50-ways-to-make-your-first-sale

Chapter 14
Get Product Reviews
Start by Creating a List
You’re going to want to spend a lot of time on Google searching for all the
sites that would be a good fit for reviewing your product. Chances are your
initial searches will lead you into more searches, so prepare to devote a good
chunk of your day to this.
Perform Google searches like (but, replace “widget” with your product):
• widget blog
• widget reviews
• submit my product for review
• widget intitle: “product review”
replace the word “widget” with a word that describes your product
As you are performing these searches, list the URLs of all the websites you
come across that might give you a review. Depending on how you like to
work, you may want to contact them as you come across them, or simply
list all the ones you can find first. We think it’s a good habit to go ahead and
contact them as soon as possible so you can quickly gauge a return on your
efforts.
One important thing that can happen as a result of doing this work is
that you will make relationships with bloggers in your industry. These
relationships can be very important and beneficial for years to come. When
you approach a blogger be sure to be very genuine and treat the conversation
as you would a real-life business or networking relationship.
For starters, don’t send out long canned emails. Start your first email out
short and conversational. For example:
Hi I’m Sean Work and I invented an espresso machine that can grind and
brews fresh espresso drinks in your car so you can have uber-fresh lattes on the
way to work. I would like to send you my mini machine so you can try it out.
Sometimes we even like to take an even simpler approach. We just start with
a very simple subject line in our email message:
RE: Question
And then we go on to write a very simple email:
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