How to attract, improve and maintain relationships with PRs

 

I started my blog back in December 2012 as a creative outlet for me to write about my passions. Although I worked in PR for a big London agency, I wanted somewhere we I could write about what interested me. Not what might interest the national publications I would target for my consumer and healthcare clients. And then as my blog started to grow and develop I started to get approached from PRs wanting me to feature their clients. Which was, and still is, incredibly exciting and a real privilege at times. Especially when I get approached by brands I really love.

Although I no longer work in for the PR agency in London, I do still work in PR. In fact I’m now in a role that includes direct blogger outreach. Meaning I’m responsible for finding bloggers to work with and securing coverage for the brand I work for. So seeing as I now sit on both sides of the fence, I thought I’d share with you all my tips on how to attract, improve and maintain relationships with PRs.

Attract

One of the big things I look for when looking for new bloggers to work with is engagement. Do your blog posts receive comments from regular readers? Do your Instagram pictures get lots of love? That matters far more to me than whether you have thousands and thousands of followers but no engagement. I also look for clear and beautifully designed layouts, big, clear pictures and a good presence on social media. I also discover loads of amazing bloggers simply because they get in contact with me. I’m not adverse to bloggers reaching out to me to ask to be put on a mailing list to find out the latest product launches, or getting in touch because they think my brand will work well on their blog. It’s a great way to get your blog out there, just make sure you know who you’re targeting and make your email relevant. Yes talk about stats and figures, but also talk about engagement, previous collaboration posts and what you could offer.

Improve

This might sound really picky, but when you’re working with hundreds of bloggers at a time it can be really time consuming to have to check their blogs to see whether coverage has appeared. I know we can all be guilty of not sending links through on time, I know I am, but it honestly helps. It makes my life so much easier and means I can quickly pass on amazing coverage to my bosses and more importantly (because they decided the budget for bloggers) their bosses. Now I’m lucky that as a fellow blogger I do personally follow the blogs I work with, but even then I can still miss coverage and then spend hours trawling through blogs looking for coverage. Which can take time away from discovering lots of new amazing bloggers.

Maintain

Maintaining relationships with PRs is hugely beneficial. Many PRs move around and normally work on more than one brand at a time. So while they may be working on a healthcare or fitness client at the moment, their agency could win a new beauty client next month and might want you to feature them. I always tend to turn to the bloggers that I have great relationships with when it comes to looking for coverage for new product launches. I know their reviews will be honest, they’ll take beautiful pictures and their readers will engage with the content. Plus it helps that they keep in contact letting me know when the products have arrived, when their aiming to feature the products and then sending through the coverage when it’s live. It’s the little things like that, that make me want to work with them time and time again.

Do you have any other tips on how to attract, improve and maintain relationships with PRs?

You can view my other blog advice posts here.