Since I’ll be at a PR-related event when this posts, I thought this topic was timely. I realize this doesn’t apply to probably 99.9% of my readers, so I apologize if it seems irrelevant, but perhaps it will be helpful and interesting to some.
Recently I received an email from a PR representative who is interested in reaching out to more women, and she wanted my input on the best way to contact mom bloggers. Specifically, she was asking how moms would like to be approached and what she can say in an email to open doors and build reciprocal relationships.
Her concerns are valid. You would not BELIEVE the amount of tacky and irrelevant pitches I get in a week. Last week, for example, I got pitches asking me to promote Pop Tarts, Totino’s, and WalMart. And, I should add, that none of those pitches offered any incentive to promote their products. They were basically asking for free advertising. Besides that, you would not have to dig very deep to see that WalMart is not on my good side at the moment, and anyone knows that Pop Tarts and Totino’s are about as far from traditional whole foods as you can get.
Of course, we’re all different and have different goals for our blogs, so opinions vary. We’re charting new territory in the spheres of PR and marketing, and there’s more than one way to skin a cat, so I realize not every blogger shares my personal preferences. But hopefully these tips are general enough to be helpful.
1. Be Personal
Blogging is primarily about relationships, and the key is to a successful pitch is to start by initiating a relationship with the blogger and discussing ways to work together, as opposed to an impersonal mass email or press release. Read the blog, follow the blogger on Twitter, then approach the blogger in a personal way. It’s great when people refer to something I’ve written in my blog that they can relate to. This can sound canned, or it can sound very natural. I think the important thing is just to “be yourself.”
2. Know the Blogger
Every blogger has different content and different goals for working with PR. It’s best to shoot a casual email first, inquiring if the blogger would like to receive information, before adding her to your mass distribution list. Many bloggers don’t care for the generic press releases that all too often fill our email inboxes.
It’s also important to know the blogger you’re pitching to so you can determine whether or not she would be a good representative for your product. Someone who posts about eating healthy (ahem) probably isn’t a great person to represent Pop Tarts. 
3. Get to the Point
Moms are busy and generally doing 150 things at once, so the best pitches are short and to the point. Personally, I hate slogging through a long pitch and then getting to the end to find that there is nothing useful or relevant to my blog.
4. Make It Worth My While
The key, again, is relationship. A successful PR/blogger relationship, like any partnership, is reciprocal. I am delighted to partner with companies I believe in to bring their product or service to the attention of my readers, but it takes time and effort and valuable real estate on my blog to create a relevant post, so there has to be some incentive. Since my main blog is mostly about my life experiences, offering an experience or the opportunity to try the product or some other creative way to interact with the product or service is the best way to give me the material I need to write a relevant post.
My favorite programs to participate in are the ones where I develop a relationship with the PR and company representatives, where there is mutual a respect and a good rapport, and open communication.
Stephanie has a great post on How NOT To Pitch To A Mom Blogger. It’s definitely worth a read.
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
i just got a pitch from a company that makes “nippies” that found my blog after i wrote about my wardrobe malfunction involving a toddler and the pool and a bathing suit.
the pr person was so hilarious (and understanding – even sharing when it happened to her) that i agreed to do a review!
i too get lots of “please promote our event/product for free!” pitches. i’m glad i’m not the only one who ignores them…
I got a request from Hallmark. This person seemed to have read a post or two, but nothing else. First of all, you know how little traffic I have and second, he wanted me to promote um, CORPORATE Christmas cards. HEL-lo!
OK. This is awkward for me to type… but as a PR person (who pitches stories, not products), this post really irks me. You’ve basically just said, “Don’t bother talking to me unless you’re going to give me something for free.” Which, in a sense, yeah that’s probably true. I get that you want to build a mutually beneficial relationship, and if the PR person is any good he or she will do just that. But to put it all out there like that? Kinda tacky. Sorry.
Great timely advice.
I am starting to get more offers – mostly welcome! It is very obvious which ones come from someone who has no idea about what I blog about, and what I value as important!
I have no problem with you saying you require the product – not tacky at all – better they know where you stand, instead of wasting everyone’s time.
Creating a PR policy – next on my to-do list!
I agree with most of your points, and I disagree with my sister publicist who says you should not have made them. To your comment “offering an experience or the opportunity to try the product or some other creative way to interact with the product or service is the best way to give me the material I need to write a relevant post” — well yes, of course — how else can you provide a legitmate review/opinion? Those of us who have been working with bloggers for some time understand that, since we are asking bloggers for visibility for our clients, there has to be something offered in return, whether products, an invitation to a great event, an opportunity for sponsorship, etc. To make the relationship work, we have to support each other.
I never ever get PR pitches, but I have a very small “following” so that doesn’t really surprise me.
Great post. But what I’m wondering is . . . why can’t I get a pitch from Pop Tarts??
I, like Becky, also work in a marketing and PR office, and one of my roles has always been to pitch stories, not products. And, I was actually a little bit irritated by this post as well. Makes me lose respect for “review bloggers” because clearly they do it for nothing other than free stuff. Unfortuntely, that is probably crystal clear to a lot of those companies now. Sorry…
I worked in a corporate setting in a professional service industry for 17 years and had my name on the letterhead. I was at one time, the highest grossing for fees. Many of those years I worked closely with Marketing and PR to strategize, design and promote our services to various markets and specific clients.
We always made sure we knew who we were talking to; who we were targeting. We would never insult anyone by blanket mass-marketing as if we were, for example, a carpet cleaner or lawn service. We would never expect assistance or promotion of our work for free, and would always expect to make some kind of payment in kind.
As a blogger (although not on the receiving end of “pitches”) and as a former professional, I find it insulting to think that a company wants to get free airspace, as it were, to promote their product, service or stories. If it were my cousin or neighbor who wanted a plug? Sure. But Pop-tarts or Wal-mart?? or any other established company/stranger?
Like I said above, companies must think moms are chumps; that we’d be so flattered to give them free airtime. Is it because many of us are stay-at-homes, that companies think we are uneducated and naive, sitting by our computers eating bon-bons?
Not to put words in her mouth, but for Jo-Lynne to put it out there and say, hey folks, it’s only fair to get something to give something? That seems totally fair. Being a free market society and all.
Send the pop tart people my way! My five-year-old lives on them!
What I’ve learned in lo these many years blogging is that sometimes you have to ask. For example, I was recently sent a screener copy of something to review, and I did it, but I also asked for a “real” final copy (since this one was incomplete) in exchange for my time in writing up the giveaway.
The PR rep accommodated my request, especially when I put it that way.
I have been recieving more pitches lately, and some of them just make me cringe.
It isn’t the fact that we want something for our home or our kids. In order to give an honest open review, we need to try the product. If a PR person or company simply tells us what to say, that isn’t a review. That is simply doing that person’s job for them.
I don’t mind not getting a product it if is something that I have used before, or have knowledge of. However, a giveaway or some other incentive is very much needed, for my time and opinion. I can easily say no, and move on.
I think all these points are spot on, as many bloggers I am sure agree.
“Makes me lose respect for ‘review bloggers’ because clearly they do it for nothing other than free stuff. Unfortuntely, that is probably crystal clear to a lot of those companies now. Sorry…”
I’m sorry – did companies and pr people really think that blog reviewers were just reviewing things for fun to fill up their spare time or for the sheer joy of promoting poptarts?
Writing a review requires time and energy. The ‘free stuff’ that a reviewer receives is both necessary for them to do their job properly and compensation for their time and service to the company.
i don’t call pr people and ask them to promote MY business for free. why should pr people expect me to do that for them? i PAY for my advertising. and when i ask a fellow blogger to do a promotion for me, i send them my product information AND a product to review and/or giveaway.
promoting your product takes up MY time and effort to prepare a post, takes up space on MY site and sends a message to MY readership that i’ve built up over several years of blogging. if it ‘insults’ you that i won’t promote your product for free, you clearly do not respect me or my blog. and you are probably not the type of pr person i’m interested in building a relationship with anyway.
that said, i’ve had terrific experiences working with pr people who i’ve really enjoyed and who i would eagerly work with again. like jo-lynne said, respect and communication is key!
this was a GREAT post, jo-lynne!!
Thanks for this and you hit some great points. I just wish the PR people would contact me =)
Hi, me again. I feel like I need to clarify my earlier comment. What I mean is, yes, obviously you’re probably going to get free things for reviews, giveaways, promotion, whatever. But your complaint – that you get irrelevant pitches – will never be read by the “pitchers,” so to speak, because you said it yourself: They’re obviously not reading your blog! I don’t think any of those people would ever in a million years feel “insulted” that you won’t promote their product for free, because quite frankly they probably blindly sent to a random list that they or an intern created one time and would only know that you picked up on it if you responded. They’re not good PR people, and 1,000 posts just like this at Stephanie’s would never change the fact that they suck at their job.
Nobody’s saying that you *shouldn’t* get free stuff. I just think that spelling it out like that is, as I said before, tacky. But that’s just my opinion. Carry on.
Obviously, these issues have to be spelled out for PR people to get it. Of course, I am saddened by the greed I read was exhibited at BlogHer on this point but I do think both sides can work together to be mutually beneficial and that you do make great points even if people don’t like hearing it. Being honest is nothing to be ashamed of. It makes you more real and isn’t that what blogging is all about?