(Controversial insider tip exposed!) Boost sales by exploiting industry blogs

This will work well if you’re selling things that are being discussed on blogs, like fashion items, pet supplies, electronics, workout gear, basically anything that has a wide consumer audience.

  Step 1: Look for bloggers in your industry that have a large audience.

  Step 2: Become their friend.

Nine out of ten of the most popular blogs are, at the core, dictated by marketers. I don’t want to make this article about all the ways in which the blogging and media industry is broken, but it has to do with blogs needing a lot of content on a regular basis to keep their traffic where it is and the advertising dollars coming in.

You can help them with their content needs. Are you a fashion boutique? Find a fashion blog that needs items to review. Start a correspondence with the author, and send them free items. In most cases, getting free things will boost the bloggers mood and make them happy to write a review of said items. Bloggers don’t make a lot of money, so free things are definitely a way to turn their heads. Plus, they don’t have to do research to find their next topic. You just gave them something to write about.

There’s a site that is very grey when it comes to journalistic integrity, called Help a Reporter Out (www.helpareporterout.com). This is where experts can make an account and post something that reporters can make a story out of. An when I say experts, I mean absolutely anyone under the sun.

This is just the way the blogging world operates. We didn’t make the rules. Our own blog here at 1DA has no outside influence because we don’t depend on the ad revenue other blogs need to survive, and we’re under no pressure to produce content every day.

So I won’t go into much more detail from here, you’ll have to be creative to determine the best way for your business to utilize the greyish way that these blogs operate to give your business an edge, whether you’re just starting out and don’t have a big marketing budget, or are just looking for more ways to get some recognition and traffic. But try to go about it as ethically as you can!