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Re:Ask HN: How to get major bloggers write about my bootstra... by paraschopra on Sunday May 16, 2010 @03:39AM (#1351617)
Thanks. Yes, I do have a question. I think I have no clue what a "story" email looks like. Well, I thought the one I wrote was a story but you tell it looks like "news" :)

Do you have any examples or references of "story" that I can learn from?

PS: Yes, I know about exclusives. Therefore, I didn't do a mass-mail. I mailed one, waited, mailed another, waited. But still no reply.

Re:Ask HN: How to get major bloggers write about my bootstra... by auston on Sunday May 16, 2010 @05:23AM (#1351748)
I believe what he means is make tailor your "story" to their style.

Maybe by changing your subject line to fit their typical "story" type. Like using LifeHacker as an example: "How my software improves conversions by 35% - overnight." - just something a tad bit sensational.

Also, you might want to consider doing "favors" for the bloggers, like giving them a free account & personal assistance in setting up some a/b tests for things like their events or contests, etc.

Also, you can try to reach them more personally (but they usually don't like that) - if you have a particular persons email, give that a try or twitter if they're following you, dm them or even a call, if you have skype credit. I believe Jason Kincaid from techcrunch is jkincaid here on HN, that's a starting point.

Lastly, you might want to approach blogs with smaller audiences, that are targeted, like smashingmagazine.com or appvita.com - something that 90% tech people read.

Good luck, I hope this was helpful.

Re:Ask HN: How to get major bloggers write about my bootstra... by JarekS2 on Sunday May 16, 2010 @01:40PM (#1352390)
One thing I remembered from the Mint.com case - they were selling to the news not themselves directly but their by-product. What do I mean by that? In your case you can analyse your customer cases and find some interesting common patterns like "using word Love in the tag line usually gives 50% better results etc etc". Or "compelling tag line can not exceed 5 words - our research proved etc etc"

You have plenty of data to play with and I'm sure there are extremely interesting points you can make.

Re:Ask HN: How to get major bloggers write about my bootstra... by percept on Sunday May 16, 2010 @08:42AM (#1351927)
You might try approaching this from the other side--what kind of stories do you like to read? Do they entertain, enlighten, instruct, etc.?