Building Long-Term Relationships With Bloggers: A Guide For Sustainable Outreach

Intro

In this digital-driven world where everything we need is available in just a few clicks, fleeting trends are the norm. As such, establishing genuine and lasting connections with influencers, including bloggers, may seem impossible for many brands.

Partnerships are key to wider reach, better credibility, and optimal impact. Established corporations have shown that they could accomplish better by working as a team. The same logic applies when crafting sustainable blogger outreach. Choosing whom you work with and nurturing these relationships is key.

According to HubSpot’s 2024 Blogging Statistics, the United States is home to 32 million bloggers, with more than half of them aged 21 to 35. This guide explores the best practices for developing thoughtful relationship-building approaches with writer-influencers.

Choose your long-term prospects well

Approach long-term partnerships with bloggers as you would in any relationship. How? By doing a thorough assessment and setting criteria. Some alliances look good on paper. But you have to focus on things that really matter to you and your brand, even if you’re bound to do your share in promoting your prospective partner.

Seal the deal only after you’ve done the following steps:

1. Balance established influence and untapped potential

One of the primary reasons for collaboration is expanding reach. So don’t discount a blogger’s existing audience and industry reputation. Determine their current network, but beware of targeting those with severely high numbers, as their influence tends to plateau over time. Opt for bloggers with a considerably good audience reach with the potential to increase further.

More importantly, compare your buyer personas with your prospect’s existing readers. Do they match? Or is there a segment you’re hoping to target that is already part of the writer’s avid readers? Explore the answers before proposing collaboration, as it’s crucial in creating campaigns that truly resonate with your intended market.

For added insights, you can hire expert search engine optimization (SEO) agencies specializing in blogger outreach, backlink analysis, and other relevant activities, such as NO-BS. Find out more about the services that NO-BS offers that can help you get started or strengthen your blogger outreach campaigns.

2. Evaluate a blogger’s professionalism

While popularity has tremendous appeal, professionalism is a better indicator for strategic collaborations. Gauging a blogger’s integrity minimizes conflicts and misunderstandings that might derail your objectives.

Before engaging, assess their understanding of contracts or agreements, pricing, reporting protocols, and ability to meet deadlines. You can measure this in your initial discussions about potential projects, usage rights, pay for performance, and deliverables.

More importantly, seek inputs from their past partner’s experience and insights. Seek referrals to ensure you know what you’re getting into. It’s even better if they’re a writer with access to platforms like Help A Reporter Out or HARO. This channel reaches around 75,000 journalists, allowing them to amplify content even further. Identifying reliable and creative bloggers provides the best opportunities for enduring and mutually productive relationships.

3. Vet content quality and creativity

Beyond looking at the format and posting frequency, evaluate the writer’s content by looking at their creativity and quality. As they say, content is king, and this isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Your long-term partners must create quality and compelling content that aligns with your brand voice and vision. More specifically, find out whether:

• They write in an engaging style
• Visual elements are present to make their posts more interesting
• Their posts get commented on or have high engagement rates

In short, don’t just rely on follower counts or production volume but the quality of their work. Prioritizing engagement is more important nowadays, as attention spans are decreasing. According to Dr. Gloria Mark, the Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, the average attention span has dropped to 47 seconds in the last five years. Comparatively, the figure was at two and a half minutes (150 seconds) in 2004.

Tips for sustaining blogger outreach relationships

With such a challenge, how can it be possible to build sustainable relationships with bloggers? Luckily, authentic human connections remain key to partnership success. Here’s how to ensure you’re nurturing future blogger partnerships appropriately:

1. Identify shared values from the start

They say that opposites attract, but this isn’t true in all cases. Lasting relationships are built only when there’s a common ground between those involved. Besides evaluating a blogger’s professionalism, it’s essential to understand their beliefs and values, including the causes they support.

You can use this knowledge when crafting your pitch. Highlight your brand and your prospect’s shared values regarding industry issues, community building, or social impact. This will establish rapport and connectivity almost immediately. However, always ‘walk the talk.’ Stay true to these shared values in current collaborations to increase the chances of working together in the long run.

2. Set clear KPIs and expectations

Establishing goals, deliverables, and relevant details must be done before agreeing to regular guest posting arrangements. In doing so, you and your partner are clear about what you hope to achieve and how to collaborate smoothly. These are key areas to collaborate on:

* Discuss objectives before anything else

Ensure you and your partner know the purpose of working together. From there, you can brainstorm on the topics to discuss, the tone you want to use, and the format to follow.

* Create a content calendar

A 2023 curated list of blogging statistics has revealed that bloggers who post up to six times per week are 50% more likely to get better results. Keep this in mind as you develop a content calendar or when discussing timelines for creating and publishing content.

* Set clear roles and assignments

Identifying who’s doing what can further lead to a seamless partnership. For instance, does your editor have the final say in the final draft? Who will proofread and publish the blog? Who’s in charge of distributing them? Having clear assignments helps prevent unnecessary delays.

* Identify the metrics you want to track

Identifying key performance indicators is helpful when evaluating your partnership’s impact. Measure the number of unique visitors, page views, time on site, engagement rate, and other metrics. The numbers can tell whether you’re meeting your goals or need to tweak your approach to elevate performance.

* Schedule regular reviews

Schedule regular meetings to determine whether you’re on the right track or discuss rooms for improvement. That said, always provide feedback rather than waiting for something to happen before speaking out.

Discussing these key components is necessary before setting the wheels in motion. Besides making everything seamless, these best practices ensure that outcomes are met and both parties are satisfied with the outcome.

3. Practice open communication and teamwork

Another essential ingredient for building sustainable blogger outreach relationships is communication and teamwork. A 2020 World Economic Forum article explained that teamwork really makes the dream work. It showed that if 6 out of 10 workers have buddies in the workplace, accidents can decrease by 36%, customer engagement rise by 7%, and profits increase by 12%.

But this doesn’t happen overnight. Practicing transparent communication builds a solid foundation for any relationship. You can apply this to your writer-partners at any stage of the project through the following:

* Initial phase

Set the tone right by fostering an environment where all participants can freely speak their minds. Make your blogger-partner feel that they’re not being manipulated or asked to submit to your demands. They should be involved in making decisions and encouraged to provide input or raise concerns.

* Ongoing collaboration

Always check in on your partner once the project is initiated. Ask them about their challenges and whether they need additional materials or resources to get the job done. Listen carefully and address any concerns promptly. Be willing to adjust when required and provide positive feedback and reinforcement.

* Post-collaboration

Recognition reinforces relationships. So express gratitude after every collaboration, whether in writing or by giving tokens or gifts. Make them as personalized as your pitches, making your partner feel appreciated and valued.

Transparent communication paves the way for a stronger bond between you and your newfound industry ally. It also generates a positive experience that convinces them to work with your brand more consistently in the future.

4. Be reliable

Trust plays a crucial role in sustaining business relationships with bloggers. As such, it’s crucial to be transparent in business updates that might impact partnerships. Be truthful about analytics reporting and provide fair compensation.

Ensure brand contacts that your brand is interested in establishing relationships. Moreover, don’t turn over some work without providing adequate resources and tools to work on. Follow through reliably on expectations like sending products, publishing content on target launch dates, or sticking to agreements to build credibility.

5. Commit to ongoing engagement

One of the biggest mistakes a brand could make is to cut ties once the initial project wraps up. Sporadic coordination or reaching out to bloggers only when you need extra coverage is bound to make short-lived engagements.

Instead of doing this, incorporate blogger outreach into your overall content and community-building initiatives. Communicate with them all year round whether or not you have an upcoming long-term project pitch. Sometimes, it’s enough to check in on them, provide them with industry updates, ask for inputs, or provide opportunities to highlight their content in your channels.

6. **Use your channels to boost partners **

Successful blogger partnerships are beneficial to both sides. While you want a partner to write stellar content and upload it on their platform, you must return the favor. Share their content widely across your channels and accounts.

Highlight bloggers and not only their work. Treat their voices as coming from experts in the field. Additionally, allow them access to your company executives for quotes and grant media requests to tap into their established credibility.

7. Explore creative collaborations

Move beyond one-time sponsored posts by inviting bloggers to collaborate on asset development, co-hosted events, and promoting product lines. For example, let a food content creator help develop a menu item in your restaurants for a great backstory.

Launch a joint passion project, allowing writers to flex their creativity while generating awareness for your brand. Over time, these innovative partnerships can turn industry bloggers into authentic brand advocates, allowing you to market to the right audience more effectively.

8. Formalize long-term agreements

Once you foster a relationship with a list of loyal writers, consider drafting a multi-year contract to ensure continuity. Establish consistent schedules, formalize exclusive rights to brand announcements and coverages, and strengthen recurring value-added initiatives.

The contract should outline annual compensation, content development terms, and support while ensuring that the relationships aren’t affected by brand leadership and ownership changes.

Final thoughts

Today’s fragmented media requires brands to build meaningful relationships with industry personalities, including bloggers, lasting for years, not just days. When looking for partners, dedicate time, establish shared values, and explore creative collaborations that provide mutual benefits.

With communication, trust, and transparency as cornerstones, strategic blogger partnerships can provide tangible and intangible dividends that matter more than increasing metrics. That’s because authentic connections are always on-trend.