Thanks to Maker’s Mark for providing wonderful bourbon for our blogger meetup in San Francisco.
Todd, Bill, and the Maker’s Mark crew know that I love to talk about the Maker’s Mark Ambassador program. It’s one of the best word of mouth marketing programs ever done. Deeply authentic – sign up and try it.
Blogger relations isn’t hard. You don’t need a fancy blogger outreach strategy, and you definitely don’t want to email them cheesy PR pitches.
Bloggers are regular people. If you want them to write about you, they have to get to know you.
Just be friendly, introduce yourself, have a party, and start a conversation (and a little whisky always makes a better conversation).
Thanks also to Chris Heuer and Kristy Wells for organizing the meetup, and the San Francisco AMA for underwriting the drinks.
Watch the fantastic prize award ceremony:
And don’t forget the PINS! Andy also came armed with ‘I love my Job’ and smiley face pins. I ended up giving my ‘I love my Job’ pin to my wife who works at an experiential/event marketing agency. She’s currently in crunch time for a 10,000 person event coming up, and as these things go all staff are stressed out. She sits down in a meeting with the client wearing the pin and everyone in the room busts up laughing. Ah, perspective, we’re all on the same team and we’re just putting on a big event, the button was effectively a reset button on stress levels. Kudos Andy!