Mike

I agree with you, for the most part. In my case though, and certainly in my experience (both with pitching bloggers and being pitched myself at telltenfriends.com), simply using a blogger’s name isn’t enough.

I received two pitches today; they were almost equally crappy. Both used my name, but that’s about it. I hope you can agree that there’s a huge difference between “Dear Paul, (insert mass-mail pitch message here)…” and:

“Dear Paul, I love your blog. I found you in a search for (insert relevant, truthful search term here) and I particularly enjoyed your articles on (x) and (y). I thought this item might be of interest to you, as (okay to insert pitch message here).”

Trust me, PR types: the extra work will be worth it. Shorten your list of publishers to contact, spend the extra time to attempt to start a relationship, and the uptake will be considerably more successful, across the board.

I hope this was helpful, Paul.

P.S. You never know…I might be leaving this comment now so that I’ll be a friendly when it’s time to pitch you :). That’s a strategy that might prove successful, no?

I’m the assistant PR director for an Internet marketing company and the director and I have been looking for a better way to pitch to blogs. I found your post linked from Search Engine Guide and it’s exactly the kind of information we’ve been looking for.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for the information and the excellent post. I think it’s something we’ll be referencing time and again. ;-)

If you’ve considered pitching to bloggers but haven’t been sure about how to go about it, you should read this great post by Paul Stamatiou.

It’s a well-written, in-depth how-to list discussing what you should and shouldn’t do when trying to …

Let me know if you’re going to be in SF at all in the middle of this month and I can get you an invite to a blog event one of our clients is doing.

@Rohit: Thanks for the offer Rohit, unfortunately I don’t have any plans to visit the west coast until next summer or until I graduate next fall.

1. Explain in a personal note why the product/site will be interesting to that blogger’s readers.

2. Include a Reviewer’s Guide on how to use the product/site, what to look for that their customers/users go “Wow!” about, and include some screenshots.

3. Be a resource for bloggers even when there is no client to pitch by sending tips and links, as well as comment on posts, to show you’re part of the community.

First i though it was cool to get special invites and press releases, but the next thing i know everybody else and their sink got it as well. That pissed me off. Next one that came totally on about a un-related industry.

I just ignore it most of the time and, when I do send polite emails back telling them its unrelated I gets no response. Thanks for making me feel special marketers.

Marketing people have a lot to learn about bogging and bloggers.

When I came across Aimee’s Blog Day 2007 I was really excited by the idea. Over the past week I’ve discovered a world that I never knew existed and I’m keen to explore further I’ve visited the Blog Day site and followed the ins…

“Has been the press release been…” Go fix. :)