Lessons

Lesson Info

Getting a Response & What to Do

So now what happens if you get a Yes, So you do your research, you pitch a blogger and they write back and they said, Yes, I would love this. So if you get a yes, congratulations and once you do that, make sure to format your posts according to their style. So reader guidelines again. Sometimes they will email you their guidelines as well, or send you to the website where you can find their guidelines. So read those really, really closely to make sure that you know exactly what they are looking for. And, like I said before, ask for their deadline. There's nothing worse than them expecting on article on Monday, and you have that ready for them a month later. That's a really quick way to get black listed in their book, and you're probably never going to hear from them again. So ask whether deadline is make sure you meet it. Um, I know for me, for example. Sometimes if they ask if they'll tell me, for example, of right before I came here, someone asked me to write something for their maga...

zine only was due November 20th so that's short of a short. It's kind of a short timeline, especially knowing that I'll be here for five days. I wouldn't be able to do it, but I still wanted to write for the magazine. So I said I would love to do is, however, I'm totally booked until the end of November. Would it be okay if I write this for you sometime in December? And they said, Sure, we'll just post it in the next issue That's totally fine. But if you had not asked for a deadline and they're expecting November 20th and you're thinking December because you don't have time, then it's sort of not a good situation to be in. So just be honest, and if you could meet their deadline, said Yes, I could do this. If not, let them know you can't and you need a little bit more time and sometimes they will be OK with that because they're always looking for content. It's very rare that they said No, we need to have this by this date. Otherwise we can't include you. So be mindful of your own schedule, a swell and also as you're writing the article and make sure to include a call to action and we were talking about this before. What do you want people to dio after they read your article? Do you want them to leave a common below? Ensure their opinion? Do you want them to visit your site? Do you want them to shirt on Facebook or Twitter and be really specific? I Onley like to include one call to action as opposed to saying make sure to like us on Twitter and leave a link or leave a common below and sign up for my newsletter. Because by that point, and yes, we all want people to do all of those things at the same time. But the more things you ask them to do, the less likely they are to do it. If you just give them one call to action, they're probably going to do that. That the call to action would you suggest having you know, please provide comments below? Um, you can also find me and give your website information like, how would you What would be the best way to do that? Yeah, I would say for if you're doing a guest block post on someone else's side, I would say the call to action would be to leave a comment below, um, and maybe say something like, Can you relate to any of these things? If so, leave a common below. Er, do you have a similar experience? If so, leave a common below because you have to remember you're on their site. And the point is to provide value to them and then people if they liked what he said, they can read your bio, which is why you should be including a link in your bio, and then they can go to your site. So I think if you're in someone site, you shouldn't ask them to come to your site. If you're on your own, Blawg, then you can ask them to go to Facebook or sign up for their email or for your email. But on someone else aside, you should try to keep people there. Yeah, so great distinction. Yeah, you can have the same exact article, but your call to action is going to be totally different on their site than it is on your site. Yeah, and just make sure to again include a link with your bio. So a lot of times they don't have. They don't have time to write your bio, so they'll ask you to write it. So you have to make sure you're including a link right back to your website. So that way people can come back to you if they want to find out more, and then let's say the post goes live. And what do you do next, right? Cause it doesn't stop there because again, you're all about providing value. It's not about promote me so I could get more traffic. It's about okay, I've done this great thing for you. How can I do even more so the first thing you have to do is to interact with their comments. So we talked about it a lot before. But you do want to leave a comment. If someone is writing and wanting to interact with you, and then what I like to do is to link to it for my own Blawg. And I do that because I want to drive traffic to them as well. And then one of my other favorite things is to really share it on social media. So I put it on my my website as well, but I also take a minutes to shared on my Facebook page shared on my Twitter account. And let my followers, though that Hey, I've done this great article. This is a great side that I believe in and go ahead and check it out as well, and they love to do that as well, and then let your followers no mention it in your newsletter against social media on your website. Spread it as much as you can. And the bloggers would really love that as well. And they love the extra support. Now what happens if you get a no, which a lot of times we probably will be getting a no. So I want to ask you guys, if you get to know what's the first thing you should do? Good question. Good answer, but not looking. So don't take it personally. Please don't take it personally. Don't think that there's a know. It means they're not interested. They hate me. They don't like what I'm doing. Just don't take it personally, just like we did with the magazines. It's not about you. It's just it was not a good fit for them at that time. And be patient um sometimes it can take a while for them to get back to you. Sometimes they already have three months worth of content, and they're not looking for anything right now. So be patient. Approached them a little later. It's totally fine to wait. Sometimes you'll get a response right away, sometimes not. And then here's this. This is so similar to the magazines pitch a different story to the same block. There have been many times one. I've put something it didn't stick the first time I waited a couple of months, pitched a totally different thing, and I got in. So pitch again a different story to the same block or pitch the same story to another blogged. Maybe this one block was not interested. Another one might be. So now let's talk about If you don't get a response, what should we do If we don't get a response? Don't take it personally. Yes, please don't take it personally. Commend. Other busy. It could mean that they're not interested. Just go ahead and follow up again, just like we did with the magazines. E. Mail them one more time. Follow up with the same story, and if that still doesn't work. Just go ahead and pitch another story. Maybe a couple of months later. If you do get a no, they respond to you with a no. Is it? How is it to ask and say, you know, for future topics or things like that? Because editorially you can look up their editorial calendar. Bloggers are a little different. They don't have ah, calendar posting. Maybe some do, we don't know. But how would you would you even recommend doing, you know, requesting if they have some future topics or that might be a good fit or Yeah, I think sometimes it's OK to ask for feedback and you can say, OK, I that's totally fine. Could you give me some feedback or you're not looking for this topic right now? But sometimes you couldn't really find that work yourself because I know I pitch to a huge blogged about Pinterest and all of their maybe the last 10 post Maybe three of them were on Pinterest, so my thought was of their writing on Pinterest. They're probably gonna want more of it, but by that point they were sort of done with Pinterest for the month So sometimes if you just look around at the articles that they just wrote, you might be able to get inside there. If you can get inside there. I think it's fine to ask them, although sometimes they probably won't respond because they're so busy. But I have had someone who I wrote back and I said, All right, thanks so much for taking the time to consider this. I'm curious to know why you thought it was in a good fit and they just throw it and said, You know, I don't think our audiences air similar. So, you know, for me, I just knew that that block might not be a good fit. Eso I wouldn't approach them again, so sometimes you can get that feedback feedback to, but they won't always tell you, so you're gonna have to again. Don't take it personal. Leave data on my back. It's just there were busy, Or maybe they're not quite sure why. They just didn't feel like it was the right fit for that for that post. And then here's what I wanted you to take away from this obsession. Today's keep in mind that guest blogging should be one part of your overall publicity strategy. It shouldn't be the only thing to do. I know, for example, for me. I do guess. Blogging for launch grow joy. I write articles for magazines. I do a lot of other different things. So I don't put all of my eggs just into one basket off guest blogging because if you're doing this, you really are just waiting for other people to say yes to you. So you have to take the initiative and do something else outside of this as well. And don't submit the same article. Too many blog's. I know a lot of people think. Well, I already have the article written. Maybe I could just put it out there to everyone, and that's not a good idea and then have great quality on your own block as well. That goes such a long way. I can't even tell you. So I'm wondering. I know I talked a lot, but are there any questions from the Internet audience? Elkan Answer. Yeah, here's a question here from K nex West, and they say if you submit an article as like a guest post for some other blawg, can you still post that same article on your own website or blawg? Or should you not duplicate something that you've given out someone else? Yeah, absolutely not. If you write something for someone else's blogged, it becomes their content, and you should not be posting it on your own block as well. That's a great question, although sometimes I have had people who have read an article on my blawg, and they really loved it. And they contacted me and said, Hey, can I reprint your article on my blawg? And that was You couldn't decide if that's fine with you or not find with you. For me, it was okay. I'm sorry. Just said yes on another question about blog's so that we got actually from enough. Welcome enough, saying, Would you recommend having different blog's for different subject matters? Or if or just is it okay to post everything into one space that's known for your blogging? Um, I think it's OK to have different block posts on different subject matters if it's relevant to your audience. So, for example, for me, I talk about getting in stores. I talked about Pinterest. I talk about publicity, so I'm gonna approach different blog's with all of those different, different topics because they're covering different topics. For example, one of my articles was just featured in a magazine called Retail Minded. And that's all about retail, which has nothing to do with publicity. Nothing to do with product marketing. It's just about marketing to retail stores. So in that case, if you have different topics that you're writing about, it's totally fine to just go ahead and do that. Yeah, fantastic. Well, any comments from our audience now? Do we have any bloggers in the audience? People who have trying blog's robin well down. I know you have a question. About what? Rob, what are your thoughts on blogging? What are your thoughts on blogging? I mean, how has it been effective for you in terms unrelievedly so Absolutely. It's been great one of the ways that we connected this Andreas is through social media, and then we block from one another, and it's been powerful, Um, and and it's actually created. It's amazing how it just keeps flowing, of people contacting us to blogged for us and vice versa. And, um, yeah, it's an amazing tool. Amazing. When we first started out as we talked about yesterday, that kind of felt like we had to block all the time and when we scaled back and really realize you don't have to do it every day. That really just choosing and being consistent with that time frame was You are followers appreciate it. And nobody has time to read as many blobs there are out there, so really giving them the opportunity to read it and digest the material to you. Have a question I was gonna say So we've been talking about creating content for being a guest poster on another blawg. How about accepting guests? Blog's on your own? Blawg. Have you found any sort of tips in terms of how you vet someone's content? Have you ever had to turn somebody down because of poor writing? Or have you had to say sorry? This just isn't good enough for my Blawg? Have you ever run into trouble when accepting guests? Yes, definitely. And I think that's you know it's up to you. If you want to open up your block to someone else, I like to do it because sometimes it takes the pressure off of me and I don't always have to create content, but there has been many times when someone said, Can I write a post for you? I said Yes, And then I got the post back and I thought, First of all this is not relevant to my audience as well. I would never write about this, so I just go back and I said, I'm so sorry. You know, it's a great article, but it's not relevant to my audience. I'm not able to post it, and sometimes they'll revise their article and do something different. Sometimes you'll just never hear from them again. But yeah, and sometimes if you don't know who's writing, um and you want to see if it's a good fit. Asked them for a couple of other articles that they've written or websites that they've been featured on, and I think that will give you a good idea to. But I find a lot of times I'll get people pitching me for guest posts and they're just looking for links, and once you start getting enough of those emails, you kind of have an idea of who those people are, where they're going and you're going to know right away. So now it's to the point where I don't even answer those emails because I know they're just doing it for back lings. But you'll you'll know once you start getting a few. Yeah, we have quite a few questions that may be a little bit off topic, but they are there alot about blogging. You've really Officer inspired some people, but I'm not sure Andrea is necessarily going to be able to answer these, But she may have some advice it will just go into. It s Estero. She I think that's right. Estrogen is saying, How do we know what a blog's readership is? You know, and is that really relevant? We need to know that before we get blogging. Oh, what a good question. I'm so going the aspirate. I do know the answer. There's a couple of ways. First you could ask them whether readership is, and a lot of times, if it's a serious blogger, they'll tell you the honest truth. But if you want to do your own research, there's a couple of websites that you couldn't visit. There's a cycled Alexa dot com, and it doesn't tell you how many readers they have. But it tells you how the blogged ranks, and I like to look for bloggers that have under 100,000 the ranking, so that's a good way. You can also check out compete dot com and that has a good general idea of the blocks traffic. And that really tells you their monthly numbers. So Alexa dot com is for their rank, and you want to look for blog's that are ranked under 100,000. So the lower the number the better, and with compete dot com, you want a high number and hopefully over 10,000 on there. But so that's only if you can get the information from when you're actually asking them for it. I have another question here from Carla Cano, and we do have a number of people in the chat rooms who haven't blogged before. They're just getting started. And what if you see a blogger or a post that you think you have a lot of information about what if you don't already have an established block? So what is the best way to get into place? Get into guest blogging. If you're new, be, do you already have tohave Ah, blogged. That gives you a reputation. What if, you know, maybe you work in the industry and you have some valuable knowledge to give. Would anybody allow you to do a guest post if you didn't already have an established blawg? I think some people would, especially if you have experience in the industry. I'm sure. For Robin, Let's say Let's say she had and started her own blawg. But she has tons of experience marketing jewelry, some sure, if she went with that and said, I've been working for this company for 20 years doing jewelry marketing. I'd love to write a post for you. I think that's totally fine. But if you don't have that background than starting your own block, I think would probably be the best way to get that reputation going fantastic. And this is one. The questions that it might be more technical, but you might have some advice on where to go, says are in Mexico is asking, Do you have any resource? Is on how to start logging in terms of platforms, technical details, except, I mean, how did you do it? Did you come to it completely as an office or did you go for other? Resource is Yeah, I did really start without knowing nothing about it. And I just Google how to start a blawg, Um, and got a ton of resource is I know Corbett has a really great course cold start, a block that matters, and he walks you through everything. But basically, I just installed WordPress, started blogging and learned along the way just really googling everything I needed to know and sometimes asking other people, you know, Hey, what plug in did you use for this? Or you know what's worked for you in terms of your email newsletter in just reaching out to people as well? I would also help me to It's just reading blog's I like, you know, getting finding the content information. And I know one of things for me to I could get. If it's too lengthy, I get board okay. It's needs to be kind of short into the point for me, but just there's so much good content out there and everything that people are doing. So that was really helpful to me when I started blocking. It was very daunting for me at first Yeah, yeah, it is too. And I have to say for me personally, I started out thinking that I had to blawg, you know, seven times a week to get people. So I launched my blawg and I spent the whole month just writing content. And then I realized that I got burned out and I had anyone to really started my blog's. So now I just do it once a week, and sometimes I'll have a guest block post on my block. But you don't have to do it every day, which is why. And I'm gonna show you the infographic later. Which is why I wrote that block post about 30 ways that you can promote your block post because it's not about how much you're right, but how much you promote. What are you writing? And that's gonna really help Teoh get the traction, get the traffic and it's not the quantity, but you do have to be consistent. There are a number of platforms, aren't you? Don't know that could help you. Source. Blog's on that, and it feeds and through, so you're not having to continually search and look for other things. Same Twitter as well, like things like tweet debt can actually narrow it down so you can actually look specifically for subjects. And I think that helps as well. A couple more technical questions. And Carla Cano, we've already heard from on Discovery tools. Both have questions Cal Cano's asking to use WordPress or blogger? Or do you just have it on your own website on Discovery tools that saying is HTML email the most polished way of doing it? Yeah, I personally use WordPress. I highly recommended. I know there's a ton of people who use Tumbler or some of block spot, and I'm a huge fan of having everything on my own site and not hosted somewhere else. So I would recommend WordPress installed on your own girl because that automatically establishes as an expert. Having your own site could go a really long way. Yeah, I have a follow up question here. Similar what we were just talking about a moment ago, but just to be clear, enthused, Karl asked, If you do write a block post for someone else, is it okay to write a post on your own blogged. And maybe you know, the basis of that most is your guest post so you can write a blogged post saying, Hey, I just posted on this other blah. Go check it out, then maybe add some other content. I guess people just want to know what's the best way to feature that guest blogged post on their own block. Yeah, that's totally fine. I think I've It's cold. I think it's called Repurpose ing, where you have the basics of a block post and then for each audience that you want to get it out to. You change things around a little bit. So I think that's totally fine, as long as it's not exactly the same that you have on your on your side already. Yeah, thank you. Now we have a lot of questions just about timing on. We know people very anxious about being seen a stalker's being persistent, So a a l interpret interpretations is asking, How long should I wait to follow up on a guest blocking opportunity? After my initial pitch, I would say about another week again, just like with the magazines. And that's because bloggers, a lot of times they do read their email right away, and they know right off the bat whether or not they're interested. But sometimes I'm. Corbett and I were talking about this yesterday that sometimes he likes for someone to send the second email because then he knows they're serious, and it's something that I do, too, and I didn't know. That's why I was doing it. But I know when someone emails me a second time without stocking when they email me a second time, I think all right, they really must want us. Let me see what this is about, and I'll go and check it out and respond to their email. So sometimes following up can show that you're actually really interested and ikan separated from those people that aren't yeah, so it's definitely just wait about a week and follow up again. I'm anxiously of the any of the questions that are students have any comments they'd like toe say about this morning session would definitely love to hear them before we go to break Dorothy. I haven't old log that it was just personal and about a previous business, and I'm just wondering if I should erase it or something, so it isn't out there anymore. Um, I don't think you necessarily need to unless there's content that you don't really want to share with people. Um, I think it's fine. You know, when you google my name or when you go, you're now I'm sure there's more than one thing that comes up, so I think it's fine to leave it there. If you feel comfortable with leaving all that information out there, if not, you could delete it. But if it's not relevant, I wouldn't move it on to your new blawg. But if it is, then you can cause you've already done all of that work. So I think it just depends on how relevant it is to what you're doing now. And, um, if you want to start over or not, or if you even want that information out there. Fantastic question. Flogging is becoming so popular of the videos. Um, what's the time frame? What point? I mean, I know if you go into 1/2 hour so like that, you start to lose people. But I was even having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day about it. She went to a fitness site, and they had a three minute video, and she is a mom of four, and she's like, I do not have time to watch the video so she didn't watch it. But I love videos. I'm I think they're great. Um, but it is three minutes too long. What's what has been kind of your experience of what's good for a vlog. Yeah, I think anything under five minutes is great. Three minutes would be even better, but I also think it depends on your audience. So when you're doing that survey, just ask them. Do you prefer written post? You prefer blog's super for podcasts or videos? And I've been that two and only about maybe 60% of my audience ADV Audio and everyone else said text or audio. So it just really, really depends and just go buy one. Most people love, but then also test things out and see. Do you get more comments when you leave a video? Do you get more comments when you're doing a podcast or maybe a written post and just I think just test it out and see, see what they respond to the most? That's thinking of the interview I did with to Be and it was really long. So I think for something like that, though, where you are, you're sort of teaching them through a video. I think that's that's different and I think okay longer cause it's more of an instructional video and people know that they're there to learn how to use Instagram, which you can't dio in three minutes, right? We can learn how to use Instagram in just three minutes. So I think for something like data worth more of an instructional type of thing, I think that that's totally okay. I as long as people know. And sometimes if I do a longer video, I'll say, you know, this is longer than my usual videos set aside 10 minutes or so. So that way people know what to expect you. Yeah, yeah, but I would say on average, if you're just doing your weekly thing where you're just sharing a piece of information, 3 to 5 minutes is probably a good time frame t aim for thank you. I think with blogging and all kinds of social media, it's also a question of just not being daunted. It's trial and error is trying things that work for you that may may not work the first time. That doesn't mean you should be put off trying them again. I'm sure, Andrea, when you're first getting started with your business, Particular so business, You were just trying different things to see what What would work for you on? Eventually, You know, things started to work and started to flow. I think another very important thing to remember is, and once you've sort of made it, if you like, you got that first after core, you got that first magazine? That doesn't mean they're ever going to come back to you again. So it zoo quest question to be persistent and to keep once developed those relationships so that you are always front of mind. Yeah, I agree. And I think even with my so business, I feel like I did apply set up a block because I should have a blogger. But I really have not had any time to get to it. So it's a little bit embarrassing if you go there now, they're just to block posts that are not even that thoughtful. So at that point, I think it would be more beneficial to me to just remove the Blawg Ling until I'm actually ready to blogged. And yes, so I wouldn't recommend doing what I did and just put a block up there because you have Teoh. But really again, if it provides value, it's their mind right now has no value whatsoever. So I really should take it off until I couldn't have at least one article that's really helpful and useful. And really, if it's just one, it's totally fine. You have a blawg if you have one post what he was saying earlier about your Maybe we're deleting all materials. Well, that suddenly are. Lots of people have been asking exactly marry. After saying the same thing. I remember I started a blogger. Oh gosh, years ago, probably only only post I ever it's still out. This may be added up that Mary, if he has the same thing, maybe it is time to refresh it. Definitely. So next we're gonna talk about how to get your products into still on celebrity. So we focused a little bit on entrepreneurs that have a service. But the next session is all about entrepreneurs that have a product. And how do you get your products on celebrity, so come back for that. Fantastic. Now people are also asking about TV and radio. Now I know we're going to talk about lately that later on are we talking about radio pitching as well, or just TV? I think we're gonna talk about mostly about TV. Radio is going to be really similar to TV, but mostly just focus on TV. And I think if you're the kind of entrepreneur where radio could really benefit you, you could definitely apply the strategies for TV. Maybe some of the titles of the people working on things are a little bit different. Um, and I think it's a little easier to get on radio. Then it is to get on TV. A lot of times you couldn't just give him a call and see if there's a fit, and they don't necessarily always have editorial calendars or things like that because they're really working with just the news and what's going on. So that's so much easier compared Teoh any of the other things. So if you apply the strategies from TV, you can probably use the same thing for radio Fantastic rash. Gonna be talking about that later on this afternoon. That's not in the next section. That's that's afternoon toe. Make sure you stick around to join us, then that I actually started my career in radio. My broadcasting career, I think radio is often seen is not quite so glamorous. In fact, it reaches a huge audience and particularly podcasting. Now on digital radio s so much stuff that goes on into every like into the ether and it's there. It's available much more readily than perhaps television is. So it's always something to think about forgetting your product and getting yourself known as well. We didn't finish with a few comments from some people. We've already heard off Carla Cano as saying. I sometimes feel so overwhelmed on what I took away the most was persistence. Just keep it up, keep going. That's really good device. I know Andrew has been sharing on Wonder who's joining us from the Netherlands? Good Morgan Wander, saying she's bought the course already. I'm from the Netherlands by the way of a great workshop yesterday which I watched him rebroadcast and I couldn't resist buying it. Andreas has been really inspiring, so thank you, Wander. Thank you for joining us. It has been an inspiring course. And it was great yesterday to have Corbett Bar come in and sort of introduced everyone to the concept of blogging if they weren't familiar with it. But I think today and this morning, Andre, I took it a step further. We really went to some of the specifics how to get out there, how to get yourself as a guest blogger and, you know, have your writing be seen by as many people as possible. That's really the goal here. It's gonna be really valuable for you and your brand to get it out and get your writing seen by as many people as possible. So this is great information.