Does your Bloggers Outreach Campaigns include Influencer Marketing?

Saffron Edge

Aug 21, 2020

7 min read

"You can spend your time on stage pleasing the heckler in the back, or you can devote it to the audience that came to hear you perform."< - Seth Godin Once upon a time, marketing used to be magic, from concept to design to strategy to creation to implementation. Identifying the right agency for your brand was extremely tough, as it wasn't easy to come with high-quality and creative content and advertising materials. Now, we have cheaper, more comfortable, and readily available agencies and startups, and the advertising wars help brands get great options. But have we ever given a thought that magic is shrinking, and aren't things repetitive? With demand for attention on the rise and overwhelming product choices, consumers are apprehensive, and they don't know whom to trust. According to Marketing statistics for 2020 by Hubspot, 'search' is the number one traffic source for blogs across all industries (SEMrush, 2019), and companies spend 46% of their budget on content creation (HubSpot, 2017). Besides these, most companies (67%) use organic traffic to measure their content success (SEMrush, 2019). To take the business to new heights, be it any domain, you have to be on the tip of your toes, all the time, all the more because of COVID-19, and look around to figure out opportunities. The Digital Marketing budget is an all-time high, and the ratio between traditional and digital has changed drastically. Digital brand management includes three significant organs: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM), and Pay-Per-Click Advertising. Apart from these, there is another that can do miracles for your business, and it is called blogger outreach. It is a marketing method to reach out to a blog owner and ask them to promote your business. Not only blogger outreach helps you with branding, but it helps you with your SEO efforts as well. If you want your business to succeed, you will have to make sure that people see it on the internet. Companies have realized that relying on their social media followers will not do justice to the brand's overall performance. To reach their target markets, they need to reach out to someone famous in the industry to "advertise" them. Someone who connects with his or her followers, has the right engagement, is an influencer, and even convinces buyers to purchase.

And there comes the BLOGGER OUTREACH, what is it exactly?

The internet is a Wild, Wild West, and things are continually evolving. Blogging is a low-cost, high-return marketing strategy fit for most businesses, besides consumers trust blogs. Guest Posting has come up as an undisputed king in SEO. High-quality rich, relevant, and engaging content on prominent and sought-after blogs is unarguably the most effective way to get a link back to your website. But then there is a catch, a BIG CATCH - to reach out to the right set of bloggers and content websites and pitch them to post about your brand on their blog or web page. The idea is to have an "Online Positive Word of Mouth with a wider reach." "Blogger outreach is an online marketing strategy to build a blogger network, earn mention and gain backlinks, promote a brand or service, and even drive sales." Blogging communities help you tap new customers by increasing your reach and assisting in customer retention when launching new products or services.

According to Nielsen Media, there are over 181 million blogs on the Internet, with 6.7 million people publishing content on blog sites.
BlogHer found that 81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs, and imagine, 61% of online consumers admit to having made a purchase based on a blog’s recommendations.

What does Blogger Outreach include?

a) Backlinks oriented - SEO blogger outreach is an essential part of any SEO strategy. High-quality and relevant backlinks can improve your website score in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Collaborating with the right blogger will help you earn a 'link booster.' Links are not equal, and their weight is based on the websites' authority, measured by domain authority (DA) or domain rank (DR), and the higher the score is, the more authoritative the site. BUT, there is a significant hurdle, 'High domain authority doesn't guarantee relevance.' Gaining a backlink from a highly appropriate and engaging blogger with a low DA/DR has more value for your brand than a link from one with an irrelevant audience. b) Barter Backlinks - When it comes to blogger outreach, working with microbloggers is far more effective than macro or prominent bloggers. For that matter, even nano bloggers are very significant. They are easier to access and post in exchange for free products or services. They do it to engage their readers too, and often they post unique content. c) Affiliates - Affiliate marketing is done to boost sales and doesn't work only for backlinks creation. Affiliates Marketers promote an offer in return for a small pay-out if a sale is completed through their links.

I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT THOUGH . . . DON'T TELL ME IT IS SOME MATRIX THEORY Many agencies fail to miss out on an extremely critical element while planning Brands' Blogger Outreach Campaigns. After all, it is 2020, and we need to evolve faster and differentiate ourselves to stand out. "Integrating Influencer Marketing Campaign" Blogger Outreach or Influencer Outreach Campaign, at Saffron Edge, includes connecting with relevant bloggers and influencers, the ones who are a part of your niche and search directory. These are your future brand ambassadors as they have a loyal and active followers base. Once we have them on board, we promote your content and brand on their blog and social media accounts. We are sharing a case study of Starbucks, which shows how these two campaigns are blended and will help your brand grow exponentially, both in terms of revenue and reach. Starbucks Reserve, Starbucks' own premium brand, was launched in 2014. Even though hand-crafted coffees were booming, it wasn't getting enough footfalls and media reach compared to the flagship brand. There is a massive difference between the accounts of Starbucks' flagship brand and its select offering on Instagram, in many millions, tbh. Starbucks Reserve Roastery was opened in Chelsea on December 14, 2018. To help them spread the word about the launch, the coffee producer partnered with three local bloggers from New York City, well-known for their lifestyle and food choices. They also wanted to run an influencer marketing campaign on Instagram.

Targets:

a) To promote Starbucks Reserve and also mention the fourth global roastery in NYC, that particular year. b) To introduce the new brand to people, entice them to try and explore their offerings. c) To increase footfalls in the new store, besides promoting the other stores too.

Medium:

a) Instagram (Micro/Local Influencer from NYC)

b) Respective Blogs

Reach and Engagement (Social Media):

a) Eight Posts by three distinct influencers b) Total Targeted Followers on Instagram - 449,400 c) Social Audit (Overall)

Likes: 29,699
Comments: 1,232
Engagement rate: 3.42%
Hashtag: #StarbucksReserve

d) Social Audit (Alyssa)

Likes: 2,869 likes
Comments: 97 comments
Engagement Rate: 2.25%

e) Social Audit (Will)

Likes: 10,160 likes
Comments: 495 comments
Engagement Rate: 3.95%

f) Social Audit (Chelsea)

Likes: 2,825 likes
Comments: 161 comments
Engagement Rate: 6.30%

Learning: a) Continued giving the feel of a premium brand by working with the right set of influencers b) Working with Micro-Influencer and Local NYC bloggers helped them to reach the right set of groups c) Since all of them have a strong presence online and do much blogging, it also helped Starbucks reach a larger group with more nuanced and engaging content. "There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them." While 84 percent of marketers believe partnerships with 'Key Opinion Leaders' are efficient, the level of accomplishment for any campaign relies profoundly on the engagement and reach of the influencer, and this quote from Malcolm Goldwell is a reminder that research to find the content creators competent of promoting and growing your brand is of umpteen important. Reach out to Saffron Edge to clear the biggest roadblock - Getting Noticed. We design the communication and draft outreach emails, which help to get affirmative results. Our team of US-based marketing and communication specialists and copywriters creates a customized strategy for your brand, including working on buyer persona and deriving the right bloggers therein to engage them. We also work on your content marketing and inbound goals and make your blogger and influencer a “super hit list.”