5 common sense tips for pitching bloggers

For a blogger turned PR professional, there is no feeling quite so sad—and comical—as receiving an awful email pitch.

You know the pitches when you see them. They sometimes start out with “I found your blog, [insert full URL of blog] and truly enjoyed reading [insert arbitrary post], as well as [insert other arbitrary post].”

The pitch then talks about an “opportunity” for you to cover something that’s not connected to either of the two posts that were in the email. I used to blog about cooking and sustainable agriculture, and I once got a pitch about organic carpeting—that sort of thing.

I’m not saying that pitching a blogger is easy. It’s an art, and it’s foreign to many of today’s PR professionals rooted in more traditional outreach. As evidence of this challenge, we’ve seen all sorts of PR pitching flubs in the news lately. These go beyond just the run-of-the-mill, boring pitch. Some of my personal favorite headlines include:

Pharma company sticks their nose where it doesn’t really belong