CandyBar Guestpost Guidelines

Hello! So you want to pitch a guestpost for the Candybar Blog. 

We’re flattered – but first, a few guidelines. These aren’t rules, but an explanation of what we expect to see from guestpost contributors, what content we’re proud to put on our blog, and also what you can expect from us.

GUIDELINES FOR GUEST CONTRIBUTORS

• PROFESSIONAL: Content should be informative, useful, not salesy. Your content is nicely subheadered and skimmable and broken up with key images, so I know you know how to do your job. See how we added a Table of Contents, use a combination of H2 and bullet points and bold for easy skimming? Yeah, use that too.Try to use Grammarly. Is ‘subheadered’ a word? No, but you get my meaning.In terms of tone, don’t worry about humour or informality – we have a page of Gordon Ramsay quotes & memes, and another on types of candy bars and trivia.
• POLITE: Links should go everywhere, and not exclusively to [your company] blog. Please credit images. Try not to link to our direct competitors.Disagreement is great, criticism is okay, bashing is not. As an example, we can discuss how some loyalty programs fail or highlight issues with Chipotle’s failed loyalty program. We talk about marketing and thinking; we don’t tear down persons or issues.
• PROUD: Make this something you’d be proud of to share on your own page and social media. Show us you have skin in the game (and aren’t just milking a backlink) by posting it on your socials.

GUIDELINES FOR YOUR EDITOR 

• First, I abide by Polite/Professional/Proud.
• We won’t reply to every pitch, only successful ones.
• We reserve the right to reject the piece or make edits, if any part is in violation of the above. 
• I may add an inline internal link to another CandyBar article. Only if it’s useful.
• Finally, we’d love it if you could share the post when it’s published on your social channels and even better if on your blog.

WHAT WE WANT IN YOUR PITCH

• CONSIDER OUR AUDIENCE: Candybar is targeted at brick-and-mortar shopowners and small business owners. Write something useful. Draw a clear link between our audience and your brand (and what you’re writing about). Don’t pitch your brand/product, unless you can do it like Ahrefs – provide useful info 
• CONSIDER YOUR EDITOR: Don’t just send me headlines. Send me [a headline with 3 bullet points] or [a headline with a one-sentence explainer] to explain the rough shape and direction of your post. Show me you’ve put some effort in, and you haven’t just enrolled me into a mail sequence. Give me a reason to reply to you. For example:
  
  
  Sample Pitch 1

  Headline: “How Chick-fil-A licks other fast food brands with its loyalty program”
  Liner: What sets Chick-fil-A One’s program apart is convenience, special offers and using data to improve its app
  Sample Pitch 2

  Headline: “Why do nail salons need social media? For customer loyalty”

  • Point 1: There are lots of nail salons and it’s easy for consumers to go to another one
  • Point 2: Social media is a great channel to interact with current customers and draw in future ones (if they look at it)
  • Point 3: WAH Nails is fully booked because of their excellent instagram account featuring happy customers

• Administrative Details
  • Please share with us roughly how long you think the article will take you to write; we’re generally flexible but we want to know when to expect it.
  • Please put the article in an accessible Google Docs article.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can email us directly at darrenf+guest[at]candybar[dot]co or raulg[at]candybar[dot]co