Tag: blogger relations

Pitching Tips – MatchPoint Users

 
This is the first of our best practices posts to help MatchPoint users maximize their results and find more journalists and bloggers to engage one-on-one. 
   
 
1. What should I do if my brand / product / client is extremely niche-focused?
 
Some MatchPoint users are working with products or clients about which no reporter has recently written at all. One such MatchPoint client was promoting a very specialized household appliance. The press release draft with which she was searching the “Point” box was very specific to this niche industry. And guess what? Not one of the 200,000 journalists in MatchPoint has written about this product in the past six months. She then searched keywords about similar products and broader industry terms to find journalists who would be interested. These included home repair, home improvement, holiday gifts for dad, etc. The Matching results showed dozens of reporters for whom her news was relevant. Remember, the objective isn’t to find people who have already written about your specific product, but to find those who are likely to write about you now!
 
 
2. Should I include my company boilerplate in the “Point” search?
 
In general, the answer is “no”. But we recommend experimenting both ways and see how your boilerplate affects your results. If your boilerplate contains many generic words and phrases like “excellent customer service with a mission to create synergies…,” our Matching system may produce results that have nothing to do with your main subject matter. However, if your boilerplate contains specific terms for your topic like “ice cream, snack foods, and easy to make meals for busy families” you may want to include the boilerplate to help find even more relevant articles and journalists.
 
 
3. My release includes many high-tech terms – will this hurt my results?
 
The inclusion of technical jargon and specs should not hurt your search results. But be sure that your release includes general terms and phrases relating the subject – MP3 players, laptops, video cameras, monitors, smart phone apps, etc – and MatchPoint will find reporters and bloggers who write about such devices.

Got a good tip for using MatchPoint? Please comment below or email to me for inclusion on the next list at jmonson@enr-corp.com
 
Free a trial of MatchPoint for readers of this blog, click here.

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Pitching Bloggers

I’ve been working on a research project for the past few weeks regarding the pitching of bloggers. I’m reaching out to thousands of bloggers on behalf of the MatchPoint application for PR pros to gauge their interest in receiving pitches, news, notes, and social media news releases from MatchPoint’s clients.

The team that developed MatchPoint decided (thankfully!) to make it an Opt-In service and ask bloggers’ permission to provide the bloggers’ email addresses to MatchPoint’s clients. Many bloggers have been rightfully outing PR people for spamming when they use old school databases that mass-blast PR Spam from their media lists.

 
Of those bloggers with whom I spoke:

•12% expressed not wanting to have their email address visible to PR people nor wanted to receive pitches via email

•52% said they would be open to emails from PR, BUT ONLY if the pitch was exactly on point, relevant to their blog, or from a PR person who has obviously read their blog posts

•36% said they would opt in to receive PR emails and in fact rarely get any PR pitches
 
I think that last point is most significant. There are many bloggers who have a huge appetite for your news content! It’s notable that this is not an obscure group of bloggers; all were in the top 100,000 blogs by traffic. Most likely, that last group of bloggers is not in most PR Spam databases.

So go get ’em! Just be sure you know each blogger’s preferred method of receiving pitches whether it’s email, via their blog, DM, or carrier pigeon. Also make sure your content is relevant to what they typically write.