What Is HARO?

I first heard about HARO (Help a Reporter) when I was taking a course called Instant Authority Program – about putting a book on Amazon for print on demand. It’s a really neat concept – and it’s free.

You can use the site if you NEED a professional resource. Let’s say you’re writing an article or book and you want a professional to give their insight. It doesn’t cost you anything, but you get to tap their mind in exchange for quoting them, maybe linking back to them – that’s between you two.

You can also be the trusted resource that others come to when they need an expert in something. This benefits you because you get increased branding of your name when you’re quoted in a product or article.

And there are some BIG names using this site, so it could lead you to many opportunities as a marketer. Here are a few companies using HARO:

• Conde Nast
• BusinessWeek
• KnightRidder
• ABC
• CBS
• CNN
• Fox
• Reuters
• Dow Jones

It’s not just small time marketers looking to use you because they have no budget.

I’m going to show you how to use the site from both aspects – because it can come in handy for marketers both ways.

In order to sign up on Haro, you’re going to click the Submit a Query button.

Then it has you go to another screen where it tells you in simple terms how it works. You sign up, submit a query, and they blast their list of resources so that people can contact you if they have the necessary insight you need.

So you have to click a second Submit Query button to get signed up:

Know the Rules

Now there are some rules you need to know beforehand. In order to ask for a query to be sent out, you must meet these criteria:

1. Your site must have an Alexa ranking criteria under 2 million.
2. If you’re asking for product samples via the Giftbag List, your site must have an Alexa ranking under 500,000. All samples must be returned to the sender at the cost of the reporter.
3. No reporter may ask for content unless it is 300 words or less.
4. No student journalists.
5. No reporter may ask respondents to submit information via a link, nor may they ask respondents to take a survey.
6. All information must be received via the submission process at http://www.helpareporter.com/.
7. Reporters may not ask respondents for video.

Submit Your Query Details

After filling in the basic name, password and email information, you’re going to begin the query submission process. It asks you for query details like this:

The Media Outlet would be your company or site name. You have the option of leaving this blank but they say it makes people less likely to submit a response.

The summary just sums up in one sentence what your query is about, so I said:

Meeting Nutritional Needs With Vegetarianism

Then you write a longer query, to which I said:

I’m an Internet Marketing expert going into the vegetarian niche (I have been one for about 4 months now). I am writing an eBook and hopefully POD Amazon book about the struggles we face as meat eaters turned vegetarians.

Aside from diversity of meals as we get used to finding foods, I’d like someone who can offer insight into how new vegetarians can ensure they’re meeting their nutritional needs short of having frequent blood tests run. Is a daily vitamin enough? Are there minimums we should be consuming of certain types of foods?

I would keep this fairly short.

Next you enter the deadline for the project. You can also check if it’s urgent, like this:

And now you’ll need to fill out the Targeting information so that they know who to send your query to. These are optional and should be used ONLY if you want to narrow down your mailing.

The first category lists the following options:

• Business and Finance
• High Tech
• Biotech and Healthcare
• Energy and Green Tech
• Lifestyle and Fitness
• Sports
• Entertainment and Media
• Public Policy and Government
• Education
• General
• Giftbag
• Travel

For my example, I’ll choose Lifestyle and Fitness. Then you choose the second tier category. It’s the exact same list. So if I wanted to get samples of vegetarian foods to review, I might choose Giftbag.

For my example, I’ll leave it blank. Here’s the entire Targeting section. I’ll be leaving the state blank because I live in Texas and I’m assuming there might be more vegetarians in California than here in Texas.

After clicking the Submit Query button, you’ll be taken to a Thank You page that tells you your query will go out in the next hour or two on weekdays and you should start seeing replies.

Now it took me about a week to start seeing replies. I submitted on a Friday so I figured maybe it was the weekend delay, but then on Monday it was still pending. So give it about a week before you panic that it didn’t work.

So far I’ve gotten 13 AMAZING responses – including one extremely famous author of a health book! I don’t think we can reveal all the details but I was kinda shocked that his name was on here – and it was his assistant inquiring for him. Cool!

Anyway, next time I’ll show you my results from the other side of the coin – being a resource, not looking for one.

Tiff

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