Giving blog pitching a hand
Har har. That’s a pun. See, the Off Madison Ave blog was pitched by a site that does hand stamp advertising, called www.handvertisingusa.com. While I don’t really know how effective this kind of advertising is, they do provide a great example of how to perform a blog pitch.
Note: For the sake of their privacy, I won’t post the actual blog pitch e-mail. Perhaps in the future, if there is interest, I will draft one similar to what we use when pitching to sites ourselves. For now, though, I feel posting their request openly would be rude and will therefore refrain.
1) The pitch letter is straightforward, and not a novel in length. It quickly gets to who they are, and what they want - a blog post. In return for which, once I inform them that I have posted about their product, they will post a return link.
2) They do mention the Off Madison Ave blog by name, which is important - sending what reads like a form letter will turn people off quickly. This does read like something being sent out en masse, with a mail merge field of blog names, but including the name doesn’t actually make it read that way. When you do your own blog pitch it is important to mention WHO you are addressing.
3) At the end of their pitch, the incentivize by saying I can get a return link from them in exchange for a blog post. The problem with this is that we are engaging in a straight link exchange - and Google has a way of not rewarding either side in a link exchange.
Therefore the real benefit to any blogger in being pitched (one who knows SEO stuff anyway) won’t be the return link you offer them. This has everything to do with everything that has been said about the lack of value in link exchanges, which have certainly lost their luster. The point is that pitching the “treasure” of a link is not what will bring a blogger to write about your site. The story is.
To that end, this pitch finished with a copy of their press release. While I do think that makes for a helpful resource for writing a blog post, it also makes the e-mail look a lot longer. The brevity of the initial pitch is shot because of its inclusion. I would instead suggest you include a link to your press release rather than put it all into the e-mail.
So we will have to see how this blog pitch works for them.
