How Can a Blogger Help Your Craft Business?

Bloggers can be a powerful way to promote the products you make with your Silhouette Cameo or Cricut. You may have a favorite blogger, and you trust their advice for product recommendations. If you do, you are not alone. Social4retail notes that 61% of US consumers have made a purchase based on a blog post, and more than 77% of internet users read blogs.

Great! I’ve given a few statistics, and you are interested in working with a blogger to promote the products you make with your Silhouette Cameo. Now what? You’ll first need to decide what product you’d like to offer to a blogger to review. Usually, you’ll send the blogger the product that they will get to keep in exchange for reviewing it or they will pass it on to their readers through a giveaway. In some cases, the blogger may also expect you to provide a a discount code for their readers that gives them a discount in your store, or other payment for providing the review. Next, you’ll need to do your homework and find a suitable blogger. I really recommend that you don’t skimp on this step. To maximize the effectiveness of your product review, you need to find a blogger who writes about content that matches your product. A few quick examples: if you sell trendy infant bodysuits, try looking for a fashion blogger. Or, if you sell personalized cutting boards, connect with a blogger who features gifts or recipes. You’ll also want to verify things like the amount of traffic they receive, the interaction they have with their readers, and the social media sites they use.

Here’s my top two methods to connect with bloggers:

1) Reach out to bloggers directly. This is my favorite method, and I feel that it is most effective. Many blogs have links for brands to reach them directly on their blog, and popular review sites have premade forms that you can fill out for more information – so look for one on your favorite blog. You can also reach out to them through social media, but I urge you to tiptoe around this carefully. You do not want to simply spam them with your product review request. (Trust me, bloggers get a lot spam!) The best approach is to follow their blog, like their content and share it on social media, and form a genuine relationship with the blogger before approaching them for a product review.

2) Use a service to find bloggers. There are many services that will connect you, the brand, with bloggers looking to do product reviews. In my non-crafting business life, I have used Sverve with great results – although it has substantially increased in price since I used it a few years back. Other popular services include Blog Meets Brand, She Is Media, and Moms Affiliate.

Once you have a product review done by a blogger, be sure to promote the review on your own social media. My last words of advice: Before you start connecting with bloggers, be sure you have ample inventory (or supplies) to fulfill a potential large amount of orders. Additionally, make sure you have time to create the items, answer questions, and handle additional social media demands.

Warning! There’s a lot of scams going around (especially on Etsy), where a “blogger” will ask you for free products. In general, reputable bloggers won’t connect with you in this way. There’s also bloggers whose “blogs” exist mainly to do product reviews for the purpose of receiving free stuff. Best to skip both of these.

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