So what’s on the horizon for digital media in 2012 and what does it mean to marketers?

Three marketing experts shared their forecasts last week at a program sponsored by the American Advertising Federation – Cleveland, Ohio. Adele Pellicane, Senior Director, Agency Services, Traffiq Inc., New York, Larry Weissman, Managing Director, Top Line Revenue, Inc., Atlanta, and Scott Chapin, Senior Vice President, Digital Strategy, Marcus Thomas LLC, Cleveland, were panelists. Michael DeAloia, Partner at Emerging Chefs Cleveland, moderated for AAF-Cleveland.

Here’s what these digital media pros see in their crystal balls and some insights for using digital media in your smart marketing strategy.

What Digital Media is – and Why it Matters

Chapin defines digital media as “anything that’s driving traffic to digital content: Paid media, social media, or other media that drives traffic to a digital source.” 

Marketers need to embrace digital media, says Weissman, because “it’s quickly becoming mainstream” and it’s reshaping the traditional sales funnel. “The sales funnel is now dramatically different and much more complex because of digital media,” he notes.

The Next Big Trend: Mobile + Social + Local

Last year’s big trend was mobile marketing, says Chapin. Advertisers spent over $1 billion in mobile marketing ads in 2011.

“What’s coming is the convergence of social, mobile, and local – that’s the hot trend right now,” he states. “Facebook and Google are both going in this direction. Every marketer’s goal is to figure out how to communicate their brand to customers when they’re on the go.”

Pellicane agrees. “The convergence of mobile, social, and local is the next big trend in digital media. It’s about the where and when. This will continue to grow, especially in the retail space,” she predicts. “It’s crucial for branding and driving sales.”

Weissman says local social media marketing platforms like foursquare are important to retail marketers, but “the local marketing space is extremely crowded and there’s a consolidation coming. Amazon and eBay are getting ready to launch these types of products. Foursquare will need to stay innovative to thrive in this environment.”

7 More Digital Media Trends to Watch

1. Real-time engagement: Chapin sees marketers continuing to move people from traditional to digital media in real time via such tactics as QR codes. “Everybody’s trying to figure out ways to make this transition easy for people,” he says. Another example is the plan by Shazam, developers of the innovative iPhone and Android sound recognition apps, to link audio via tags from this year’s Super Bowl ads to advertisers’ websites, as recently reported in Adweek.
2. QR codes: Though advertisers are rapidly adopting QR codes in marketing campaigns, panelists agreed that widespread use of QR codes by consumers won’t take hold until smart phones have built-in QR reader apps. “Using QR codes will grow exponentially when apps are pre-installed on smart phones,” Pellicane predicts.
3. The power of video: “Mobile marketing plus video is a huge trend in general, but especially for tweens,” notes Weissman. “It’s how they consume media – and it’s not on the TV in the living room.”
4. The growth of Google+: “Social is a huge part of Google’s strategy,” says Chapin. “It’s being integrated into nearly every Google product. Google+ will slowly gain in relevance and eventually we’ll be discussing it in the same vein as Facebook and Twitter.”
5. Easier ways to influence others: “‘Share this’ buttons are creating digital versions of kitchen-table conversations between a few people and many people,” Weissman notes.
6. Co-watching: Viewing a mobile device or tablet computer while watching television is a growing trend. “Marketers are trying to figure out how to integrate this and drive cross-device connectivity,” Chapin observes.
7. Measurability: Weissman says new tools are on the horizon to measure audience access via the web, which may create a way to buy digital media based on gross rating points. “Marketers want the ability to measure and analyze a consumer’s path from traditional to digital, to track the user’s experience from end to end, such as from an app to a website,” Chapin explains.

Tips for Planning a Digital Media Strategy

How should you use digital media in a smart marketing strategy? Chapin recommends that marketers ask these questions to determine a digital media marketing plan:

• Is your audience mobile? In most cases, the answer is an easy yes. Half of phone users now have smart phones, so penetration of smart phones in your market is probably a given.
• What content do you have?  You need something to pay off a mobile marketing campaign, like a mobile website or app. “If you don’t have this, spend your money here first,” Chapin advises. “Mobile users have even shorter attention spans than web users, one second instead of five. You must answer the user’s question instantly.”
• When and where is your audience? A mobile user can be literally anywhere in the world. Figure out the mobile usage patterns of your audience and connect to them then and there. “For example, during the week, Google Maps users are on desktop computers. On the weekend, they’re on phones,” Chapin notes.
• Can you do geo-targeting to a specific local market and near a retail outlet?

Pellicane advises marketing agencies and consultants to focus digital media marketing strategies on goals and metrics. “Don’t get hung up on the ‘shiny new object’ syndrome just to show your clients you can do it,” she explains. “Ask yourself, ‘what’s the goal of the marketing campaign and what metrics will be used to measure success?’ Do you want to build community? Drive sales? That will drive the decisions about devices and tactics in digital media.”

Think about this list for a moment: These are TV spots people chose to watch online, by the millions. That’s an advertiser’s dream.

But what makes these ads so popular? Why did the Darth Vader Volkswagen spot get over 45 million YouTube views? Why did 25 million people view the Royal Wedding dance ad for T-Mobile?

It’s not crazy gimmicks or over-the-top production techniques, though some of the ads on the YouTube Top 10 list have spectacular visual effects.

I think it’s about storytelling. The most watched ads of 2011 engage viewers in a compelling story.

Here’s why storytelling is such an effective advertising technique and how to tell stories in your smart marketing strategy.

Why Stories Work in Marketing

Storytelling is fundamental to every culture. Stories work in marketing because everyone understands what a story is about. When the story is highly relevant to the needs and interests of the audience, it’s a powerful and persuasive way to convey information.

Stories have a plot, characters, and a narrative point of view. The mostly highly viewed YouTube ads – the Volkswagen and T-Mobile spots, Jennifer Aniston creating a video for Smartwater, or Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” campaign – combine these elements brilliantly.

7 Characteristics of Effective Advertising Storytelling

As a marketing strategist, I believe there are seven characteristics of a great advertising story:

1. It’s engaging: The viewer is immediately drawn into the scenario. Something interesting is happening and you want to know what it is.
2. It’s emotional: The best advertising stories make you feel something: Empathy, humor, joy, tension, excitement.
3. It’s memorable: You get it and can’t forget it.
4. It’s easy to retell: You can describe the basic scenario in one sentence.
5. It has a plot: There’s a beginning, middle, and end.
6. There’s an element of suspense: You have to stick with the ad to see how the story will turn out.
7. Most important, the product plays a pivotal role: The product is woven into the story so well that the story couldn’t be told with it.

Lessons for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

Storytelling can be a smart marketing tactic for almost any marketer and great stories don’t have to be told just on TV.

One example is the excellent Avis marketing campaign on the front page of the Marketplace section of The Wall Street Journal. Avis uses real letters from grateful customers to tell stories about the company’s commitment to customer service.

To create dynamic marketing stories like these, I advise clients of my marketing consulting firm to think about the following:

• How are your products or services used? What stories might your customers tell? Plot out the scenarios and explore how to make these scenarios interesting to prospects.
• Who are your customers? What type of character is your customer? Use real-life case studies to showcase customers as themselves or create similar characters prospects can relate to.
• What emotions do people feel when they use your products or services? Do your customers feel confident, safe, happy, relieved, excited, satisfied, proud? Capture these emotions in the stories you tell.
• What is your product’s role? How does your product enable your customers to achieve success? Build your stories around the benefits of what you sell.

A final tip: Don’t make the mistake of telling such a great story that the product gets lost in the narrative. See my prior post about the Kevin Bacon ad for Logitech.

What stories do you think made the most compelling advertising campaigns?

But they also share quality content produced by others. Gathering, sorting, and republishing content from other authors that you believe your followers will value is called curation.

By being a great content curator, you help customers, prospects, and colleagues find the “good stuff” online and know what to read. This not only makes you an informative and influential social media contributor, but it also helps attract new followers.

Here’s how to find, filter, and share the best content with your social media followers in a smart marketing strategy.

10 Steps for Sourcing and Selecting the Best Content

There is a wealth of potential content online to share with your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter followers. Follow these steps to curate information that will bring real value to the people you’re connected with:

1. Use Google Alerts and similar tools to see who’s publishing what on the web about the main topics and keywords related to your business.
2. Sign up for RSS feeds from websites in your field, such as trade associations, conference sponsors, competitors, and industry media.
3. Subscribe to the top blogs in your industry to hear what the most influential voices are saying.
4. Follow key industry leaders and commentators on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
5. Sign up for e-mail news briefs from news media specific to your industry to know the latest news and research.
6. Follow reporters at major business news media like The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg who write articles related to your business.
7. Apply your knowledge of your industry to separate the wheat from the chaff. Focus on information that offers meaningful insights, a new perspective, or new findings on a key topic.
8. Look for patterns that could indicate potential trends. Follow top researchers and share findings that could indicate a shift in your industry or your market.
9. Filter out content that’s obviously self-promotional or “research” that’s self-serving or otherwise suspect.
10. Add your point of view so people know why you’ve selected this content to share. Include comments like “A great demonstration of…,” “Helpful tips about…,” “Important news…,” “A can’t-miss conference,” etc.

How Content Curation Fits in a Smart Marketing Strategy

Content curation is an especially effective approach in a business-to-business marketing strategy, where companies strive to showcase their knowledge. Being a content curator is an ideal way to demonstrate your expertise and position yourself and your company as thought leaders in your industry.

The Next Great American Consumer by Brian Braiker provides a fascinating look at this development. Braiker says branding at birth is “a trend—fueled in part by the growth of digital devices—toward aggressively targeting a demographic that didn’t exist, in marketers’ eyes, until recently: infants to 3-year-olds. By getting their logos and iconic characters in front of babies—even those with still-blurry eyesight—they hope to establish brand-name preference before she or he has uttered a word.”

Is this a smart marketing strategy? Or is this the scariest thing you’ve seen all week? The answer to both questions is yes. Here’s why.

The Brilliance of Early Marketing

Establishing brand awareness and brand preference is the goal of every smart marketer, and as a marketing consultant, I have to acknowledge the brilliance of this strategy. The article cites plenty of research to prove the impact of early marketing on infants and toddlers, including studies which show that an American child can recognize an average of 100 brand logos by age 3. If you’re marketing products to kids and parents, you certainly want your logo on that list.

The real power of this marketing strategy may be its influence on parents. I bought Disney-themed baby toys for my kids and if Kate Spade had made designer baby bags when my daughter was born, I’d have been first in line to buy one.

I probably also would have let my young children play with my iPhone or iPad if I’d had one back then, as many parents do today. That’s why so many marketers like Fisher-Price and Nick Jr. are creating branded apps and online games for the very youngest technology users and why Dora the Explorer has a Facebook page (supposedly for parents) with over 770,000 followers.

But How Young is Too Young?

Of course, licensed characters on clothing, toys, and other products for babies and toddlers are nothing new.

But I wonder if marketers are beginning to take this too far. The level of marketing to infants and toddlers is clearly on the rise, as Braiker’s article illustrates, and the idea of marketing to someone too young and vulnerable to perceive the difference between reality and fantasy makes me queasy. In my experience as a marketing advisor, when it feels like you may be crossing the line of what’s appropriate, you probably are – and the negative fallout usually outweighs the marketing benefit when you do.

Is This Really a Branding Strategy?

From a marketing strategy standpoint, I also wonder whether this approach really can be called “branding.”

Branding is making a promise to a customer about the value you deliver and the experience the customer will have when they choose to do business with you. Is that what these marketers are achieving by targeting consumers far too young to understand product value and differentiate between products? Or are they just cementing an image of an icon in a young child’s mind without attaching any meaning to it?

If that’s the case, I think it’s an open question whether this will pay off as a branding strategy in the long run. Brand recognition doesn’t automatically translate into sales; sales are driven by value.  Even if a young child can recognize and name a brand logo or character, that’s not the same as achieving true brand loyalty among children and parents because of the quality of your products. And marketers who go too far by targeting infants could find themselves facing a backlash from society and parents.

What do you think? Where should marketers draw the line when it comes to targeting images and messages to babies and toddlers? When does a smart marketing strategy become a societal concern?

These aren’t just idle comments. Misconceptions about social media can hurt your brand and hamper your ability to compete in your marketplace by limiting your company’s participation in the social media dialogue.  And if the people who hold those misconceptions also control the marketing budget, alarm bells should be ringing in the marketing department.

Here’s how to get your company onboard with social media marketing and help everyone understand why social media is a powerful element of a smart marketing strategy.

• Educate. Create training sessions to help others at your company understand how social media works and why your company should be part of the social media conversation. You may need to begin with the basics for those who are unfamiliar with social media. Profile social media use in your industry, especially by your competitors. Share examples of effective social media marketing campaigns by organizations like yours.
• Ask for ideas. Encourage everyone, from the CEO on down, to suggest ideas for social media content and customer engagement and to follow your company on social media. Create an easy way for people to share ideas with the marketing team. If you have a company blog, ask for help with content.
• Partner with other departments. Reach out to customer service, tech support, product development, and other units for help in preparing prompt, accurate responses to product-based comments and questions on your social media pages.
• Keep score. Create and distribute a regular social media “scorecard” to report the results of your social media marketing and track competitors’ social media efforts. Keep it simple, straightforward, fact-based, and user-friendly.
• Equip your sales team. Everyone who has direct contact with customers and prospects should have easy-to-use tools, such as branded premiums or sales collateral, to share your company’s social media addresses.
• Keep social media visible. Ongoing high visibility for your company’s social media efforts will help others recognize how much emphasis you are placing on social media in your marketing plan. Put your social media links and information on all your marketing materials and company communications.
• Plan for negative comments. Develop a plan for rapid response to any negative comments that are posted on your social media pages. Share the plan widely to reassure those who worry that social media will expose your company to criticism.
• Establish a company policy on social media. Employees should know your company’s views on appropriate social media behavior and understand who can and cannot speak for your company in social media, especially in response to a complaint.

Help Your Company Succeed with Social Media

As a marketing consultant, I believe that social media marketing should be among your top marketing priorities, whether you sell to businesses or consumers.

Get your company excited about social media so you can become a visible, active, and engaging participant in the social media conversation in your industry and connect more effectively with your customers and prospects.

Marketers everywhere are discovering the value of Twitter for sharing content and insights with customers and prospects and creating top-of-mind awareness.

I used to be skeptical of Twitter but I’ve become convinced of its marketing power. As I approach my 1,000^th tweet on Twitter as @jeangianfagna, here are 21 tips I’ve learned for using Twitter in a smart marketing strategy:

1. Write a great company description. You have 160 characters to describe yourself. Use them all to say something interesting and show how you benefit your customers.
2. Aim for the briefest copy in your tweets, ideally 115 characters or less, so that if your content is retweeted, your identity (RT: @companyname) will be preserved along with the full text of the original tweet.
3. Use your company logo as your profile visual.
4. Create a custom background for your Twitter page that reflects your brand, states your key value proposition, and lists your website and social media addresses.
5. Avoid self-promotion. Helpful information about using your products is valuable; a sales pitch is a turnoff.
6. Curate content. Find and share information from other sources – the news media, bloggers, and other social media participants – that your followers will find valuable and interesting.
7. Include links to content in the majority of your tweets and use a URL shortener like bitly.com to reduce the number of characters required for a link.
8. Add your point of view to content you share from others. Tell your followers why they should read what you’ve just posted or visit a link.
9. Be active but don’t overdo it. I recommend posting tweets at least three to four times daily, but also being careful not to over-post. Keep tabs on the volume of tweets in your industry to gauge how much is too much.
10. Welcome new followers. You can set up an automated welcome message, though a personal message is more effective. Suggest a visit to your website, blog, or Facebook page in your welcome message.
11. Thank those who retweet your posts or mention you via a direct message or tweet.
12. Follow-back people who follow your company if they have a clear interest in your industry and are posting on related topics.
13. Follow reporters in the news media who cover your industry.
14. Follow your competitors.
15. Check who’s following your competitors. Review their profiles and follow key tweeters; many will automatically follow you back. Retweet their content if it’s interesting.
16. Create lists of people and organizations you’re following on Twitter. Tweet your lists to show people who influences you.
17. Use a Twitter management tool like HootSuite or TweetDeck to manage tweeting and to time your tweets for delivery on weekends and in multiple time zones.
18. Use and follow hashtags (#) related to your industry to flag your posts for followers of these topics and see who’s posting information on topics that interest you.
19. Use conference hashtags to send tweets from conferences and trade shows you attend.
20. Use the #FF (#FollowFriday) hashtag on Fridays to tell your followers about tweeters you recommend.
21. Have a plan and a process in place to respond quickly to negative tweets about your company.

Final Tip: Take Twitter Seriously

As a marketing consultant who develops marketing strategies, I believe it’s time for every marketer to take Twitter seriously. I’m encouraging my clients — even business-to-business (B2B) marketers – to view Twitter as an effective way to share information, connect directly with prospects and customers, and spot trends.

My final tip: Get on the Twitter bandwagon. Start by following your industry, then join the conversation. I think you’ll soon see why Twitter should be part of your smart marketing strategy.

And guess what? I’ve discovered a simple secret about social media: To achieve success, you need to think like a direct marketer.

Why Social Media Marketing is Like Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is about targeting specific individuals with information and offers relevant to their needs and making a call to action to generate response.

Marketers are using social media to connect with specific individuals who have a high level of interest in their products and services. The goal is to get those individuals to respond in the form of likes, follows, shares, posts, links, check-ins, entries, coupon redemptions, and sales. That sounds a lot like direct marketing to me.

5 Direct Marketing Principles that Apply to Social Media Marketing

Here are five proven principles of effective direct marketing strategy that I think apply to the effective use of social media:

1. Targeting: Sure, half the civilized world is on Facebook and millions are on Twitter, LinkedIn, and other channels. But smart marketers don’t care about reaching billions or even millions of people. Like direct marketing, social media marketing is intended to deliver a targeted message to individuals who are most likely to be interested in a company’s value proposition. Social media makes it easy to find these individuals and to create content and promotions that help them find you.
2. Teasing: Direct marketers use the carrier envelope, catalog cover, or email subject line to tease the audience and get them to pay attention. Social media marketers do the same with Facebook copy and tweets. My most retweeted tweets happen when I tease my followers with a question or an interesting statement that makes them want to click on a link to know more. That’s exactly like writing direct mail teaser copy.
3. Engaging: The most effective direct marketing campaigns use compelling content and a personal, you-oriented copy approach to keep readers engaged in the sales message to the point of asking for the order. Social media’s great value is the ability to have similar one-to-one engagement and conversations with individual followers.
4. Inciting action: Like direct marketing, the best social media marketing campaigns have a call to action that gets followers to respond to a specific request. Look at posts by the most popular brand marketers on Facebook and you’ll see offers, discounts, bonuses, invitations, questions, contests, polls, and quizzes, all designed, like a direct mail offer, to get a response.
5. Testing and measuring: The beauty of direct marketing is the ability to test approaches and measure results. Social media is exactly the same in this regard, with even more measurability and more instant reaction. You’ll know within minutes if your followers or fans are interested in your post.

Target, Engage, and Ask to Achieve Social Media Marketing Success

Direct marketers achieve success by targeting their marketing, focusing on the needs and interests of the prospect, using great content to engage the prospect in the message, and making a compelling offer to generate a response. Applying these same proven principles to social media marketing is a smart marketing strategy.

Do you agree? What other principles of direct marketing do you think are relevant to social media marketing?

Here are my top 10 recommendations for developing a smart business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy, based on the tried-and-true principles of B2B marketing and my experience as a marketing strategy consultant:

1. Position your company as the preferred vendor in your industry, offering capabilities and value no one else can match. Your brand should stand for the industry’s best.
2. Demonstrate your expertise and results. Show what you know – and what only you know. Use case studies, testimonials, and real-life examples to prove that yours is the company that delivers successful outcomes for its customers.
3. Build your industry’s best, most complete database of targeted prospects. Keep it constantly current and use it as the foundation of your lead generation efforts.
4. Use mass communication like advertising, web marketing, and public relations to build awareness.
5. Use direct marketing to generate leads for new sales opportunities.
6. Use one-to-one communication, email, and social media to cross-sell, up-sell, and build relationships.
7. Use trade shows and conferences to meet face-to-face with customers and prospects and stay current on industry issues.
8. Use every customer contact to tell your story. From call center CSRs to product packaging, every interaction with a prospect or customer is an opportunity to demonstrate your company’s superiority.
9. Communicate regularly via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, an e-newsletter, email, direct mail, or sales calls. You need to constantly remind customers and prospects of who you are and what sets you apart from competitors.
10. Give sales representatives effective tools to demonstrate your products and services and capitalize on the opportunities your smart marketing strategy has helped create.

What are your best tips for B2B marketing? Do these recommendations make your top 10 list?

One is Chris Brown, owner of Marketing Resources & Results, a full-service marketing consulting firm in Northeast Ohio that helps companies attract new customers.

Chris has published the blog Branding & Marketing since 2006. She’s written more than 900 articles on marketing strategy, marketing tactics, branding, social media, and market research. Last week, she reached a major blogging milestone: 10,000 subscribers.

In this interview with Smart Marketing Strategy, Chris shares how she has used blogging to build her marketing agency and offers some lessons from her success.

SMS. You were one of the first marketers to launch a blog. Why did you start blogging?

I started blogging to connect with other marketing professionals and learn more about the changing tools in marketing. Blogging – the act of building online publications that are easy to update – is a tremendous marketing tool. Because of my activity at blogging conferences, I’ve connected with thousands of marketing professionals I never would have met without the Internet and the ability to self-publish.

SMS: How has your blog changed over the years?

After trying out several different software platforms, I switched to the WordPress self-hosted platform and in 2009 adopted the Thesis theme. As I got more proficient, the technology of the blog has evolved. I also added video to my blog.

SMS: How do you keep your blog fresh?

I use Google Alerts for keyword phrases to learn about new tools and techniques. I read about 80 blogs in my RSS feeds, maybe 10-15 a day, to stay current. Usually after about 20 to 30 minutes of reading, I have a topic I want to discuss, a common thread between recent bloggers, something in the news, a new website, a new tool, or a change in something we’ve all been using for years. I have a loose editorial calendar so I rotate topics. I promised myself never to start a post, “Sorry it’s been so long since I published, but…” because I see too many bloggers do that. I attend conferences, workshops, and webinars.

SMS: How did you grow such a large subscriber base? Were there pivotal moments when your readership spiked? Or has the growth been gradual?

It’s definitely been gradual with a few big snowballs. The first time I checked the stats, I felt I was so far behind no one would ever notice my blog. Then I started connecting with other bloggers. Leaving comments is a great way to connect. I also like to help new people get started and meet local bloggers in person. I found a few key connecting individuals who helped me and I’ve tried to connect others. Twitter has certainly helped because it’s easy to promote a link to a blog post and even easier for other people to pass it along.

But the most important thing is writing good content. No one subscribes unless they want to come back and read more content.

SMS: How often do you blog?

I prefer 3-4 times a week because it keeps my mind always thinking of the next post.

SMS: What types of posts get the most response?

The most comments usually come from something personal. I try to keep the blog more professional than personal, but sometimes it creeps in. Controversial posts get longer comments. Response depends on the left hand column’s featured posts. People click on what’s on the top left the most.

SMS: What is your audience most interested in reading? 

They like to learn new marketing tools that aren’t too complicated but they can easily apply in their own business. “How tos” and checklists are very popular. They don’t like a lot of negative critiques, nor do they like glowing “Pollyanna”-type reviews of products. Real-life stuff and my honest opinions are usually the most often read posts. 

SMS: How do you promote your blog?

I tweet new posts and have installed a plugin to tweet an encore post daily. I use networked blogs in Facebook to automatically update Facebook with each new post. My website has a link to the blog’s RSS, but I prefer the blog to bring people to the website, not the other way around. When I do speaking and workshops, I suggest that participants visit my blog for PowerPoints, videos, and other information. My e-news spotlights several blog posts, so I use the blog as the hub of my marketing.

SMS: How has blogging helped your business?

After Google, it’s the biggest source of referral traffic to my website. It’s helped me stay current with changes in the marketplace and build credibility about my marketing expertise. The blog is much stronger than any brochure or advertisement. My ability to blog and build community has given me the confidence (and excitement) to embrace new technology.

SMS: What advice do you have for other bloggers?

Figure out what you want to be known for and jump in. Write in first person. Connect with other bloggers and leave comments. Talk to other bloggers. If you want to grow your business, blog about your industry, writing things that would be of interest to potential customers or potential referral sources.

To engage readers, ask questions and have a conversation. To develop great content, research your content, use links to show your sources, be generous with links, and write about what you know. Format your blog so it’s fun to read, with a photo, a strong headline, bullet points, and subheads, and end with a question to make readers think. Final point: Proofread!

Congratulations, Chris, on your success — keep on blogging!

But outreach to bloggers can be tricky. Many bloggers resist overtures from marketers and other outsiders.

Here are five do’s and four don’ts when approaching bloggers to write about your company, product, or service, from my perspective as a blogger and a marketing consultant who advises clients on social media.

The Right Ways to Approach a Blogger

Do:

1. Know whom to approach. Select bloggers whose focus and content is directly related to your product, service, or industry.
2. Follow first. Follow the bloggers you want to build a relationship with to learn their topics, style, and point of view.
3. Comment on their content. Add meaningful comments to their blog posts to show you’re paying attention to what they’re publishing and have an interesting perspective on their subjects.
4. Share ideas. If you have a great idea for a blog post that fits the blogger’s editorial focus and isn’t totally self-serving to your interests, suggest it.
5. Offer success stories or access to exclusive information. If you have a success story or other exclusive information to share with a blogger (and real data to back up your results), you’ll have better odds of being featured in someone else’s blog.

The Wrong Ways to Approach a Blogger

Don’t:

1. Be totally self-promotional. If your only objective is promotion of your company, product, or service, bloggers will give you the cold shoulder.
2. Approach bloggers about topics unrelated to their blogs. I’m a marketing consultant in Cleveland, Ohio and I use my blog to share ideas and insights about how to develop a smart marketing strategy. I also write about Cleveland marketers that are creating effective marketing campaigns. I’ve been asked to feature many things in my blog that are totally unrelated to these topics. Unless your idea fits perfectly with the blogger’s main subject area, the answer will be no.
3. Ask bloggers to publish your content. Serious bloggers create their own content, so they’re not likely to want to publish yours. Give them an idea that might feature your product or the opportunity to interview an expert from your company, but don’t send them your pre-written content and ask them to post it.
4. Ask to be a guest blogger. Unless you already have a well-established business relationship with the blogger or you’re the leading guru in your industry, your request to be a guest blogger is not likely to be granted.

The Bottom Line: Respect the Blogger – and the Boundaries

Bloggers who are committed to creating a meaningful blog see themselves as publishers and take their responsibility to their readers seriously. Respecting their position as authors and content developers – and offering ideas that benefit their readers and don’t just promote your company – can be a smart marketing strategy.