If you’re looking to set up a kick butt LinkedIn SaaS business publicity campaign, here’s the place to get all of your intel. Have you noticed how many journalists, reporters, and bloggers have accounts on LinkedIn? Talk about a bonanza of ink slingers!

What does it have to do with getting free publicity for your SaaS, though?

Plenty.

Bloggers and journalists are under great time pressure to churn out quality daily content.

Coming up with ideas for all those posts can be quite the drag on their time and resources.

Not to mention their sanity at times.

What do you think the chances are they’d be willing to take your help with content ideas if you offered them to them?

Pretty good, right?

When they accept that help they’ll pay you in the form of free publicity for your business.

Talk about cool!

The trick is to present those content ideas to them in a way they appreciate and pay attention to.

It wasn’t too long ago you would have had to be on the phone all day long trying to reach them.

Those days are over thankfully.

Now all that communication can take place right on LinkedIn.

Which means you can pull off your own free publicity campaign too if you wanted to.

If you follow the steps I’m about to share with you that is.

How Will Getting Free Publicity Help Your SaaS?

When you help a blogger or journalist with their story you stand a good chance of getting a mention in that story. Often they’ll even link to your website in it.

That’s why it’s important!

There’s nothing like free publicity to get your sales jamming.
When you help a blogger or journalist with their story you stand a good chance of getting a mention in that story. Often they’ll even link to your website in it.

The more of those kinds of links to your site you get the better your rankings on Google will get too.

The links you gain become the gifts that keep on giving.

So your business ends up benefiting in three different ways:

1. Direct traffic and a backlink from the article mention.
2. Gain name recognition in your industry.
3. Improved site rankings on Google and the other search engines.

Not bad, eh?

Accomplishing any one of those three objectives and your business will benefit big time.

But what if all three happen at the same time?

Mhmm.

Journalists And Bloggers Are Loyal To Their Sources

Once you help a blogger or journalist you can count on them turning to you for help again.

Sometimes quicker than you think too.

That means more publicity and more backlinks for your SaaS business.  It’s definitely a marketing tactic worth pursuing for that reason alone.

Imagine working with multiple bloggers and journalists in this capacity.

The benefits to your SaaS business would be huge!

Ready to learn how to make all that happen?

Let’s get started!

Step #1: Define Who Your Target Audience Is In The Blogging And Journalism World

First of all, you’re going to have to define who you want to go after as far as your potential media contacts.

You have three main choices:

1. Bloggers
2. Journalists
3. Reporters

Though there are benefits to working with all three I recommend you start with bloggers.

Not just the biggest bloggers in your industry either.

In fact, I suggest you go after those cats later when you have your game down.

Instead start out helping mid to low tier bloggers instead.

They’ll be easier to reach and lot more willing to accept your help. Plus be a heck of a lot more appreciative too.

Step #2: Get Your LinkedIn Profile Ready For Company

Like anywhere on the Web, content is important and will always be the top dog standing in a game of king of the hill.

Your content inspires an impression of how potential media contacts will view your intelligence.

Not only that but they’ll also judge your professionalism and influence by your profile.

In fact, it’s is the first thing they’ll see when landing on your page. It’s all about beating the competition.

Has it ever been about anything else?

Your LinkedIn profile has to be crystal clear about who you are and your value to the blogger or journalist.

In other words, you want to write it in a way that lets them know you’re available as a media contact.

There’s a lot of noise on LinkedIn, and it’s getting louder by the day. If your profile isn’t unique, it will be impossible to rise above the chatter.

Take a look at it, a long honest look, and ask yourself if you would be impressed if you weren’t YOU.

If not, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Media contacts want to impress their readers. If they’re personally not impressed by their first impression of you I doubt very many of them will give you a second chance to win them over.

Step #3: Start Connecting With Those Media Contacts On LinkedIn

To do this right you’ll need to use LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator tool.

1. Log in to Sales Navigator
2. Hover your mouse over the search window and the click “Lead Builder”.
3. Fill out the lead search form according to the target audience you defined in step number one above.
4. Spend as much time as you can afford checking out each of the leads Sales Navigator pulls up. When you find a member that meets your criteria save them as a lead.
5. Send that member a connection request. Be short and to the point. Mention you visited their profile and their blog and then let them know what post of theirs you liked the most. Doing that will earn you a connection more often than not. Do not use the default message LinkedIn provides you. Instead, write a personal note letting them know why you want to connect with them.

Step #4: Send A Message To Your New Media Connection

Once you connect with the media contact, is when the real work begins.

What you want to do is send them a welcome message that:

1. Thank them by name for connecting with you. We all love the sound of our name. So be smart and use it.
2. Mentions that you spent time reading their posts. Let them know which ones. This part is going to take a little while. You can’t just copy and paste messages to your new media contact. They get inundated with requests just like yours every day. So you have to actually do your homework and read their work. Why not leave a comment on some of their posts too to let them know you were there. Just make sure it adds to the discussion not detract from it.
3. Offer help coming up with content ideas for anything related to your expertise. Heck you can even offer to create the content itself if they’d prefer. The key is to offer your help, not ask them for their help. Going this route will differentiate yourself from the sea of requests they receive. Differentiation is always a good thing.
4. Ask for a copy of their blog or media schedule if they have one available. Tell them your reason for wanting to see it is to see if there are any gaps so you might be able to help them fill in it.

In a perfect world, the media contact will jump at your offer and send you their blog or media schedule.

Which is pure gold as far as you’re concerned. At least it will be when you’re done doing your thing with it.

If you know what their needs are, it makes it much easier for you to fulfill those needs.

Fulfilling the needs of the bloggers and journalists should be your number one goal here.  If you do that they’ll give you all the traffic, all the mentions, and all the backlinks you’ll ever need.

Plus it feels good helping others.

Giving to get is the best fertilizer you can ever feed your business. It’s so chocked full of nutrients it’s almost impossible to fail at anything when you use it.

Step #5: Stay In Touch With The Media Contacts You’re Connected With

What I say next may next shock you but I feel I owe it to you to tell you anyway.

Here it is:

Most of the media contacts you connect with and send the welcome message with won’t respond back.

At least in the way you’d like them to.

Some will. Most won’t.

That’s why you need to stay in touch with your contacts. Which means you should be reaching out to them once a month like clockwork.

This will:

1. Keep you in their field of vision.
2. Earn you a chance at helping them with their current project. Who knows the project they’re working on this month may align perfectly with what you have to offer them.
3. Repetition breeds familiarity. Provided of course you’re not making a nuisance of yourself. If you do they’ll just delete your connection to you. So be cool as a cucumber throughout the process. If so you’ll reap dividends for your efforts.

It’s a good idea to stay in touch with the media contacts you’re connected with. Even if they don’t respond back.

Different Ways To Stay In Touch With Your Media Contacts Without Irritating Them

This list is by no means meant to be an exhaustive one. But it’ll get you started down the right path for sure if you use even a couple of them.

• Keep them added as a lead on Sales Navigator. That way you can keep better track of their LinkedIn updates. Which means you can interact with your media contact on them.
• Follow them on Twitter too. Why not. If you do add them to a list that only has your media contacts on it. That way you can track their tweets on TweetDeck much easier.
• Send them a message touching base and asking if they need help on any of their current projects. Tell them no big deal if not. You still enjoy their posts and enjoy being part of their network. Let them know you know how tough it can be coming up with content ideas every month. Remind them you’re available to help them.
• Offer to write a post for them that fits their current blog schedule. Bloggers need content. If you can give them content that they can put on their blog with no strings attached they’ll love you for it.
• Post great content on LinkedIn Pulse post twice a week or more. Every post you write will be on your profile. To do it right the content needs to rock. It’s going to take some effort but it will be worth every second of it that you give. I recommend 1500 – 1750 words per post.  Long form is a much better way to get your points across to your audience.  It is what your media contacts are writing on their own posts and articles.  Long form articles are easier to rank on LinkedIn search.  Why is that important? It allows bloggers not in your network to find your posts (and you!) on LinkedIn Search. So it’s important to use long form. Make sure you stay true to your niche on the posts too.
• Record a weekly podcast and post it on LinkedIn Pulse. Something that summarizes your LinkedIn Pulse posts that week will work best. Podcasts are just a great way to get you to set you up as a credible resource for your industry.
• Record a video and embed it on its own LinkedIn Pulse post. Videos work even better than podcasts do. If you’re great at putting videos together, rock em out. Like the podcasts they should summarize your latest LinkedIn Pulse posts.

Doing little things like that will definitely increase your credibility with your media contacts.

In Summary

The key to succeeding at anything is sticking at it until you don’t stink at it anymore.

So cut yourself some slack at first.

Just stay with it.

Mankind took a long time to get to the moon and walk on it. But walk on it, we did.

Building a successful publicity campaign is much simpler, though.

Just keep in mind if you choose to accept this mission to build free publicity for your SaaS business…

…you are now all about helping your media contacts and their readers.

Otherwise not a darn bit of anything I just shared with you is going to help you generate anything but ill will towards your business.

Or apathy at best.

Until next post my friends.