How To Approach A Blogger With A Collab Idea

If you’ve heard that one of the best ways to get your blog noticed is to partner up with other bloggers on guest posts & collaborations then you’d be right!

It’s amazing the kind of leverage you can get just from networking and making connections with other people.

How to approach a blogger is something which a lot of beginners find very daunting. If you are not used to reaching out to and building relationships with people you haven’t met before then it can be intimidating.

It is also a slightly different process depending on whether you are a blogger or a company, so, in this post I’m going to cover both.


                            You ready? Great!! 


How To Approach A Blogger If You Are A Blogger


How to approach a blogger if you are a blogger as well. Well, basically you already have a HUGE advantage.  Most bloggers want to support other bloggers - especially bloggers in their field of interest.  One of the main reasons most bloggers get into blogging is to meet other people with the same interests as them.  

It’s great to meet other people who have similar interests, values, and ambitions - we all love that.

Running a blog is a great way to meet others with similar interests.

So, if you are a blogger it is very likely that other bloggers will be happy to hear from you!  Very often you’ll find on the contact us page something about guest posting and that the blogger is very receptive to other bloggers guest posting on their site.

Collaborations and guest posts are beneficial to both of you as you will be both be sharing the post with your audience (I hope).

Start with reaching out to the blogs you already read in your niche.  

If you’ve been running your blog for some time there will likely be names that come up again and again in your social media groups, in the comment sections on blog posts you read or the owners of the blogs you read.

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How To Find The Right Bloggers To Connect With


True connections and relationships are founded on authenticity, so reach out to people you genuinely admire & want to connect with.  

If you are a new blogger and don’t really know anyone else yet then it’s time to start looking for other bloggers to draw inspiration from! No-one creates anything great whilst sitting inside a vacuum.

It is always advisable to be signed up to the email lists of some bloggers you admire in your space.  Ideally, you should sign up to their email and also follow them on twitter.  

Twitter is still a great way to connect with someone on a more personal level.  

If emails go unanswered it’s amazing how a quick tweet can get a fast response!
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How To Approach Bloggers


Either send them a quick email or a tweet - it is not rocket science.    The internet has opened up many ways for us to communicate with each other it’s just a case of taking full advantage of it.

If you send them a tweet keep it informal - hey how are you - I’ve got a collab idea can I send you an email?

When you send through an email make sure that you are specific about what your collab idea is. Don’t expect the person you’re emailing to have the time to decode your email to try and figure out what you want.

Just be very clear about your idea and what you believe you can both get out of it. Introduce yourself and your blog but only AFTER you’ve introduced your collab idea & the benefits.

Make it as easy as possible for the person you are emailing to say yes or no - don’t make them work any more than they have to - we are all busy.


How To Approach A Blogger If You Represent A Company


It is a little more tricky if you are a company who wants to approach a blogger in order to build links back to your site or sell some of your stuff.  Different bloggers view their blog in very different ways.  

Some are very commercial orientated and will only ever deal with companies if they are going to be paid a large amount of money.

Others will work with companies if they are going to get some great content & exposure from it.

Others will work with companies if they are going to get a free product or service out of it or a small amount of money to pay for their time publishing or writing content.

If you are approaching bloggers as a company then you need to understand the blogger's motivations which can be pretty tricky to do, and kind of needle in a haystack.  



How To Find The Right Bloggers To Connect With


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Before even moving into the stage of finding bloggers you need to establish what it is you are offering them.  

Why would they want to work with you?
What are you giving to them?   

Without a very clear idea on this, your campaign is doomed to failure.

Are you able to provide them with high-quality content and exposure for example?  Are you able to offer a monetary incentive or are you able to give them a product or a service?  Define what it is you can give them.  

​Basically, the better you do at this stage the better your campaign is going to run.  It is always a balancing act - you need to work out how much you can give away and for what return you would expect back.

           Lets break that down with an example !!

If you are a jewelry company who creates bracelets with your customer's name on it for example.

​You might work out how much it costs you to create one of these bracelets (cost of material and cost of labor).  Say it costs you £65 in total to make each bracelet if you were to give away one bracelet to a blogger you’d expect more than £65 in value back, ideally at least 50% more.

You might provide a money off voucher for their audience or a special deal for customers who spend over a certain amount.

Once you’ve worked out what it is you are offering to bloggers you then need to find the right bloggers to work with.  This comes down to understanding your own audience and who you want to connect with.  

Your goal is then to find bloggers with a similar audience.

For example, as a jewelry company who sells personalized bracelets, you might know that most of your customers buy these bracelets as gifts.  

Usually, it is mums buying them as gifts for their 12 - 16-year-old daughters.

So, you need to find bloggers who have an audience of mums with older children.  You might also be looking for bloggers who have audiences interested in creativity and crafts.  Buying a personalized bracelet is different to buying a branded tiffany's bracelet.

Based on these assumptions you would start searching for “parent bloggers with older children” or maybe “craft bloggers”.  Always start with your audience and then identify groups of bloggers who have a similar audience to you.

How To Approach Bloggers
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Not understanding what the blogger wants out of it is the reason why most outreach campaigns run by companies run at a 5% success rate. i.e. send out 100 emails and you can expect 5 replies and not all of them will be positive.

As you can imagine, going about it the traditional way of collecting a ton of emails and then just cold emailing a ton of bloggers is not really a cost-effective way of running an outreach campaign.

At this stage, you should know what it is you are offering the blogger and also have a very niche list of bloggers with an audience you want to reach with your offering.

Always connect with these bloggers first via Twitter.

Ideally, connect with them and follow them for a few weeks.  No doubt you will find something that they tweet about really interesting, if so then engage in a natural conversation.  This is all about quality over quantity.  At this stage, you should be interacting with around 15 - 20 bloggers in this way.

Then, reach out to each one via email with the subject RE: Twitter - potential collab idea (or something similar)

This immediately helps the blogger to remember you and your conversations on twitter so that you are not just sending a cold email and hoping for the best.  It is all about psychology, how comfortable does this blogger feel speaking with you.  Relationships take time to form so don’t rush it.

You can absolutely introduce yourself and your collab idea in the first email. Always lead with what you are offering them and then introduce yourself second. Don’t write an essay when a few paragraphs will do.

Respect the bloggers time & get to the point.  

If you’ve completed the stages up to this point then it is very likely that this blogger will be more than happy to work with you!

                                                      Thats all! 

                                                ---- don't forget

If you are looking for high quality guest post placements then check out our shop.   We have great opportunities available to you right now with bloggers & influencers with a range of audiences. 

Not sure what you need?  Get in touch and we can advise on the best fit for your audience. 



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