Cyclical Marketing for blog growth.

*This is going to sound quite boring and dry, so please bear with me if you do bother to read.

Have you ever read a digital press release in which the company (Company A) distributing the release will link several different companies or organizations within the release?

Have you ever seen those links, taken the step to go to the linked company pages (Company B) and see what releases that company has put out? That company will have their own release on the same subject and at the bottom of their release, a link that takes you back to the initial company’s (Company A) website.

This is cyclical marketing. For every company you promote, you’re gaining more promotion in return.

In marketing, it’s one of the easiest, and smartest, things you can do to gain promotion and grow your audience. It’s a tactic that companies use all the time – whether money exchanges hands or not. It’s a tactic that I used ALL THE TIME at my previous job, in press releases, on social media and on our website. From something as simple as a tweet that says “Check out or Friends” to something as fancy as a “Here’s our 100 page Media Kit printed by Company L”.

It seems straightforward and simple… because it is.

It works for companies and can also work for bloggers. If you’re looking to grow your audience and don’t necessarily know how to go about it, I strongly recommend considering this as an option to try and increase your reach.

Here’s how I’d explain it:

First, you find your tribe. It’s cheesy, I know. Find your people (generally between 2-5 people is the optimal inclusion rate. When you go above five you run the risk of losing attention). These are people who’s beliefs may or may not align with yours, but they’re people who can put their own twist on a topic. Once you’ve found them, start a conversation about something that interests all of you. It could be a product review, it could be an outlook on mental health, it could be an opinion about pop culture, politics or religion… whatever it is, find one subject that all of you can write about. Make sure that it’s a popular subject. Don’t pick something obscure that people won’t want to read. The goal here is to pick a subject that’ll appeal to your audience, and to the audience you’ve not yet met.

Each of you writes a post. Each of you edits the posts. At the bottom of your posts include a note that reads ‘This post is done in paternership with Blogger X, Blogger Y and Blogger Z. To see their perspectives on these subject please click on the following links.”

Schedule your posts for the exact same moment. If you’re in different time zones, make sure that you’re aware of the difference so that you can pick an optimal time for everyone.

Your readers will read your post, and, if you’ve done your job well enough, have interest in checking out the opinions of those you partnered with to make the post. And each of their posts will direct their readers to you.

The Math:

Let’s say that you, Blogger A, have 100 followers. You’re struggling to reach a new audience and you’re looking for a means to grow your blog. You take on this opportunity. and find three friends to do it with.

Let’s say that Blogger X, Blogger Y and Blogger Z also all have 100 followers each. Whilst it’s estimated that roughly 10 percent of that audience could overlap, that sill leaves 90% of the audience who has not yet heard of you.

Blogger A (you), in one post, promotes Bloggers X, Y and Z to your audience of 100 people. In return, Bloggers X, Y and Z are promoting Blogger A(you) in each of their posts, which is 270 brand new readers being reached (300 people – 10% or, 30 people).

270 new people that are being reached without spamming, without purchasing followers, without being sneaky or underhanded. It’s just honest, open promotion. If you do it right, it works.

Key Points:

  1. You need to write about something that will garner attention, something popular, something that people will care to read your perspective of, and the perspective of others. So don’t write about how cheerios are gross. Pick a topic that matters. If you don’t, no one’s going to care.
  2. You have to post at the same time. If people click on the link to go to someone’s blog and their post hasn’t been made yet, the cyclical promotion will stop dead right there. So, if you’re in different time zones – say one of you lives in Florida and one of you lives in California, you need to schedule to ensure the Floridian posts at noon and the Californian posts at 9 am.

Cyclical marketing helped me, in my last office, grow the twitter profile from having 200,000 followers to 600,000 followers in just 12 months. Granted it was an established company so the brand name played a help in that growth, I did posts of this nature several times a week. Posts we paid for, posts people paid us for, posts no one paid for we just did as a means to reach new people and showcase our brand… whenever I saw a partnership that posed an opportunity for growth, it became a part of my Twitter calendar.

I have experience first hand just how much value these Cyclical marketing initiatives can benefit a company. Celebrities do this too! All the time! Now that you’ve read this post, you’ll realize it when you see it happening more often.

It’s simple. It’s smart. It works.

Yeah, yeah, yeah – for a subject that’s sole purpose is to make things sound better, cooler or more appealing, explaining the structure behind marketing is boring.

39 thoughts on “Cyclical Marketing for blog growth.”

    1. Well thank you! I hope that you’re able to give it a try and test it for yourself. You never know the possibilities that you can reach if you have access to all of these marketing hacks that companies use!

      Liked by 1 person

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  6. This was awesome. I am about to embark on a new project and want to raise awareness of others doing similar things so it can be a success. I’m out of the twitter game and need to get back on there and finding like minded people. Thanks for sharing 🧡

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  10. Pingback: Cyclical Marketing for blog growth. — #MILLENNIALLIFECRISIS | Ups and Downs of Family History V2.0

  14. Great examples to explain this marketing strategy! I also really like that you’ve adapted this directly to the blogging world. I’m gonna share this with my friends in our group chat, maybe we can figure this out. Cheers!

    Liked by 1 person

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      1. Definitely will do! And I hope this can become a bi-weekly / monthly routine to continue growth. As you’ve said in your article, you would do this every week for your company!

        Like

    1. Examples:

      Watch celebrities link to a company or product ‘just casually’ (under contract) and then that company/product link right back to the celebrity at the same moment in time.

      Or watch… ‘Influencers’, if you follow any, just so happen to be talking about a product or company at the same point in time that a company/product page just so happens to be talking about ‘what a sweet and genuine gal’ that influencer is…

      Another one I’ve noticed getting big lately is “Loop Giveaways” which is a form of cyclical marketing – where they’ll say “Follow all of these accounts for a chance to win this one prize” – usually including the company and some celebrities or influencers and then those celebrities and influencers post the exact same thing to their pages.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  17. Hey sorry to comment again on here — did you get an email about doing a collaborative post? I used your contact page and thought I saw a “preview” notification pop up on my phone that you responded but there’s no email in my inbox or on my blog page. I’ve never contacted anybody directly through WordPress and vice versa so forgive me for being duh.
    No rush if you haven’t gotten to it yet, I just wanted to see if it even went through. Thanks!

    Like

    Reply

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