acquiring backlinks, getting more traffic, or collecting emails? 
2. Create a target list of bloggers and influencers to reach out to. You can use Google search operators like “Site:example.com” to find a list of relevant websites in any industry. You can also use tools like BuzzSumo to find influencers by entering a topic or keyword.
3. Get on the radar of your “target bloggers” by frequently tweeting their stuff, linking to their blog posts, commenting on their videos, purchasing their products, emailing them, etc.
4. Find the email address of your target bloggers. You can use their website’s contact page or a free tool like Hunter.io to find their email addresses. 
5. Create an email template that you can use again and again to connect with other bloggers. Make sure it’s unique, simple, and adds value to your outreach campaign.
6. Create a strategy to reach out to other bloggers. If you want to build links, you can try different techniques like broken link building, guest blogging, etc. If you want more traffic, ask them if they’re open to linking to your content (or tweeting about your website or product).
7. Check what other influencers and top bloggers in your industry are tweeting and sharing on their social media profiles. If you can come up with great topic ideas around the things they often share, you can land guest post opportunities easily.
8. Always track your progress. You can use Google Analytics and check where your website visitors are coming from.

FAQs

Here are some of the frequently asked questions about blogger outreach strategy.

Browse more Blogging Resources:

Final Thoughts

People should not build links, they should earn them. But no one comes to your blog and links to your organically if you don’t ask them. If you want to get incoming links from other sites, you should reach out to other bloggers.

There’s no other way around to build quality links in this Post-Penguin era. Here’s where blogger outreach strategy comes into play. If done right, reaching out to other bloggers is the surefire way to build links and boost your search traffic.

It’s a lot easier for you to get incoming links from other blogs if you mention them in your blog posts. Remember, a blogger outreach strategy is all about a win/win approach. So you can’t ask anyone to link to your sites without linking to their posts first.

Have any more questions? Let us know in the comments.