Content Creation

Don’t Let Your Connection Become a One Night Stand

CopyPress

February 5, 2013 (Updated: February 9, 2023)

Blogger outreach and inbound marketing strategies can sometimes lead to tricky situations where you’re left wondering if you’ve just had a one night stand.  While the overall goal of outreaching is to establish mutually beneficial relationships, those relationships aren’t always necessarily long-lasting. Instead, those relationships can become a quick short-term experience that leads to small benefits and an overall poor chance at furthering the connection.

However, there are two sides to this one night stand scenario: the guest poster’s side and the blogger’s side. Below are examples of both and several ways to best avoid them.

When You Have Used A Blog for a Single Guest Post Placement

As an outreacher, you’re essentially finding blog targets, making contact, closing the deal with guest posting, and then calling it a night after publication. After all, you’ve provided the blogger quality content and traffic in exchange for a home for your post and inbound links. Both parties are benefited, right?

The above example is when I closed a deal and the blogger acknowledged my post’s publishing date. While this transaction might seem mutually beneficial, if I left this connection as is, I’d have instigated a one night stand.

The blogger ends his email by asking for a repeat experience where he wants me to establish a regular contributing relationship with him. If I ignored him or said something to the effect of “thanks, but no thanks,” I would have surely ruined any future possibilities of the relationship. Here are a few things to avoid when turning a one night stand into a relationship:

• Don’t offer to guest post only once: Further your relationship with the blogger by becoming a regular contributor.
• Don’t focus solely on your short-term goals: Stretch your inbound marketing verticals. See past your immediate short-term inbound marketing goals, and start building lasting relationships that will help further long-term goals.
• Don’t halt all communication after posting: Maintain your relationship with the blogger by using social media and connecting with the blog’s network before, during and after you’ve posted on the site.

When Bloggers Say They’ll Post Your Content – but Don’t

On the other hand, bloggers can also initiate a one night stand experience with outreachers. They’re essentially always on the hunt for fresh new content that pertains to their niche. They also have other writers contacting them in order to provide content. Bloggers can create a poor and shortened experience with writers by leading them on or by ignoring them after initial contact.

Below is an example of a blogger calling it a night after I’ve emailed him content for his consideration.

His promise to get back to me leads to…

Another promise, this time a promise to post it soon that eventually leads to…

Still nothing.

Have I just been played? I feel as if I’m now a “stage-five” clinger, sending countless follow-up emails that are just short of begging. The blogger said he’d get back to me and said he’d consider posting it soon. However, the virtual silence leads me to believe I’m not going to get those promises fulfilled, and that yes, I’ve just been played.

At this point, the best you can do is move on with the content you’ve already offered-up to this blogger.

To avoid being ignored in the future, discuss during initial outreach the long-term benefits you can provide the blogger.

• Reliable and fresh content on a continuous basis: Establish that you want to keep contributing; you’re not just a guest poster, but a regular contributor to the site.
• New traffic to your posts and the blog: Assure the blogger that your posts will result in a new readership.
• Ongoing engagement with the site: Offer the bloggers a continuous relationship where you’ll keep actively reading, commenting and sharing their posts.

A one night stand can go both ways, one in which the blogger snubs you after you’ve provided content or you end up snubbing the blogger after you get your guest post published. However, neither experience truly builds mutually beneficial relationships. During inbound marketing, instead of focusing on scoring big in the short-term, focus on scoring big long-term for both parties with a long-lasting relationship.

CopyPress

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