For Sponsors: How to Approach a Blogger

By Sara Urquhart. Photography by Barena Venezia.

This post is a part of our blogging series for sponsors. See the rest of the series right here.

Partnering with bloggers is a great way to build exposure for your brand, and since the blogging space is fairly new and many companies will be approaching bloggers for the first time this year, we’ve created a series of posts for sponsors about how to create effective and mutually beneficial relationships with bloggers.

First, research. You must know the type of blogger you’re approaching and be familiar with the type of content she writes about. All bloggers who are mothers are not necessarily mommy bloggers. If you pitch mommy products to a design blogger, the pitch falls on deaf ears and wastes the blogger’s time and your own. When you carefully research the right bloggers for your brand, you’re building long term relationships that make your current and future campaigns more successful.

After you’ve done your research, know what you’re looking for. Do you want to build Facebook fans or Twitter followers? Or are you just looking for brand exposure? Do you need a campaign to run during specific dates or can you be flexible? Are you looking for a certain number of posts spread out over a few weeks?

Consider how bloggers’ strength match your needs. If you want Twitter followers, it makes sense to find someone with a robust following on Twitter. And it may seem obvious, but to get what you want from your campaign, you’ll need to communicate that to the blogger and create an agreement with that focus.

If you’re simply looking for overall brand exposure, approach the blogger with an open mind, and allow her to help you craft something even better than what you’d originally planned. Ask about her most successful blog campaign and what it looked like. This can be a great place to begin creating a campaign that utilizes the bloggers strengths, customized to your needs.