I’ve heard the saying that “it never hurts to ask” and I agree with that but when the answer is “no thanks” I think it’s doing a huge disservice to bloggers if you respond back to marketing directors, chastising them for their decisions.
I think its better to just present them with facts to back up your pitch. Obviously some of these companies haven’t figured out yet that they could benefit from working with bloggers, but we have to be careful about not alienating them even further and making them even more hesitant to do so.
They’ll come around, just like Target did, so if you leave a good impression you’ve got a better chance of being the person they come to when they do decide to embrace new media.

I think it is okay to respond back becasue maybe they are unaware of the benefits of blogging. As long as you are respectful it shoudln’t hurt bloggers at all.

I’m surprised that Whirlpool has not updated their advertising/ marketing plans. Hopefully, they will do so soon. They really are a great company and support moms in other ways (i.e. their annual Whirlpool Brand Mother of Invention Grant).

I would bet that this woman would have sent me a denial and forgot I existed, she never would have contacted me again. But with our exchange, im probably not going to be forgotten. While she may still never contact me, atleast she knows I was educated well before they were and can respect as a business woman to know when someone is helping out.

Yes, disney gives cruises, but no, they are hard on anything else. If it helps, we were looking for some info on something and emailed them and was put off by their response. It was vacation related, they are just short in general.

There are reps that rep disney PRODUCTS, you are best to find them for real results.

trisha

So do you mind if I include a link to this article in some of my intros? Also, if a company doesn’t respond to a review request, is it my responsibility to inform them of what they are missing out on?

You, or each of us should have a template letter, that says basically what you just said, that can be used to inform.

I’m not being argumentative, however, KitchenAid for example may be above the blog. They are already a brand we all want and know and trust. Unless they had some new innovation that they wanted to introduce to people, I can see why they would not be marketing via the blog.

Dysons product is almost double a kitchenaid mixer in cost and they work with blogs every day. They are also well trusted and even sought after.

Leap Frog…another big brand online. Thomas the Train, Harry Potter, Hoover, Dirt Devil, Bissel, Pepsi, even Disney courts bloggers…. I could go on and on, but we have worked, and so have other blogs, with hundreds of well known businesses and products. That is exactly what branding is about. It wouldn’t be a name we DO know and trust if it wasn’t talked about.

New consumers are born and die daily. How will new generations know of products? If companies don’t move to more modern advertising techniques, they wont gain a competitive edge.

KitchenAid is such an expensive product that unless people ARE talking about it, they are worthless. This goes for ALL products in todays age and its going to get even stronger where people rely solely on opinions and online advertising to make household choices.

Trisha

They get bombarded by all sorts of requests and, right or wrong, it’s the way they operate in order to address all of them.

Hopefully companies will take notice before commercials die out as well.

(btw, for the record, these are only specific points in the email, original pitch contained more info on behalf of MomDot regarding giveaway inquiry. )

Trisha