11 steps to building an effective blogger outreach list

There’s no shortage of ‘homework’ required, but the payoff is significant

If you work in the arena of what I like to call “digital PR,” chances are you’ve probably put together a blogger list or two on behalf of your client or organization.

Because the tools just don’t exist yet to put these lists together in a timely, efficient fashion, it’s a plodding process. And everyone seems to have a little different way of doing it (some better than others).

I work with a couple of great folks who put together blogger lists for me on occasion, but I’ve created a few myself. I thought I’d share my process. I’d love to hear how yours differs. Please share in the comments.

1. Cast the net. First, I try to identify a wide swath of bloggers in the industry niche or area I’m targeting. I use tools like Alltop, PostRank, blogrolls and even Google Blog Search to work up a list initially. Once I have this large list, I’m ready to winnow it.