Why We Love Bloggers, and Why Your Startup Should Too!
Ever wonder how a startup can seem like it was plucked from obscurity and then be on the tips of everyone’s tongues? Don’t be fooled, it doesn’t happen overnight and by the time you hear about it, months (sometimes years) of hard work have gone into making it a household name. At the epicenter of that movement — you guessed it — bloggers. As a young startup you can not afford to ignore this media channel. Here are 5 main reasons why.
1. Big media outlets are less interested in writing a story until you have launched
Bloggers love to get early peeks at new technology. Through bloggers you can begin connecting with early adopters well before your product is even generally available. While easier to approach there are some tricks to getting bloggers to speak to you. 1st have something you can at least show them that demonstrates your product. This can be as early as just having mock ups or a prototype. 2nd make sure the blogger shares your point of view on the current problem. Every product is built to solve a particular problem, and while it is ok for a blogger to have a difference of opinion on how to solve the problem, they need to at least agree with you about what the problem is.
2. Bloggers are easier to access.
Find out where bloggers hang out together. These bloggers all have a common interest and will get together at local meetups and even sometimes national conferences. Support these groups through participation and if you can afford it through sponsorship. For our company DRAFT, FinCon is a great example of a National blogger conference. Our time at Fincon helped form many great relationships with bloggers that we continue to work with today.
3. Bloggers take a genuine interest in the people behind the products.
Bloggers and startup entrepreneurs share a similar entrepreneurial spirit and this common denominator makes them want to know the people behind the company just as much as the product. There is also a mutually beneficial relationship from startups and bloggers working together. Startups get access to an audience and the bloggers get an early look at emerging technology which fuels interest in their blog. This is in direct contrast to the “You need us more than we need you” mentality of big media staff writers.
4. Bloggers help alleviate “coverage envy”
As a startup it is easy to get what I call “coverage envy.” Coverage envy can quickly send you into a death spiral wondering why Forbes or the WSJ don’t want to cover you as a company. Early on you should focus your energy on those who are interested in what you are doing. We quickly identified top personal finance blogs and began following feeds from the writers to better understand their unique opinions and audiences. We followed this research with direct outreach to those we felt were the best fit for DRAFT and 90% of the writers we reached out to responded!
5. The Blogger Audience is Engaged.
The audience that follow blogs are there by choice and more engaged. Primarily because of the niche content and their ability to connect at a personal level. A more targeted engaged audience means higher conversion rates for your company. We tested this for our company on 5 blogs with post about DRAFT. We saw conversion rates reach above 60%. Converting 6 out of every 10 people tells us that this a channel and medium to double down on. For early stage companies it’s rare to find this type of confirmation that your marketing dollars are being spent wisely.
Focusing on bloggers first is going to be your path of least resistance to get the coverage and connections you need early on to launch with a bang. The added bonus is once in public beta these early adopters you recruited through blogs will become your best opportunity to drive viral growth through organic referrals.
Focusing on bloggers has paid big for us. We learned quite a bit and wanted to share. It does not matter what your startup does this is a channel you should not ignore for your marketing efforts.
Jason St. Peter is the co-founder and COO of DRAFT, a new online investment analysis tool for long-term investors.
