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Comment by nudge | Hacker News Reader

Write to bloggers with audiences that are your potential customers. Tell them about your product and politely ask if they would like to feature you in a post. Offer some pre-written copy (not too much) for them to use or cut/paste from to make it easier for them. Offer free downloads of your software for e.g. 5 of their readers (but don't do that for everyone you email).

Keep it brief, be polite, and some might bite. Michael Dorfman's advice about your USP and your story (either/both are good for bloggers) is good advice to keep in mind when thinking of what to write.

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nugde, that sounds very reasonable, but I am skeptical if that would make you stand out. Have you had reasonable success doing this?

I always wonder if bloggers reads our emails. It seems like they would get so many of these story everyday, do they have time to read everything?

Bloggers, please feel free to chime in? Do you only read the emails with interesting titles? :)

I confess this is advice I have gathered from others, rather than something that has worked for me (I haven't tried it for a paid product site like yours). It will always be a lottery emailing busy bloggers, but you could get lucky!

Something I have had success with is emailing smaller blogs that I know often feed stories to the larger ones, and also blogs that have insatiable appetites for new stories. Regarding smaller blogs, something that worked very well for me is to contact first the international spinoffs of highly popular blogs, rather than the standard US one - often they get far fewer emails daily, and stories they write get picked up by the main site.

edit: One way to get bloggers' attention would be to just give them a copy of your app. Don't write as if you're just asking for a write-up. Write to tell them you think they could probably benefit from your product, and you'd like to give them a free copy. And that if they like it, here's your phone number / email for more information.

That's great to hear nudge. Can you recommend me a few small blogs that you had great experiences with?

In my case I submitted my simple online timer to Lifehacker Australia, on a hunch that it would feed through to the US site. It worked, but I wouldn't know if it would work again, and I don't know if they write about iphone apps.

I didn't submit it to unaffiliated smaller blogs simply because it wasn't really a business and after the lifehacker article I was happy enough.

You should read the blog of the Balsamiq mockup software creator. He has a great post - I forget where, I'm afraid - about exactly how and what he wrote to bloggers when he was launching.

Nudge, I found it.

FYI for those interested, this is a very good read.

http://balsamiq.com/blog/2008/08/05/startup-marketing-advice...

I would not bother with the busy, big bloggers - they will not give you the time of day unless you have a big announcement. My suggestion to get them to notice you:

Large blogs feed off of small blogs, its the nature of the blogsphere. What you need to do is determine what blogs you feel like would make the most impact for your business, and dive into where they source their stories. Then, reach out to THOSE sources for stories, exclusives, pre-release testing material, etc. Those are the sources larger blogs trust and feed off of - not only are you bound to get coverage on the smaller more niche blog, but the larger ones will pick up the review and will most likely post - bang - 2 for one.

Once you are on the big boys' radar, then reach out with extra/exclusive content to really nail it home...wash, rinse, and repeat across the blog-o-sphere

There are many ways to really dig deep to find the influencers in any given space - happy to continue the dialogue via email info@limberdesigns.com

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