ny blogger will tell you that as soon as they made their first few posts, the pitches for coverage or product mentions came rolling in. There’s good reason for that — a mention on a few popular blogs provides plenty of benefits including brand visibility and incoming links.
Here at Website Magazine, we get plenty of pitches — from story ideas to products, every day businesses hungry for exposure send us an e-mail or product to try. Some are very effective, while others are relegated to the trash bin faster than they arrived. A proper pitch requires planning and execution.
Know Your AudienceNothing triggers the “delete” button faster than a pitch that begins something like, Dear blogger… On the other hand, using the blogger’s name or the name of the blog usually keeps them reading. This personalization of the message not only engages the reader but shows that you value their time and their blog.
In the same way, do your research and know the blog’s purpose and audience. It takes just a few minutes to read a post or two from the blog, and knowing the subject matter will show in your pitch. Nothing is more frustrating to a blogger than spending valuable time reading a pitch that is completely irrelevant to their audience. This is a common mistake and often results in a “blacklisting” of the person making the pitch — future relevant pitches risk never being seen.
Be SuccinctBloggers value their time. To be most effective, be upfront with your pitch. Tell the blogger what you want and why your product, service or announcement matters to them and their audience. If you haven’t stated your purpose withing the first two or three sentences, chances of exposure drops dramatically. If a blogger is truly interested in what you have to offer, they will take the time to learn more, if needed. After all, if you pique their interest, chances are excellent that their readers will want to know more too.
Offer SomethingBloggers want readers. And one way to ensure repeat visitors and new readers is to give something away. Based on the blog’s audience, offer something of value. It could be an online coupon, free product, free trial or free membership.
Also, tailor the offer to the specific blog via a custom coupon code or similar measure. The blogger wants to give readers the appearance of authority and value — by making your offer “exclusive” to the blog’s readers, they feel validated and the blogger benefits by becoming a valued resource. Also, people like to share inside information, giving your brand and offer a better chance of being shared to a wider audience.
Provide Resources or CreativesResearching and writing blog posts is time-consuming. It can be very frustrating to receive a good pitch, then have to crawl all over the Web looking for images, landing pages or other resources. Make sure your e-mails have everything the blogger needs — links, images, even verbiage.
Ask QuestionsIf you’re having trouble getting the attention of a particular blogger (or any blogs at all), don’t be afraid to ask very direct questions. Find out what type of pitches the blogger wants.
• What type of products are important to his or her audience?• How does the blogger prefer to be contacted?• Are there particular topics of interest that the blogger would like to cover but lacks the resources to?• Do they have an editorial calendar? If not, find out if the blogger writes any regularly-scheduled posts such as year-end wrap-ups or lists, seasonal posts, etc.

Finding the Right Blogs to PitchThere are tens of thousands of active blogs out there — what are the ones you should contact? Start by simply searching your topic with keywords. Use search engines’ custom search options like blog searches, related searches and Google’s Wonder wheel. You will find people posting on your topics and related topics. Search for topics on sites like Digg.com — find those submissions with high vote totals to identify influential blogs. Look on social networks too, for bloggers with high numbers of fans, friends and followers. Also look for popular blogs on blog aggregator sites.
When you find a few blogs to target, check some statistics. One quick and easy way is to use Compete.com to find estimated traffic levels — some blogs are very good at SEO, but might not have a very large following.
By asking questions, you give the blogger the impression that you want to become a resource for them, not just a media hound. It is very possible that you can provide material for the blogger they might not otherwise come in contact with. Think like a partner.

–Mike Phillips

Add to:

Generic website names with descriptive words of products and services deliver significantly higher click-through rates (CTRs) and overall clicks than those with non-generic domain names, according to a UK study conducted by MemorableDomains.co.uk, MarketingCharts reports.

The study was undertaken to test the seemingly intuitive theory that a generic domain name – like TaxPreparation.com or CarNavigation.com – would attract more clicks and perform better in pay-per-click (PPC) ads than a web address with a less intuitive or lesser-known branded company name.

Significantly Higher CTRs and Clicks

To test the theory, Memorable Domains created a Google AdWords PPC campaign using electric bicycles as a test product. For the campaign, it set up identical ads with three domain names:

• ElectricBicycles.co.uk (generic domain name with an exact product match)
• YourBikes.co.uk (an alternative generic domain name)
• InAHurry.co.uk (a non-generic name)

Results of the test showed that ads featuring the generic domain name with an exact match to the product had a CTR that was 15% better than identical ads featuring the alternative generic, and 42% better than ads featuring the non-generic domain.

In the same test, the “ideal” generic ElectricBicycles.co.uk ads produced 45% more clicks than the “reasonable” YourBikes.co.uk ads, and 105% more clicks than the InAHurry.co.uk ads, which did not intuitively explain the product.

Name Choice Also Important

These results indicate that while the use of generic keywords is important, the choice of the domain name itself is also critical, since generic domain names perform particularly strongly where search and domain keywords match closely.

Because of these positive results, Memorable Domains recommends that marketers consider using generic domain names for dedicated PPC search engine campaigns for specific products, services and advertising initiatives. Moreover, businesses might do well to isolate keyword groups within their campaigns, and use an appropriate generic name for each group.

Reasons for Generic Success

Memorable Domains attributes the strong performance of generic domain names to several factors:

• Because a generic domain name describes a product or service using the words people automatically associate with the topic, it encourages them to click more.
• The presence of search terms in the domain name leads to higher organic rankings or a
• better ad quality score in pay-per-click ad ranking algorithms.
• Search engines commonly automatically bold any word in the domain name that matches the search term, drawing attention to the listing.
• There is a potential positive impact of the domain name on ad quality score.

Exceptions to the Rule

The exception to these findings is in cases where the generic name is an established brand or website with a strong awareness and trust factor for the product or service search terms in question. Even in such cases, a generic domain name has potential value in targeting very specific product or service search terms with an appropriate keyword-rich domain. The findings suggest that established brands should consider a generic name for minisites associated with a particular product, service or ad campaign.

About the research: The test campaign used as the basis for the research ran from February 10 to February 22, 2009. The campaign was set up to gauge the overall AdWords performance of each of the three domain names, the comparative AdWords performance of an “ideal” generic name when it closely matches a set of relevant search terms (the “electric bicycles” group), and the comparative AdWords performance of an ideal generic domain name for a set of search terms where other generic domains might be equally appropriate (the “electric bikes” group).

Ads were run on Google Search and search partners only, with the device platform limited to desktop and laptop computers. The targeted language was English and location restricted to the United Kingdom. Ad serving was set to rotate ads more evenly, with no ad scheduling. Memorable Domains points out that this type of test is now no longer possible, since Google recently modified its AdWords policy to state that all ads in any one Ad Group must point to the same domain.

Add to:

Well, I bought the book Groundswell – its great. Last week I defined the Groundswell. This week I’m going to talk about the 5 things companies can do to engage with the Groundswell.

1. Listening – this already exists in trad. company form called research. This entails monitoring the conversation your customers are having with each other.

2. Talking – this is what we usually call marketing. “Participating in and stimulating two-way conversations your customers have with each other”.

3. Energizing – sales. Finding the lead customers and using their enthusiasm to sell each other.

4. Supporting – Support. Using groundswell tools like social networks to and social forums to enable your customers to support each other. Support

5. Embracing – Development. Integrating your customers into the way you do business. Your lead customers will have great ideas for new design and product offerings.

Add to:

Forrester Research recently published a fantastic book explaining the social web phenomenon and how companies can harness its energy.

The “Groundswell” is how your customers define you in the social web by talking about you on Facebook, listing you in Wikipedia and posting user-generated videos on YouTube.

This inevitable force will only continue and is creating lasting, permanent change to the way business is run.

One of the great concepts I pulled from this book is the idea of Social Technographics – defining how your customers interact on the web. Listed by level of engagement on the social web from the top down there are: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators, and Inactives. Each age group, gender, and nationality has a general profile. This is the first step in identifying where your customers hang out on the web and the best approach to engage them.

Click here for Forrester’s free profiling tool.

Add to: