Blogger outreach can be tough. Getting the attention of relevant bloggers in the required industry is a difficult task, one that can often take up serious amounts of time yet produce little in the way of positive results. One of the key issues is often the fact that the initial approach, usually via email, is very poorly put together and does more harm than good. I received the email below yesterday from someone at a very highly regarded and established agency (one that I have used in a client side role in the past) and it’s the perfect example of how not to do an initial blogger approach. I’ve made comments on each section to show you why it is so bad.

Hey There,

Issue – Always try to find out the name of the person who runs the blog. It really shouldn’t be that hard! My name is all over The Social Penguin Blog!

I hope you’re well.

As a prominent blogger within the social media community I just wanted to get in touch and bring to your attention a free competition currently being run by brand withheld name withheld by Mike in which entrants follow and submit the following phrase via Twitter – “Want to win a £1000 of bathrooms vouchers? Check out twitter name withheld by Mike competition at URL withheld by Mike. The winner of this receives £1000 of brand withheld name withheld by Mike vouchers.

Issue -  A prominent blogger that you don’t even know the name of? Fail. This person has clearly not even looked through the content on our blog. We have never covered such a promotion. It offers nothing to our readers in terms of great social media use. The approach is far from innovative. The ONLY advantage in this lies with the agency’s client, not the blog or our readers.

As a socially savvy blogger who has successfully built up a strong following within this particular blogosphere I thought this competition might be something both yourself and your readers could potentially be interested in promoting or entering.

Issue – Aside from the use of the word blogosphere, the whole wording of this sentence is just so crass. 

This competition is perfect for those looking to make potential modifications to their bathrooms.

Issue – How many of our readers are looking to modify their bathrooms at any given time? I would wager very few. Try and place this on a home improvements blog, not a digital marketing blog. 

If you have any further questions, it would be great to hear back from you.

Issue – Yes, I have a question, would your client be happy to know that you are wasting their billable time contacting blogs in such an unthoughtful manner? Also, using their brand name opens them up to a very public slaying if all of the bloggers that get these crap emails decide to kick up a fuss on social media platforms.

Kind regards,

I’ve withheld the name of the person and the agency. I’ve also not named the brand as I feel that would be unfair.

I hope you found that useful readers! Are you a blogger who receives emails of a similar quality? Do you work at an agency and struggle with blogger outreach? Do tell…

Mike McGrail

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