One of the best ways to grow your food business is food blogger outreach. Blogs are the third most influential digital resource used when making purchases, just behind retail and brand sites. (Source: TechnoratiMedia)

There’s a right way and a wrong way to reach out to food bloggers. In our series of how NOT to pitch bloggers, media, and influencers, here are a few more tips to help you create an on-going outreach campaign.

Do Not Contact Out Them Of The Blue

You will get nowhere by asking a food blogger to review your product out of the blue. It’s much better to take a personal approach to your outreach by creating a relationship with them.

The good thing about bloggers is that they’re active on social media. Follow them, Tweet back and forth, and actually read their blog posts and comment on them. The whole idea is for you to cultivate a relationship where they know who you are and what you represent before you reach out to them.

Do Not Pick Bloggers At Random

food blogger outreach how toMost food bloggers write about food from a certain angle. That could be vegan cuisine, street food, sauces and dips, or any other niche they choose. Before you begin your food blogger outreach, do your homework and consider relevance. Don’t reach out to promote your new salsa to someone who writes specifically about desserts. But if your salsa is to-die-for, do reach out to a food blogger who mostly writes about Mexican cuisine.

Do Not Send Pointless Emails

Food bloggers get a ton of emails just like yours every day. What makes you different? How can you stand out in a sea of products? Here are a few tips:

  • Only send a press release as background information, not as the sole purpose of your email. Make your pitch clear in the body of the email. Don’t ask the blogger to work too hard.
  • Address the blogger by name. If it looks like a mass email they’ll most likely delete it.
  • Tell them why you reached out to them. Let them know you handpicked them and why. (This goes back to relevance.)
  • Make sure your email isn’t vague or cryptic. Over on our food blog, Saucy Dipper, we once had someone pitch us where the email address, signature, and brand name didn’t match up. Bloggers don’t want to spend time deciphering your message.
  • Come with ideas on what might work for their blog. Provide opportunities for giveaways that would be of interest to their readers, etc. You can’t expect them to do all the work.
  • Discuss ways you could mutually benefit one another. No one wants to work for free.
  • If the food blogger says no, don’t stress. Just because they don’t want to work with you now doesn’t mean they won’t in the future.

Cultivating relationships with food bloggers is an on-going effort but one that can be fun and rewarding. If done the right way, you’ll find that creating a long-term relationship with food bloggers will help you grow your business.

Anyone out there have anything to add? I’d love to hear some of your tips on what not to do with food blogger outreach!

Falynn Derderian

About Falynn Derderian

Falynn manages project research and media outreach at The Condiment Marketing Co. She has an advertising degree with a focus in business from the University of Oklahoma (go Sooners!).