How to properly contact a VR blogger or influencer

You know, I’m a VR blogger (or at least I do my best to seem it), a VR consultant (don’t forget to contact me if you may need an XR consultancy!) and it seems that I’m also a VR influencer. Every day, I get contacted by various people that try to obtain something from me: visibility, advice, projects, money, guest posts, advertisement, etc… That’s perfectly fine and I love getting in touch with other people in my industry and I especially love being helpful to other VR companies and enthusiasts.

But among all these people, there are some that contact me in the right way, others that contact me in the wrong way and others in the WTF way. Today I want to write you some pieces of advice to avoid you being on the “wrong” or “WTF” side so that you can contact whatever XR journalist, influencer or entrepreneur in a better way. I think that this may help all of you working in the marketing sector of an AR/VR company.

So, let’s see some of the different approaches that I’ve seen in the last months… and let me use also use a bit of sarcasm…

The creepy greeting

I always get contacted by random men, especially on Linkedin, with messages like

Hey, how are you?

Or simply

Hey

The effect that these messages have on me is the same that I have when a random man winks at me on the street: “What the hell? Why is he doing this? Who is he?”, followed by me running away.

Let me be honest: it is creepy as fuck. Unless you’re Scarlett Johansson, I’m not interested in answering the creepy wink of a random stranger. (If you are Scarlett Johansson, you can contact me however you want, don’t worry)

The “collaboration guy”

Some people love contacting me asking for a collaboration.

I saw that you work in VR, so I would like to set up a call to talk about a possible collaboration

I want to set up a collaboration with the Ghost Howls and my company

Well, this approach is like a random man winking at me on the street and then also sending me some kisses.

The problems with this approach are two:

1. You don’t tell me who you are and what you do;
2. You don’t define what kind of collaboration you’re looking for.

The word “collaboration” doesn’t mean anything: it could be writing a guest post for me, selling me a product, having sex with me or whatever. So basically you’re not telling me what you want and this makes me think that you’re hiding something. In fact, 99% of the time, the actual meaning of “collaboration” is something like “selling you my low-quality products/services”… that is not a collaboration, it is something that is worth only on the proposer’s side.

Of course, I have no time to waste to make a phone call about such stuff… considering that there is also the risk that the “collaboration” regards having sex with me and all the people asking for “a collaboration” are ugly guys.

The bulk e-mail

When companies want to have coverage, they, of course, contact a lot of bloggers/journalists/whatever. I did it myself at Immotionar when I contacted all the gaming and VR magazines to try having an article about our product ImmotionRoom and our game Hit Motion.

The problem is that some of them have very lazy PR people, that write bulk e-mails to all this kind of contacts. There are various type of bulk e-mails and various associated errors:

• Some people just write an e-mail and send it to all the addresses in CCN. It sounds like “I had only 15 minutes for this task because I spent all my working time playing with Farmville, so I just added everyone as e-mail recipients and hit the Send button”. Well, if you don’t have time to write directly to me, I don’t have time to read your e-mail;
• Some begins with a completely anonymous “Dear Editor” or “To whom it may concern”, that I read like “I don’t know who the hell are you, but be sure to write about my product”. It sounds very convincing;
• Other ones have no header or presentation… they just send me the press release. It is like a random stranger in the street starting talking me about his job. I don’t give a heck, actually. Maybe I preferred the wink, it was less annoying;
• Someone tries to customize the name of the recipient in the mail header, but the name of my magazine is written in another font, so that it is absolutely clear that it is just a template e-mail with just a name changed by some automatic system. Very sexy;
• Some geniuses directly adds me to their newsletter on MailChimp and send random updates about their product, which to me is interesting like watching a documentary about the mating process of warthogs. “Oh, there’s that cute Unsubscribe button, I guess that I will press it just for fun…”

The problem with this approach is that it is completely anonymous: you want to get some coverage, but you don’t want to work hard for it and so you just go for the easiest approach and spam everyone. But why should I care about an e-mail that you sent to other 1000 magazines? Why should I care about you if you didn’t even care to write a letter directly to me? Do you know who I am and what my blog is about? Why did you choose to write to me? My suspect is that you just googled some keywords, got random e-mail addresses and spammed everyone, hoping that someone would just answer.

To show you why it is wrong, it is like if you were a girl and you got contacted by a guy asking you out. But you know that the guy knows nothing about you and that he has written to at least other 100 women in the same way. Would you accept? I don’t think so…

The fake friendly message

This is one that I personally hate. It is always a message of this kind

Hey Tony,
I love reading The Ghost Howls and I especially loved your article about the streaming of the Vive Focus, it is overly useful for people doing demos!
We are Brazzers Studio and we made a game where people wink to other people on the street. Do you want to write a post about it? We can send you a key!
Regards,
Jessica

It seems a fantastic letter, isn’t it? It is dedicated to me, to my blog… she even knows some of the articles that I’ve written! She is fantastic and friendly, I should definitely reply to her! Or maybe not…

The problem here is that this is a famous marketing template. When I went to the EIA accelerator, they taught me to write exactly this template when contacting journalists, so that it seems that you care about them and their magazines and you’re able to establish a more personal contact so that you convert more. You just have to send a bulk e-mail customizing the name of the journalist, the name of the magazine and show appreciation for one or two articles so to win the heart of the journalist.

Basically, everytime that I read mails crafted this way, I know that all your love toward my blog is just a lie. You took a random post, read it fast and pretended to be a reader. But I never saw you commenting my blog or putting a like to my social media posts, so I smell BS.

The funny part is that I guess that almost everyone knows this template, so basically there are just random people sending random fake love messages to other people that know that all of this is fake. It has no sense to me.

In this case, I appreciate the effort for spending the time in customizing the letter, but I really dislike the hypocrisy. Yes, this kind of e-mail is better than all the previous ones, so I usually read the message… but I disapprove it.

The right way for a one-shot “collaboration”

The right way to contact a journalist to just have coverage for your VR product or to propose whatever collaboration is:

• Send the e-mail directly to his/her account and only his account. Basically this means a cut and paste for every person you want to send the e-mail to;
• Put his/her name in the header;
• If you’re actually a fan, add some compliments. If you’re not, skip this part. For instance, I read Road To VR various times a week and I also comment their articles, so it is ok for me to write some compliments to them;
• Tell what you want: talk about you and your product in an honest and passionate way and then tell his/her what you want he/she to do;
• Attach useful materials (press-kit, press-release, Steam Key, etc..) to make his/her job easier.

So, write something like this:

Hello Tony,
we are Fantabuluous VR studios: three girls passionate about VR since the DK2 times. We just released our first game called “Laser robocats VR”, where you can be a gigantic robotic cat with laser rays coming out from its eyes. We have tested it in various exhibitions and everyone loved it. You can find it on Steam and it is compatible with all the major VR headsets.
We’d really love you to review this game on The Ghost Howls, or at least spread some love about the game on your social media channels: that’s why we’re attaching to this e-mail the press-kit with all the materials that you need to write a post. And if you want a Steam Key, just tell us.
Regards

As you can see, it is a bit personal, it is direct and clear. I know that this e-mail has been sent to other 1000 people, but I also know that the writer has taken the care to find my name and the name of my blog, so it is ok. Then the mail talks about a great VR game (robots+cats+lasers = awesomeness) and also show some passion about VR and some interest in what I can do to help them.

Usually, in this case, I read the message and at least help with sharing a tweet about the product. 90% of the time, after having written the review, there are no more collaborations with that studio in the short term, and that is part of the game.

The right way for long-term collaborations

If you’re seeking a long-term collaboration, so not only a one-shot review, there’s only one thing to do: establish a personal connection. Here there are no rules or templates to follow, you just have to:

• Be personal;
• Be friendly;
• Show interest;
• Provide value;
• Keep frequent contacts;

with the person of your interest. This means commenting on the posts of the influencer, sharing them, provide original feedback, show a real interest in what he does, try to be helpful in improving what he/she does. Again, you have to create a personal connection, it is like you have to become his/her friend.

Usually, you just start by answering to some of the people you want to be in touch with on Twitter, Linkedin, e-mail or their magazines and then see with which ones of them a more personal connection rises naturally. Then you keep the contacts with them, continuing commenting, making compliments, making twitter #FF and so on. Of course, the relationship should be on both sides: if you just comment and get no answer, it is not a connection… it is just you trying to connect.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying: you don’t have to be fake. As I stated above, we all hate fake friends and we can spot a fake friend that just want to ask for favors from a mile. You must have the sincere desire to have a friendly relationship with other interesting people in your industry… and then if one day you want to ask for a favor, things will come out naturally. Of course, it is a time-consuming process, like all human relationships, so if you have no interest in this networking and you just want a one-shot collaboration for when your game will come out, just go on for the above approach.

I love networking with other people in my industry… and honestly, I don’t even consider it marketing anymore: I just connect with other interesting people and then we help each other when needed. This is really fantastic. I’ve learned a lot from all the people I’m in touch with.

Ok, now you should have a better insight on how to connect with other interesting people in your industry to have coverage for your product, to propose yourself as a supplier, to ask for help or whatever else. As you can see, honesty is the #1 characteristic that you need, as in all human relationships. I hope to have been helpful to you and I wish you a wonderful day!