How to Find Top Bloggers in Your Market Niche

Looking to find top bloggers in your market niche so you can expand your affiliate program and start working with major influencers in your industry?

Sometimes finding the best, most influential bloggers can be tough. How do you know which ones are the best bloggers to work with, and could create the most beneficial partnership?

Here’s a full guide to help you find relevant bloggers for your brand, pinpoint the best ones to work with, and start pitching them your product.

Let’s dive in.

How to find bloggers in your market niche

The first step in delving into influencer marketing within your specific niche is to find the most relevant bloggers. You don’t want to end up reaching out to bloggers who won’t have audiences interested in what you’re selling.

The bloggers that you should start collaborating with should have readers and followers that are hyper-relevant to your specific product or service.

This is how you’re going to get the most out of adding them to your affiliate program or working together on any type of influencer partnership.

Get started consolidating a list of bloggers by using these tactics.

1. Conduct a Google search

The best way to start your search is with the search engine giant itself. While you’ll eventually want to get even more specific down the road, heading right over to Google and typing in your most basic search query is the perfect starting point.

Simply type in your niche + bloggers, and you’re likely to see a plethora of search results of top blogs and blogger roundup posts, all in your niche or industry.

To get an idea of what I mean, take a look at this roundup featuring top Google Ads experts, as well as this one showcasing top affiliate marketing blogs.

Check out each of these roundups and visit each of the blogs included in their posts to start finding the best ones to add to your list.

Browse through the first few pages of their blog posts to see if they publish content that your product or service could easily fit into and if they still have an active online presence. If so, go right ahead and add them to the list of potential influencers.

And when diving deeper into niche markets, you can also try out Google search operators to help narrow down your search even more.

This step can help you start putting together your list of bloggers, but it requires a bit more research to find the best ones in your market niche.

2. See who is mentioning your brand

One great way to add more bloggers to your overall list is to find out if there are any bloggers or influencers in your industry that already know about your business and are talking about it. This can make your pitching process that much easier, as well.

Use a tool like Brandmentions to make sure you don’t miss a single online mention of your business.

You can also see which niches are talking about you and your business, potentially helping you to find wider niches. Not only that but checking in on who is mentioning your brand can really help you with your online reputation management.

3. Search hashtags on social media

You can find even more bloggers by searching relevant hashtags on social media and seeing who is using those in their content.

Some blog niches even have their own hashtags, like #lbloggers for lifestyle bloggers or #psblogger for plus-sized and body-positive bloggers.

However, searching for popular keywords in your industry can be another great way to find bloggers and influencers. Just make sure you’re only searching for the top results to help weed out most of the spam and less quality content.

4. Read blogs in your niche regularly

This is a tip that can help you with so many different things in your business, from staying up-to-date with the latest trends to learning even more complex strategies for marketing your product or service.

However, another great advantage of reaching blogs within your niche is to learn who some of the top bloggers are.

If you’ve found a few top blogs that you love, read their content regularly and pay attention to who they mention and link to in their posts. Then visit their blogs, check out their content, and see if you should add them to your list of potential new affiliates.

How to pinpoint top bloggers

Now that you’ve gathered a large list of bloggers that are active and post content relevant to your business, it’s time to weed out the ones that are less popular and likely won’t generate new business for you.

Here are three top strategies for helping you make sure that you keep only the best of the best to help you get the most potential out of your research.

1. Analyze their online presence

While you may have gathered a large list of bloggers, not all of them will have the audience you’re looking for.

The best way to start narrowing down your list is by checking out their online presence. Make sure all of the bloggers you added to your list are still active and publish regular content. See if you can also find share counts on each of their blog posts to get an idea of how often their readers share their content on social media or via email.

Then move onto their social media profiles. How many followers do they have? Are their followers actively engaging with their tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram posts, etc.? Are the bloggers consistently sharing new social content?

You should also check out the blogger’s domain authority (you can use a free online checker like this one from Ahrefs) to gauge how legitimate of a website they have.

Understanding the full scope of these bloggers’ online presence and how well they’ll be able to promote your products if they become an affiliate or collaborate with your brand is essential before reaching out to them.

2. Check out popular online learning platforms

Finding bloggers and content creators in your niche that already have established presences is ideal, and one great way to do that is by searching popular online learning platforms to see if they’re already publishing and selling content surrounding your industry.

You can search platforms like LearnWorlds, Teachable, or Udemy to find bloggers and course creators in your market niche that could be worth reaching out to.

Checking out other places where bloggers often sell digital products, like Gumroad or even Etsy, can also help you narrow down your list.

3. Request a media kit

Many bloggers will share their media kit directly on their website; others may require that you ask for it. A media kit is a great way to get a sneak peek at their stats and the work they’ve done with other brands.

Asking for a media kit will also help you to determine whether a blogger is ideal for working with or not. If the blogger has no media kit, you might want to move along.

If they do, be sure to look thoroughly through the information to check out their website visitors, active followers, and more.

How to reach out to top bloggers

So you’ve narrowed down your list, and now you’re ready to start pitching your brand and your affiliate program to these top bloggers.

It’s likely that the best bloggers within your market niche receive a lot of pitches, so you want to make sure your email and other communication really stand out, so they read and respond to you.

This three-step process can help ensure you receive an email back.

1. Nurture the relationship on social media

To start putting your name out there gently, simply following the bloggers you’re interested in reaching out to on social media is a good place to start. Interact with their content regularly and see if they start to notice you and engage further.

This can give bloggers, especially big names in your industry, a chance to come to you and apply for your affiliate program all on their own.

And if they don’t, it could help them to recognize your brand name once you move onto step number two.

2. Start email outreach

After you’ve been flirting with these bloggers on social media for a while, it’s time to take things to the next level: email outreach.

You’ll need a few tools to really help you get this right, from finding the right email addresses to perfectly personalizing your content. A tool like RightInbox can help with your outreach processes by scheduling and tracking your emails.

If you don’t hear back, you also want to make sure you send follow-up emails at appropriate time increments (1-2 weeks) to ensure you’re not overcrowding their inbox and turning them off to work with you in the future.

3. Invite them to collaborate

Whether you send this in your first email or in a follow-up email, it’s an essential step in your outreach.

You don’t want to send cold emails that are all about you. While these bloggers do have the opportunity to generate some affiliate income by making sales through your affiliate program, it’s better to pitch a variety of ways to collaborate.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Share information about your affiliate program
This is why you’re here, right? You’re trying to figure out how to pitch bloggers and grow your affiliate program even more.

I get it. But you don’t want this to be the only thing you’re after. This should just be one piece of the pie.

Make sure you include all of the exciting bits about your affiliate program, from how it works to how much money they could make by signing up.

But you want to include more options for collaboration in your email.

Invite them to host a webinar
Working with popular bloggers to host a webinar together is always a great idea. These are typically incredibly educational and can reach both of your audiences, bringing everyone involved even more eyeballs and potential followers/customers.

Be sure to research proper webinar software to ensure you don’t suffer from technical difficulties and start planning your topic and content together.

Collaborate on a guest post
Ask if the blogger or influencer would be interested in a guest post swap. They can write content for your blog, and you/your content team can write content for theirs.

If you’re not sure how to write a guest post, that is a great guide, but it can be another great way to grow both of your audiences and let your followers know about each other.

Work together on a sponsorship
There are so many ways to go about this. You could provide free access to your service or send a free product in exchange for a review or social media posts.

Many top bloggers also charge for services and exposure like this, so be sure to include costs like these within your budget.

Although your end goal might be having each blogger you reach out to sign up for your affiliate program, there are still several other ways to collaborate and grow your business through influencer marketing.

Grow Your affiliate program with niche bloggers

Tap into affiliate marketing and start finding and reaching out to the most relevant bloggers and grow your own affiliate program. Following these guidelines can help you to find and pinpoint the best bloggers within your industry as well as start your outreach plan.

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