6 Tips To Get Your Startup Covered By Any Blog

1. Find Your Target Market

Everyone wants to make headlines on USA Today, but what most people don’t realize is that they will probably gain more traction by getting covered by industry blogs in their particular fields rather than big publications.

So as a first step, I would suggest to find 5 bloggers (they don’t need to be from leading publications) that already write about your industry. They are most likely to write about your startup. Read their articles and make sure they pertain to your project.

After that, try searching for their e-mails. If it’s not publicly available on the site, 99% of the time it’s one of these combinations:

- first letter of their first name and their last name @ sitedomain.com (For example, if  full name to be Alex Debelov at virool.com, it will be adebelov@virool.com)
- first name dot last name @ sitedomain.com (i.e. alex.debelov@virool.com)
- first name @sitedomain.com (i.e. alex@virool.com)
- last name @sitedomain.com (i.e. debelov@virool.com)

If none of these combinations work, you can try to find particular person on Facebook or Linkedin by simply searching for their name (and maybe other aspects you know about them, like: location, education, etc.)

 

2. Do Not Solicit Bloggers with a Standard Pitch

Bloggers are people and just like any person they hate being solicited by entrepreneurs. Think of the last time telemarketer called you, were you annoyed or excited about what they were trying to sell you?

Just the same way, bloggers hate being bothered by products that are irrelevant to them. They hate getting standard Press Releases in the e-mail and then asked to write an article about it. That’s not a good way to do it.

Whatever you do, don’t solicit bloggers with a standard pitch.

 

3. Make a Custom Pitch 

Read what a particular blogger writes about and realize whether it’s actually relevant to your startup. If it is, then create a custom pitch to the blogger. Make sure you actually read his/her articles and incorporate some of the themes into your e-mail. A great custom pitch would be,

“Hi Blogger Name,
I read your article about X subject, and believe you will find my product/service interesting, because we have created an innovative solution for this industry.

What we’ve accomplished is similar to what your wrote about Product A in Article Y, but to a greater capacity.

I would love to have you cover a story about my product/service as it pertains to your interests in the field”.

That’s it.

 

4. Don’t Oversell

Another thing bloggers hate is when you try to oversell them on your product/service thinking that it will get them excited. Get rid off things like:
“leading”, “world’s best”, “first” and whatever other adjective you might use that will make you sound like a douche.  Remember, bloggers need to stay objective about what you do and the more adjectives you use to describe your startup, the more skeptical they are going to be.

 

5. Make it Relevant

This goes back to making a custom pitch. If the person writes about Tech News in Boston and you are operating a business out of California, and you still want to get covered, then make your pitch relevant. In my case, I would tell them, “I went to school in Boston and conceived Virool, while I was a student there. However, I moved out to Bay Area, because the tech environment was more vibrant here.”.

Here the blogger can still make your story relevant to Boston natives reading their blog.

 

6. Build Relationships
Bloggers are more likely to write about you if they know you. Yes, relationships matter! So how do you build relationships?
a. Phone calls are better than e-mails. Meetings are always better than phone calls. If the blogger meets you, they will feel more comfortable writing about you and covering your product/service. They will also be able to sense the passion you have for your field, that couldn’t be felt as much over the phone/e-mail.

b. Throw a party! – Seriously, a ton of tech companies throw huge launch parties with a particular goal of getting a lot of PR. Parties are also a great way to meet a ton of writers in short amount of time. And trust me, most bloggers will not turn down free food and booze.

c. If all else fails, then leverage other people’s relationships. Don’t be afraid to ask your friends/acquaintances for intros to bloggers. Bloggers always seek interesting subjects to write about and a short intro from a friend can go a long way to get your product/service covered.

Hope this was helpful.

Posted in: Startup