Is HARO worth a subscription?
To help you determine whether or not HARO is worth a subscription, we asked CEOs and marketing experts this question for their best insights. From being ready to fight the competition to building connections, there are several viewpoints that may help you determine whether or not to subscribe to HARO.
Here are nine insights into the benefits and drawbacks of subscribing to HARO:
- Be Ready to Fight the Competition
- Accept Daily Opportunities to Send Content
- Find Queries From Every Industry
- Be Prepared for An Email Avalanche
- Set Aside Time to Learn How to Use it
- Use it as a Research Lab
- Be Recognized as an Expert
- Turn Around Pitches Fast
- Build Connections
Be Ready to Fight the Competition
We have used HARO for years. However, something we’re discovering is that more and more people are submitting replies to their queries. Our success rate has drastically decreased with getting quoted, and we have to be way more aggressive with our submission rate. We still use HARO, but have been looking for alternative link building strategies for our marketing.
Jeff Neal, The Critter Depot
Accept Daily Opportunities To Send Content
I have used HARO happily for years. HARO gives you three daily opportunities to send a piece of content to an industry powerhouse. When that journalist uses your content, you get a link from an authority website. That link tells Google you are an industry powerhouse yourself and you get a boost in the Search Engine Results Pages. The best part: HARO is free. For those of you operating on a tight budget, take advantage of these daily opportunities to build more links to your website for free. Look for the email alerts HARO sends you three times a day.
Janice Wald, Mostly Blogging
Find Queries From Every Industry
Given that a rich and diverse panel of reporters from various industries use HARO, you’ll never really run out of relevant queries, no matter your area of expertise. From healthcare to entrepreneurship, lifestyle to education, and even lesser spoken about niches like gaming and travel — HARO offers something for experts from every background which is a great opportunity to land reputed backlinks from relevant websites, further improving your link building strategy in the long run.
Riley Beam, Douglas R. Beam, P.A.
Be Prepared for An Email Avalanche
HARO is a service that is fairly niche but can certainly be worth the subscription if one is prudent and passionate about offering their perspective. HARO’s weakness is that it sends avalanches of emails that quickly stack up in an inbox, and depending on your time zone, may include expired requests before one even gets a chance to open them. But therein lies HARO’s strength: the sheer number of journalist queries they’re capable of sending everyday, ensures that at least a small handful will be applicable and available every week. If one is dedicated to picking through the questions, it’s easy to discover new opportunities to share knowledge and build brand awareness that couldn’t be done through any other medium.
Jaymee Messler, The Gaming Society
Set Aside Time to Learn How to Use it
I signed up for a HARO subscription rather blindly, not really knowing what to expect, thus causing initial difficulties that were eventually resolved through experience and time. Unfortunately, HARO does not offer any tutorial on its use, leaving a new user to navigate the site on their own, yet eventually, it proved beneficial. Learning how to answer the questions, understanding what the journalist is asking for, and recognizing the proper outlets to respond to, were solved through trial and error. Yet, it is important to understand that using HARO is an acquired skill, and though it can be valuable in gaining authoritative backlinks, is something that requires time and effort to become so.
Cody Candee, Bounce
Use it as a Research Lab
It is easy to get trapped in our own bubble of thought, not seeing beyond our own market space, and this can happen with media as well, and a HARO subscription, from that standpoint, is worth it. Part of knowing what interests people, either in finance, health or a plethora of other topics, is what people are writing about. Seeing the queries that are put forth on HARO, is like a temperature gauge of trending subjects, that can impact your business, either directly or indirectly. By looking at HARO not simply as a platform for answering questions or a link building activity, but as a research lab to understand new business ideas and other trends, then it is worth it for that reason.
Adelle Archer, Eterneva
Be Recognized as an Expert
HARO can get you free PR with the big fish in the market who might have not responded to your cold outreach campaigns. This service can prove to be the quickest way to brand yourself as an expert and get visibility in front of a new readership and audience. Additionally, the backlinks from high authority websites are an added bonus. From experience, getting recognized as an expert can be a huge boost to your content marketing efforts. However, it’s not easy to get selected out of a sea of responses, each better than the other. Hence, you’ve got to be crafty in your pitch, answer the query directly, satisfy the journalists requirements, win their trust and stay true to your brand in signing up for a HARO basic plan.
Ryan Yount, Luckluckgo
Turn Around Pitches Fast
HARO is great if you can reply to journalist queries very quickly. As soon as you receive notifications, you should be crafting and submitting your responses for the best chance at success. If you wait too long, everyone else on the platform will get their responses in before you do. Consequently, you’ll be buried and less likely to get published.
Dennis Consorte, Snackable Solutions
Build Connections
HARO shouldn’t be the only tool in your PR arsenal, but it’s one of the best. You really are helping reporters out, and you can build strong relationships with those who use your quotes. Be willing to share your expert insights and you’ll be the one they come to for certain stories in the future. It’s a great place to contribute and build connections.
Jeffrey Gabriel, Saw.com
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