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Why an Editorial Strategy is an Important Component of Influencer Outreach

September 19, 2012

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Why an Editorial Strategy is an Important Component of Influencer Outreach

In An Introduction to Effective Influencer Marketing, we discussed the importance of pitching value, not just product, when approaching influencers.

It’s important do the work on the front end to ensure your outreach strategy is highly tuned to the influencer’s needs as well as the needs of their audience. To be self-serving and sales driven is to be ignored.

Naturally, this approach relies heavily on the content end of the spectrum, where a solid, targeted editorial strategy is a key component of the process. Assuming that your core list of topics will (and should) drive your editorial strategy, you’ll be equipped to develop highly relevant and valuable content to amplify your outreach.

Creating an Effective Editorial Strategy for Influencer Outreach

If you’re already committed to using influence measurement to identify the topics, individuals and companies that are moving the dial in your market, then it’s a very natural progression to leverage these insights to fuel your content strategy, and to use the content to help establish a connection with influencers.

It’s a solid approach for establishing your brand as a trusted resource for news and information in your market. Better yet, you’ll be providing direct value to potential influencers and their audience, making your pitch that much more relevant and enticing.

Here are few tips for building an effective editorial strategy for influencer outreach:

  • Build the foundation for your strategy with a list of core topics that are aligned across all key areas of your marketing plan, not just influencer outreach – from overarching objectives to specific SEO, social and content marketing goals.
  • Your editorial calendar should include daily, weekly and monthly topics derived from this core list that will aid you in producing highly relevant content to engage influencer with. Just be sure to keep the calendar flexible so you can adjust topics as needs shift or opportunities arise.
  • Outline a distribution list with key publications to pitch content to in addition to influencers on your engagement list. Be selective at first based on which publications are most relevant to the topics in your editorial calendar, then expand your reach.
  • Use an editorial calendar tool like DivvyHQ (disclosure: that’s what we use) to streamline the scheduling, resource allocation and revision process. If your budget for outreach is already tight, Google Docs is a good baseline tool for collaboration on this.
  • Audit all core brand messaging across your site, blog and social channels to determine opportunities for optimizing your core messaging (see next bullet).
  • Ensure that benefits and value props are in clear language for the influencer and their audience to understand; calls to action specify how to engage with your brand and products; relevant case studies and testimonials are up to date and utilized on conversion pages. Basically, you want to put your best foot forward when connecting with influencers, so make sure the content foundation is solid.
  • Set up analytics goal tracking to ensure you measure performance metrics and KPIs on all content you produce during outreach.
  • Set up social monitoring to track influencer response and so you can listen and interact with their community on applicable social channels.
  • Consider forming editorial partnerships with influencers to expand your core content strategy and deliver more value. This should including pitching guest posts to influencers (be sure to check their editorial requirements first), but also consider inviting influencers to guest post on your blog as well.
  • Go beyond blog posts to sticky, high-value content that can be used for permission-based strategies as well – white papers, industry reports, case studies, etc.

Incorporating a well planned editorial strategy into your influencer outreach is more than just producing content to pitch (far more in fact). It’s about increasing your brand’s share of influence on the topics that matter most.

You accomplish this by leading the conversation, specifically through curating and sharing relevant, value-driven content. By tracking how this content spreads and how influencers/readers respond, you will also gain crucial insights into which of these topics are truly driving action so that you can adjust your outreach strategy accordingly.

What are your thoughts on the importance of a solid editorial strategy when engaging in influencer outreach? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Image credit: Joe Lanman