Content Creation

How to Efficiently Manage the Blogger Outreach Process

CopyPress

September 12, 2012 (Updated: February 3, 2023)

You’re a blogger outreach superstar. The entire process comes natural to you, you communicate well, and you’re an amazing writer and can think on your feet in any given situation. But how do you keep track of all of these great relationships you’ve acquired? How do you know which article idea was a hit and which was a miss? Which blogger liked that killer Infographic idea you had? These are just some of the obstacles that blogger outreach teams & individuals must struggle with daily. These types of questions will test the ability to maintain an extremely organized and productive outreach workflow. After all, you’re a superstar and you wouldn’t want to waste all that talent on the fact that you’re being a slight disorganized chaotic mess, right?

Ingredients for Disaster

If you want to make yourself crazy, try to stay organized the old fashion way. You know– pen and paper, sticky notes, calendar, write notes on your hand, etc. Think about how chaotic this would be—writing notes on who you contacted when you contacted them, what they said. Yeah, do not even waste your time trying to do this.

Keeping Your Cool

Now that we’ve reviewed what not to do, let’s focus on the real importance: what you should be doing to manage everything efficiently.

Start with Goals and Know Your Limits

Having clear goals and expectations will allow you to stick to your plan. If your goal is to connect with 10 new bloggers a week, keep a mental note of how many you’ve reached out to and how many have responded back. This way when you don’t meet your 10 bloggers a week goal you can look back and see where you should up your game to make sure that your goal will eventually be met.

Organization

Email Labels

Since email is typically the sole communication method in the blogger outreach process, you don’t want to let anything slip by you. I find it really effective to set up various folders that distinguish your type of communication. Separating your emails into specific folders will make your life much easier for when you’re trying to reach out for a specific niche. Here are examples of how you could differentiate the type of niches, and some labels that could help:

Google Docs

Google docs will be your best friend, but only if you use them in the right way. When working with multiple personas, collaborating with coworkers, or managing an oureach team, you need to find a scalable and easy way to monitor the progress of your efforts. Having your team simply report to you the number of connections made, targets found, or live links via email is another recipe for disaster. Instead, have a central place where this type of reporting is kept. Set up tabs for different clients, industry verticals, or team members. Whatever works best for you and your team, a bit of trial and error will get things running smoothly.

Keeping a Schedule

This relates directly with the goals you originally want to set from the start. How do you manage your goals without tying key deadlines into the mix? You can’t. This is where calendar events, reminders, alerts, etc. will allow you to check up on yourself or at least remind you to check up on your team.

I’d suggest having a scheduled time each day to do a daily check-up and then make an actual event prior to reporting or meeting with the client. Do this with enough time to thoroughly check the progress and make any adjustments that might be needed before you show off your stellar work.

Outsource

Since you are such a natural outreach superstar, you may be able to take your business from a one-client shop to a large expanding agency. You cannot effectively take on all the work without a little help. Outsourcing is your best bet to getting the work done and getting it done right.

These are a few of the items that should be addressed before entrusting your workflow to a “stranger”:

• Run test campaigns
• Get agreements acknowledged and signed
• Outline & review all rules, goals, and instructions clearly from the beginning
• Set up a set firm system for reporting
• Schedule weekly calls/meetings to check on progress & stay on track
• Be readily available for any questions or issues that come up

Project Management Software

Creating a software system obviously isn’t in the cards for everyone. However, if this is ever a possibility for you, take it by the horns. This is the most effective way you’re going to be able to track your communication,  content, bloggers, workers, client orders, and more. You’ll never have to go searching through your notepad or emails again because everything can be in one central organized unit.

Here at CopyPress, we realized the importance of a utilizing a project management software, and we’ve been working on the roll out of Connection Seeker, an all-in-one portal for Internet marketers to maintain the content marketing process through scalability, ease of use, and customer service. This is going to be a major game changer in the way we handle our content marketing, and with keeping everything all in one central, organized hub.

Staying Above the Pack and Resting Easy

Applying a few techniques within your outreach process is going to allow you to expand your success like rapid-fire. Bloggers will find it refreshing to work with someone who knows what’s going on and keeps thorough track of correspondence consistently. Clients will love the fact that they won’t have to wait a week to get answers on something simple.  And you’ll love the fact that you don’t want to pull your hair out every 5 minutes.

With a little more attention to detail and organization, you’ll be resting easy and still be able to maintain that outreach superstar status.

CopyPress

September 12, 2012 (Updated: February 3, 2023)