Market Like a Mom: 5 Steps for Successful Social Media Blogger Outreach

Our feature this week is written by Margee Moore, author of the 5-star rated book app, Sleeping With the Laundry: Notes from the Mommy Track, the first narrative book app by a mom. Margee discusses the remarkable revolution of mom-style marketing, and offers specific tips for getting it right.

Moms do a lot of things right.

• We develop networks of friends to help us in a pinch.
• We shift though countless options for our kids (soccer, piano, or underwater basket weaving) and choose with laser sharpness.
• And we work efficiently to run our homes, nurture our children and make sure everyone is having a good time with rich experiences.

Marketing like a mother (or father) is about marketing in a way that comes naturally to us as friends and caregivers. To market effectively we need to market authentically. I’ve been reading Monica O’Brien’s Social Pollination and I’ll break down her tips for running a successful blogger outreach campaign in Mom terms.

Step 1: Know Who You Are (Plan your Targets)

It’s a great feeling when you meet a new mom who is a like minded soul, someone who tells a funny joke or shares a parenting philosophy (glitter glue is evil) with which you connect. She will become the company you keep, the person you will look for at PTA meetings or at the pool. Likewise with a blogger outreach campaign, plan your targets based on a set of criteria that’s what you are really all about. For example, my app, Sleeping With the Laundry is a humor book app for moms. I’ll target blogs that talk about, parenting humor, books clubs for moms, moms and apps, or technology.

Step 2: Choose Your Friends Wisely (Find Blogs that Match Your Criteria)

Like your indispensible school directory, class list or address book, this is the part where you organize your life (data) to help it run smoothly. Create a spreadsheet with important information like blog name, main contact, email address, blog address, subscriber count, twitter handle, facebook page, etc. Then search for blogs using your niche categories defined above. Use tools such as, WeFollow, Twitter, Alltop, Google Blog Search, Technorati, Ning, Facebook Pages and Groups, and Blog Aggregator Networks like DivineCaroline or The Huffington Post. Choose 100 influencers who have larger (but not too large) followings.

Step 3: Be a Good Friend (Develop Contacts)

Friendship is about contributing to your friend’s life by paying attention to them and showing you care with a comment, a “like” or by promoting their interests. Create a feed reader such as Bloglines or use your iGoogle reader. Process your feed reader three times per week. (It should only take 20 – 30 minutes and it’s fun). Tweet your friend’s posts, make comments (especially on your shared interests), push their content through your Facebook fan page, or post their article to StumbleUpon. Be a good friend.

Step 4: Give of Yourself (Reach Out to Bloggers)

Sometimes you have to ask your friends for favors: a cup of sugar, a babysitter recommendation or perhaps to cover playground duty. I try my best to repay these kindnesses or pay it forward. When making a pitch for an app review, release coverage or a pr request, give of yourself and do it concisely:

• Ask your request in 5 sentences or less
• Have all your materials ready to go
• Provide a free post on a topic related to your product or expertise.

Bloggers are always looking for new material and providing a post helps them. Providing your materials makes the request easy.

Step 5: Follow Up (Follow Up)

Check in with your friends to see how they are doing. When bloggers respond, follow up quickly. If the blogger provides a post for you, be sure to retweet it, Facebook it to your Fan Page, StumbleUpon and etc. Sharing your contact’s post helps you both. If you are making a request related to a specific event such as #AppFriday, follow up 3 – 5 days in advance and remind your contacts of your request. (For an #AppFriday, provide them with a list of prewritten tweets for example.) If there’s no post or response, feel free to resend a kind and gentle email, often moms just need a little reminder. We’re all busy. By sharing of yourself, you’re enriching the content and lives of the bloggers you reach.

Most of all, have fun. Building community in your hood or virtually is really what it’s all about.

You can find Margee at her syndicated column on her blog at www.sleepingwiththelaundry.com or “like” Sleeping With the Laundry on Facebook.