Before you Pitch Bloggers: Three Genuine Tips for Budding Entrepreneurs and Startups

Categories: Social Media, Web MarketingPosted on December 15th, 2007

This post is written to help budding entrepreneurs and startups that don’t have marketing resources, consider this free advice.

Lately, many startups have been sending me emails requesting that I blog about their product or review it or provide feedback. While I scan every single one, most never get more than a few seconds. I love the entrepreneurial activity and really enjoy seeing this flurry of innovation in our industry. I’m going to provide a few tips to help these companies understand how marketing in the social sphere has changed.

What’s the best way to get word spread about your new product or service? Probably the worse way is to insist over and over to bloggers that they would ‘want to share this with their audience’, in fact, for many bloggers, the more you insist the less they are likely to publish anything!

Three techniques come to mind that I think are very successful:

1) I’d suggest the overarching strategy is to first listen to who’s really in your market. Are you sure your product is right for my blog? I’m pretty focused on corporate web strategists, and web marketers, so unless it’s within that realm (or closely related to it) it may not make sense. Also track your competition and where they appear, and who’s talking about them, that’s also your marketplace.

2) One savvy CEO of a startup took the time to find areas in the market where there’s a need, specifically something on my blog, and then created a unique demo catered to my needs. He never pushed, but explained how he’s been reading and how he can fix something that’s been ailing me. Immediately, he got my attention and I gave him feedback how his product can improve –which I’ll then adopt.

3) It still amazes me that even after books like Naked Conversations and Cluetrain have come out that people haven’t figured out how to join the conversation. Sure, a very overused term the ‘conversation’ still is about dialog between two or more individuals. Want to prove your worth as a vendor or consultant? Leave savvy comments on blogs (joining existing conversations) that add to what’s already been said, and start a blog (lead your own conversation).

So while I deeply appreciate the passion that goes into products and new startups (I really do, believe me) I hope these tips will arm you to improving your public relations, marketing, and being part of this wonderful social sphere. Good luck, I hope to see you in the conversation!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Social Media, Web Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments

Austin Hallock

Thanks for the tips Jeremiah, I'm in the stage where I'm looking for "media" (media as in blogs) coverage for my startup and this will help.

jeremiah_owyang

Austin

Good stuff, good luck!

Geoff Livingston

Thank you, Jeremiah. I fully agree. Now Is Gone is often criticized for the blogger relations portion in chapter 4, where I recommend that companies engage with their communities before taking on blogger relations. They usually don't know hot to engage until they become a part of their community. Good to see I'm not insane.

Brandon Weber

Jeremiah,

Thanks for the great post. I think that it all gets back to adding value. If a particular idea will add value to your readers, then it will be of value to you. And, if it is, I'd imagine that you couldnt help but share it. It's the good ideas that cut through the noise, that add value.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Brandon

IAAdmin

Thank you for confirming some of my thoughts. I don't post here to market my product, but to learn. When you're a start-up, usually there's only a few people working on the project, so individuals have to wear many hats, some of which may be new to them.

In my case and because a social network is part of my company, I'm learning everything I can, thus, reading your blog is extremely educational.

It's great that a link to my site is included in my post, but in regards to my comments here, it's not a pitch I'm here for, but to get new ideas.

Scott Monty

It's funny. So much of outreach - or even the more broadly defined 'media relations' - is about using common sense. But for some reason or another, marketers tend to get wrapped up in their brand and leave out the rational thinking related to outreach.

I've written about bad pitches and have made suggestions for marketing professionals on my blog, and I've even gone so far as to create a 'best of' section in my sidebar, to help guide professionals with the pitching process. http://www.scotmonty.com.