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Obviously, Guest Posting + PR is an important part of our strategy at Ginger Marketing, being one of our primary services. Slowly but surely we are starting to increase the amount of time spent marketing our business, but it's tough to carve out the time! Even we have difficulties - and we have everything set up and in place to execute! Recently I've been trying one tactic which has worked pretty well. It is SUPER simple and takes only a few minutes every day. That is if you follow the basic rules about how to execute the tactic effectively. And today I'm going to explain what this tactic is AND the basic rules you need to follow in order to execute it effectively. Please, please, please, read down to the end of the post. Don't just read the tactic and go "Right - that’s it!" and launch into execution without at least trying to understand the nuances. Very likely you will already know this, you will probably have read every piece of advice I am about to give. BUT, until you have actually implemented it correctly, to land your company a premium PR placement like we did for The Telegraph, maybe there is something you are missing. I am pretty sure if you are pitching and pitching, and pitching and pitching, and not getting anywhere then I know what the reason is. And I'm going to explain exactly what is going wrong and how you need to start changing your behaviour to get results. The reason I am pretty sure I know the reason is because I see people doing it all the time. In fact, very recently I found an ‘hourlie’ on People Per Hour where someone was selling a pitch template - and even their pitch template had this error. It had been sold hundreds of times, with this error. Another fact, last week I made the error myself and had to adjust, correct and send the pitch out again. So, if there is a voice saying - "I know this", "boring", "I don't have time", kindly tell it: “Thanks for popping by and sharing, this is only going to take a few minutes, let’s pay attention and see if we can get this and land our business an epic mention on a premium site.” P.S. Before I go further, we do not currently offer premium mentions or premium PR (I keep getting enquiries). We offer a mid-level, niche guest posting service which is extremely valuable for your SEO strategy, growing community and brand presence in your niche. So let's get going. The tactic I used to land a mention on the Telegraph was answering a #journorequest on twitter. If you don't follow it already then there is a great hashtag on Twitter called #journorequest where journalists, and also bloggers, tweet out for comments on features they are writing. There is also a free tool you can sign up to called; Journorequests which collates all of these requests into a handy email so you can just scan through and reply. Pretty simple right? You are probably thinking “It can't be that easy?”. Which is exactly what I thought when I tested it out. I figured, I'll sign up, for the next 2 weeks I'll answer requests and I'll see if we get anywhere. As a rule, I tend to test lots of new tactics and then shelve or keep, depending on results. #journorequest is a keeper. So, hopefully, by now, I've convinced you to sign up for the tool or follow the hashtag. Let's get into how you are going to make it work for your business. 1. Get your sales head onitching is like selling. You are selling your story to the journalist. When you are selling something to a client what is the first thing you think about? I'll bet you think “What does this person want that I can help them with?”. Or at least that is what you should be thinking. The trick to selling is aligning what you have with what they want. Are you with me? Spend at least one minute reading and thinking about what this person wants before you even think about what you can give them. In sales - the person you are selling to is more important than you. Get that trick right and you are golden. The problem is, we have a major egocentric issue in our society. Most people are just waiting for everyone else to be quiet so they can speak, this won’t get you anywhere. Read, listen and really think about what this journalist wants and is asking for. 2. Get to the point quicklyThere is a MASSIVE difference between writing an educational post like this one, and pitching/selling yourself. When you write a post like this you have to take your reader on a journey, hold them by the hand and lead them to a realisation or a knowing - that's the goal. It's a slower process, the message takes time to unfold because the goal is to educate. BUT, when you are pitching to #journorequest all you have to do is prove in 140 characters you have what they need. Your goal is to sell. So, get to the fricking point! Just tell them plainly, this is what I can add to your feature. Don't dress it up, don't start talking about your gazillion awards, just tell them what you can offer. 3. Pack your pitch with juiceJust look at how succinct the pitches are with this hashtag and look at how much juice is being packed into the responses. The good thing about Twitter is you have a limited character count which gets rid of waste. The best pitchers give a large amount of information in a short number of words. This gives the journalist everything they need to understand if you are a fit for their piece. If you are a fit they will contact you to get more information, at which point you can start to expand and go into depth.
In summary, read what the journalist is asking for - think about it for at least a minute. Then think "How can I add value to this piece?”. Then sell the journalist that value in a short tweet which Gets to the point AND Packs a lot of juice Practice makes perfect, so get out there and start pitching! If you have any more tips we’d love it if you could share in the comments below. What has worked for you?
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In the Digital PR and Guest Blogging space getting featured on Forbes is considered the pinnacle of success. We often get asked by clients if we can get them high profile mentions on sites like Huffington, Forbes, Entrepreneur and Inc (answer: yes we can). But whilst I do agree that getting featured on premium sites can offer exposure and additional benefits, it’s not as black and white as you might think. But then what is... not much sept from this cutie. (meet Raphaella, our adorable rabbit who as I write this is digging outside in the plant pots of our roof terrace - don't tell the landlord!) If you are looking for massive amounts of exposure, which is the primary reason most business owners want to get onto these publications, then there is only one way to get this. You need to have something out of this world worth sharing!! psst, launching your latest product (unless it can automatically clean my bunnies cage or fly me to the moon, in which case lets talk!) is not out of this world worth sharing. That doesn't mean you can't get onto these publications it's just that you should re-frame how you view them as a marketing tool and be more realistic about results. Lets break this down a bit.. The primary ways a Digital PR company or you can get on Forbes or similar is; A. Pay a huge amount of money to a contributor who will quote you within one of their articles B. Build a relationship with a relevant journalist and either pitch content or a source C. Get contributor rights Option A just isn't worth the return on investment. Unless you absolutely need a premium link for your link building strategy it's not worth paying $1,500 - $2,000 for one mention on Forbes. Option C is a possibility but in most cases you need to be able to get a referral and also be a freaking good writer with a bunch of original ideas to share. Which leaves option B, if done well this can deliver a good ROI but it's not all roses and champagne. Not all content on Forbes, Inc & Huffington gets shared thousands of times. To illustrate this with actual figures. I just entered this search query > site:https://www.forbes.com/ “guest blogging” into google.it And I randomly picked some results from the first few pages: 1. Guest Blogging: Is It Really Dead? Views : 1,448 Shares: 125 Click Through: 22.96 2. 39 Actionable Ideas For Driving Traffic To Your Website Views: 506,961 Shares: 1,665 Click Through: 10139.22 3. 10 SEO Mistakes To Avoid In 2017 Views:3,664 Shares: 218 Click Through: 73.28 **Click through is based on 2% conversion which is about average and shares are taken from Share Count a nifty tool you might want to check out! As you can see these figures are drastically different. The authors personal network, the rank, the placement within the site (front page / category / buried), promotion of the post all play a part in its success. Also, these figures are based on the contributor having written the entire article, the quote that you might get on Forbes, Entrepreneur & Inc is going to reduce your click through even further. The space you get to sell your value is dramatically reduced unless you are the contributor writing the full article. I do believe that getting premium placements has a place in a Guest Blogging strategy, but if you are looking for massive amounts of exposure then expectations should be set and cost needs to be controlled. So! What to do? Assuming you don’t have the time or the interest in becoming a contributor what can you try instead? Target Mid Level Niche Publications Instead You can get fantastic results from mid level niche publications which is why we focus on it at Ginger Marketing. On wordpress.com blogs alone in January 2017 there were 22 billion pageviews and blogs outrank social media channels in terms of consumer influencer before making a purchase. Your customers use blogs and to further get our point across we've put together a nifty little super pinnable graphic with some stats, because we know you like numbers (and we like watermelon). These stats tell you two things;
Guest blogging on mid level niche publications provides the perfect opportunity for you to show your value, get in front of a new audience and have content ready and waiting for when your potential customers are ready to buy. What Do I Mean By Mid Level Niche Blogs You might be confused by this terminology so I will clarify it now. Mid Level Niche Blogs are essentially blogs which are written around a singular topic. For example, gardening or weddings or parenting or lifestyle. When I talk about mid level I use this phrase very broadly... I mean blogs which have surpassed the newbie phase and are getting over 2,000 monthly visits up to blogs which have 100,000 even 500,000 monthly visits. Any blog which isn't completely new (or spammy) or very premium I count as mid level. Not all publications are worth the time invested, I have written about this before. If you are hiring someone to do your guest blogging then make sure that you agree on quality level. And if you are doing it yourself then read up and understand how to vet potential sites. You only have so much time and you want to maximise your ROI. As a rule of thumb always check the website has a minimum of 2,000 monthly unique visits, you can use this tool to check. And also check out how much engagement their content gets, comments and shares are a good indication that they have an audience listening to what they have to say. It is also important to promote your post once it has gone live. It’s not write, publish sit and hope. It’s write, publish, promote. Facebook threads are a great way to syndicate your guest posts, and make sure you share them with your audience as well. If you do share your post via social media then tag the publication and more often than not they will retweet you sending additional traffic. If done well writing for niche publications can deliver hundreds, if not thousands of shares, traffic & connections. To share our most recent Guest Post for one of our clients - it received over 70 social media shares, but more importantly a potential client enquiry and a potential speaking opportunity; http://www.classycareergirl.com/2017/02/new-job-anxiety-conquer/ We’ve also placed posts like this one with over 550 shares & continues to drive leads to one of our clients. http://wonderfelle.com/branding-your-social-media-images/ And this one with over 6,000 shares and counting http://www.bluchic.com/perfect-pricing-tips-little-voice-big-business/ Mid niche level placements often deliver a higher ROI for small businesses than premium placements like Forbes, Inc and Entrepreneur.
I'd love to know your thoughts on the comments below. Do you actively engage in Guest Blogging as a strategy for your business and have you seen success with mid level niche publications? Post last updated 27/11/2017 One of the hardest parts of guest blogging isn't finding opportunities, its knowing which ones are the right ones. So to help you out I have curated a list of publications you can reach out to today for your (General) Virtual Assistant business. The reason we are being specific about the types of virtual assistants this applies to is that there are so many different types of VAs!! For targeting purposes it is very important to be specific. To know what type of business you are, and who you are serving. So in this case we are going to assume that you are a Virtual Assistant who takes on general admin, emailing and the occasional marketing support tasks. We are also going to assume that you are aiming for businesses who are already somewhat established & are moving into a 5 or 6 figure status. The list below are mix of different levels of traffic, it's not always best to just go for the highest volume possible. Sometimes a smaller, more engaged audience actually works better. ( For more on this topic; What Is A Micro Influencer 7 Reasons To Pitch Working With Micro Influencers To Your SEO Client? How To Find Micro Influencers To Spark Conversations About Your Clients Product )  Women 2.0 Women 2.0 is an organization which celebrates the role of women in the technology industry; it shows us many different success stories and helps us to receive advice from key players in business fields. It gets 28,000 monthly visitors, most of who are based in the U.S.A, and the website manages to successfully target a career focused and socially progressive viewer base. It features many different contributors who offer their knowledge and insights into the tech industry. Why Is This A Great Pick For VAs? Quite simply, tons of entrepreneurs read this publication! The types of entrepreneurs who read it tend to be progressive and thinking about the future, productivity and optimising time and resource! They understand the importance of using technology and will be more comfortable with using project management tools like Trello or 17 Hats. Angle Suggestion Anything around productivity or tips on what it is possible to outsource would do really well here. Pitch Difficulty Rating: Medium Entrepreneurship Life Entrepreneurship Life is an up-to-date guide and resource that helps us to find useful content which can help us with many different types of business focuses; all the way from trading advice to personal development. It has 9,800 total visitors, most of who are U.S.A based and have interest in the finance or business fields. It brings forward the talent of a community of writers from many different backgrounds. Why Is This A Great Pick For VAs? This publication might have a lower traffic volumes than others on this list but they have an engaged audience. They also have an entire section just dedicated to productivity which is a great area for VA's to feature in as a solution. Angle Suggestion Of course, productivity again! But rather than it make it general why not focus a specific area such as email management. Pitch Difficulty Rating: Easy Smart Hustle Smart Hustle targets business owners, and is especially geared to giving motivating yet realistic advice for small businesses and start-up companies. They have 13,900 monthly visits, the majority from the U.S.A. The publication appeals to those interested in the business and industry fields. It tries to build a community that helps one another succeed, and as a result, has contributions from of a variety of writers. Why Is This A Great Pick For VAs? Lots of entrepreneurs hang out here, it is highly targeted! Angle Suggestion Share your entrepreneurial story, pick out some key lessons that have helped you get to where you are. Just starting out? That's okay too, focus on the transition period between your previous job and your new business. Pitch Difficulty Rating: Easy Organized Assistant A blog run by Janet Barcley all about how to organise and plan your business! Why Is This A Great Pick For VA's? Half the battle with any sale is making sure the other person knows the value you provide. Small business owners reading this blog already believe organisation is super important. This is the perfect type of blog for Virtual Assistants. Angle Suggestion Why not let your audience in on a tool or system you use for your clients. Don't be afraid to go into detail and to show case study examples about the results you've got for your clients as well. Then, make sure you have a great call to action to encourage those click throughs! Pitch Difficulty Rating: Medium Sharp Heels SharpHeels is a career, fashion and lifestyle website for professional women. Every piece of content on SharpHeels.com should be a means to empowering professional women. Captivate +Educate +Motivate: Whether it’s timeless tips on choosing a new stylish power suit, how to modernize a tired fitness routine, the secrets to business travel, an interview with a Fortune 500 CEO or talking about television characters that inspire us, each piece of content on SharpHeels should speak to a professional woman, wherever she is in her career (and in life), in a way that educates, entertains and encourages her to reach the next level - personally and professionally. Why Is This A Great Pick For VA's? There is a section on Sharp Heels specifically for entrepreneurship. Mix that focus with the empowered, feminist attitude of Sharp Heels and you've got the perfect guest posting opportunity for a VA who serves female entrepreneurs. Angle Suggestion For this publication I'd go for a personal angle. Tell your audience your story, how you build your VA business to where it is now. What is your empowering story. Make sure you add some case study examples of the types of clients you work with and the results!! Pitch Difficulty Rating: Medium Freelance Mom Freelance moms mission is to merge women and information together to transfer knowledge, inspiration, wisdom and actionable solutions so you can find the work you love through entrepreneurship. Why Is This A Great Pick For VA's? Freelance mom covers a range of topics and is targeted towards work from home moms. There is a section on productivity which is perfect for virtual assistants as this is exactly what you help entrepreneurs achieve - greater productivity. Angle Suggestion I'd focus your article on productivity to make sure it gets into the right section and is focused on an area you help entrepreneurs achieve. Do some longtail keyword research and try to get your post ranking and bringing in regular referral traffic. Pitch > Lisa > [email protected] Difficulty Rating: Medium Driven Women DrivenWoman was founded by Miisa Mink, and Jennifer Stoute in 2013, a result of a fundamental ‘aha’ moment whilst brainstorming for a new business venture. Rather than rushing forward with their new concept, they decided to stop and discover what they were really passionate about. Great believers in the abilities of all women and the power of determination, DrivenWoman was born. Their idea was to celebrate every woman who decides to chase her dreams and create a life she really wants, regardless of her circumstances. Success means so much more than just career advancement or a big pay check. Their idea was to create a club where women could explore their true potential with the support of others and create their own kind of success. Why Is This A Great Pick For VA's? What is great about this blog is that it also a network for successful women. So, not only can you post here but you can go to a meetup in London and network to form real world connections and expand your network. Angle Suggestion Go for a personal angle and explore your entrepreneurial journey so far! Pitch > [email protected] Difficulty Rating: Medium Ambitionally The blog to accompany the membership software and course creation site Ambitionally. Blog topics cover everything about how to create and market a successful online course! Why Is This A Great Pick For VA's? This blog is particularly great for virtual assistants who work with entrepreneurs who have an online course. If this is your niche, then this is a great opportunity for you! Angle Suggestion Time to get your best knowledge out there! What is your top advice for planning the launch of a new online course? How do you help your clients increase the quality of what they put out there into the world and support their journey? Pitch Difficulty Rating: High Small Biz Club Small Biz Club is the premier destination for small business owners and entrepreneurs. To succeed in business, you have to constantly learn about new things, evaluate what you’re doing, and look for ways to improve—that’s what we’re here to help you do. We bring you the best of the best—insightful thinking on important business questions from industry leaders, veteran business owners, and fellow entrepreneurs. It’s all put in one place—here at SmallBizClub.com—for you to learn everything from the fundamentals of business to the most innovative, cutting edge trends. Whether you’re a startup looking to grow, a family business aiming for consistent cash flow, or anything in between, SmallBizClub.com has something for you. Why Is This A Great Pick For VA's? This blog as an entire section dedicated to run and grow, and a section within this for operations. This category is perfect for virtual assistants to feature with a great idea for how you can help small business owners run a section of their business more effectively. Angle Suggestion Pick out a single system you help small business owners with and show step by step how you help them! For example, 9 Ways To Run Your Email More Smoothly & Stop Interruptions Don't make every point about you but be sure to drop in mentions of the clients you've worked with and how a better email system has helped them achieve higher productivity + happier clients! Pitch Difficulty Rating: Medium Classy Career Girl Classy Career Girl is passionate about meaningful content and community at the intersection of work, dreams and everyday life. They believe that the more women we have in this world who are doing what they love and are doing what they were born to do (like jumping out of bed to get to work), our world will be filled with happier and more successful women. Why Is This A Great Pick For VA's? This blog has a whole section dedicated towards productivity! Angle Suggestion Help small business owners with understand how to use a productivity tool in their business. Make sure it the one you personally use for your clients - this could be Trello, Asana, Hootsuite, Ask Edgar, Tailwind and so on. Pick a tool and show step by step how they can integrate it into their business to get better productivity! Pitch Difficulty Rating: Easy Creatley Here at Creately, we are focused on making it easier for teams to work collaboratively on all things visual. And we do this by giving you a great online application that's a breeze to use and an extraordinary customer service experience that you'll love. Why Is This A Great Pick For VA's? This blog is owned by a well known software company who help entrepreneur and web designers with wire framing or organisational roadmaps and flow charts. Small business owners reading this blog are likely to have businesses with larger teams who can benefit from virtual assistant services. Angle Suggestion Creatley accept posts on a wide range of topics relating to startups and entrepreneurship. So focus your topic around the core benefit of your business. Is it helping with communication? Helping productivity? Helping drive traffic? Pitch Difficulty Rating: Medium Mind Body Green Mind Body Green is a lifestyle website that focuses on promoting overall good health and well-being. There are frequent themes of increasing productivity by taking on a healthy lifestyle. It receives 6.5 million monthly visitors and is visited mostly by the alternative health community, with the majority of it's visitors being based in the U.S.A. It features a wide range of authors who give advice from their unique fields. Why Is This A Great Pick For VAs? Multi author blogs like Mind Body Green are a great place to find other business owners. The chances are that entrepreneurs scaling up their business are also going to be researching about nutrition and keeping their health on track, maybe even a touch of relaxing meditations. Angle Suggestion Anything about productivity, burn out and managing stress is a great topic for this site!! Share your techniques you've used in your business as well as other well known experts. Pitch Difficulty Rating: High Tiny Buddha Tiny Buddha is based on the concept of applying the wisdom of Buddhist ideas into the modern world, and aims to help in fixing the problems faced in our times. It offers a new take on overcoming the things which stop us being successful, such as stress, which are tackled through learning techniques such as meditation and reading various pieces of Buddhist philosophy. It reaches 3.2 million monthly visitors, mostly from the U.S.A. Why Is This A Great Pick For VAs? This is a great website for sharing your personal life lessons and journey. Not only is this is a highly regarded publication, the story you share here can help prospective clients connect with you. Angle Suggestion What lessons have you learnt from your journey building a business? This publication is all about sharing love, inspiration and joy so topics which inspire others & deeply connect are well received. Pitch Difficulty Rating: High Elephant Journal Elephant Journal offers a unique take on applying a variety of spiritual disciplines to modern life, and tries to combine these elements of wisdom with initiatives such as political activism and eco-awareness. Many of the articles tell us how we need to be more conscious of our choices in the world and how we can approach all areas of our life, including business, with more care and less greed: a whole section of ‘conscious consumerism’ is featured. It has 9.6 million monthly views and taps into both political and religious audiences, of whom are mostly based in the U.S.A. The website is founded by Waylon Lewis, but features many different authors. Why Is This A Great Pick For VAs? I personally love the elephant journal and if you are a VA for spiritually minded entrepreneurs then this is an especially good pick for you. You are able to write on a wide range of topics. I wrote this article for example on ways to invite spring into your home. Angle Suggestion A post about your journey and the lessons you've learnt through entrepreneurship will also go down well here, but this publication is a little bit more rebellious than Tiny Buddha. You can go a bit controversial with this publication if you like to be on the edge so don't be afraid to dig deep, or even have a little rant. Pitch Difficulty Rating: Medium Let us know your thoughts in the comments below! Do you have any more great opportunities to add? |
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