Take it from Shel Holtz, who writes the popular A Shel of Myself blog. Holtz, who spoke at Ragan's Corporate Communications in a Web 2.0 World, said he gets about 20 story pitches per day, many unrelated to his coverage area.

For “A-List” bloggers, those who write and manage the most read blogs on the Web, the problem of unsolicited and irrelevant pitches is even worse. Many are turning the tables on their tormentors, using Wikis and blog posts to castigate the offenders.

A survey by the Council of PR Firms found that 42 percent of bloggers get at least one pitch per day from a PR professional, and 57 percent of those surveyed said they “rarely" or “never” write based on pitches.

So does that mean that you shouldn’t pitch? Not at all. But it requires precision. If you think of a pitch in a baseball game, the same principle applies: A wild pitch hurts you and your team, so you have to hit the strike zone.

Holtz recommends targeting your information to the bloggers who are most likely to use it.

“The simple fact is that effective blogger outreach requires time and effort. It’s not for lazy people. And I am just utterly convinced that it’s the bottom-feeders and the lazy people who are out there really just making life miserable for the rest of us,” Holtz observed. “It takes hours and hours and hours to sift through these and find people you think are good targets for outreach.”

To find bloggers, use a blog-specific search engines, such as Technocrati or Google Blog Search, to look for posts with specific tags or keywords, Holtz advised. And don’t discount mid-level blogs. Although a B-tier or C-tier blog has less readership than its A-tier counterpart, those smaller entities would probably be more willing to work with you, and a strategy that produces coverage in a number of them could deliver the reach you seek.

“As opposed to getting a list, you want to find out who is already reaching an audience of people who would be interested in what it is that you are trying to communicate. Find at least the top 10 blogs that are writing about your issues and start reading those blogs,” Holtz recommended.

Holtz cited his work for Encyclopedia Britannica, which sought to publicize its free online accounts for bloggers and journalists that could be used to link Britannica articles to blog posts. Holtz homed in on specific professionals—journalists, librarians and college professors—who shy away from Wikipedia because of accuracy concerns.

Holtz offers these guidelines:

Keep it personal—Many bloggers are not journalists and don’t respond to press releases.

“Every message that you send should be personalized to the person you are sending it to and make it very clear that you know who they are. This is not a mass e-mail that we have sent out. This is personalized to you and why we think your blog or your podcast is appropriate,” Holtz advised.

Yet, a little distance is important, too. Most bloggers prefer e-mail; very few favor phone calls. Generally, he said, don't telephone unless you have established a personal relationship and you know calls are acceptable.

Contribute—Bloggers want to know that the people who are contacting them have read their posts or listened to their podcasts. Holtz suggested becoming a blog member, reading and commenting on a regular basis.

“Don’t just go out to anybody where you haven’t paid attention to what they are saying,” he said. Keeping tabs on a multitude of blogs may seem daunting, but tools such as RSS feeds, which push new content directly to an online reader, can streamline the process. Some companies assign team members to monitor different blogs.

Make it unique—Bloggers want something special to boost their readership and links. Find a unique story angle or let them test a product, as Nokia did when it rolled out a new phone. Photos and videos taken with the phone were shared with other bloggers, creating a source of unique content. But pitches should never come with strings attached.

“In every blogger outreach campaign I have ever been involved in, it’s always been, ‘You are under no obligation to write anything, and if you do choose to write, write what you feel, write what you believe. You are under no obligation to write positive stuff,'” Holtz said.

Follow up—Relationships are important for ongoing pitches or for firms hoping to garner coverage on A-list blogs. Maintain those relationships, even when you have nothing at the moment to pitch, Holtz said.

Monitoring is also important: Holtz suggests using blog search engines and tools such as Google News to track what’s being said about a company or client. Use that feedback to engage new conversations in the social media space, he suggested.

Be transparent—Nothing helps an outreach campaign—or heads off problems—as well as transparency. Some agencies have formal blogger outreach policies. Holtz cited Ogilvy Public Relations.

“We reach out to bloggers because we respect your influence and feel that we might have something that is “remarkable” which could be of interest to you and/or your audience,” reads the firm’s PR Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics, which was developed with bloggers' input and includes commitments to remain transparent in all dealings, including blog comments, to provide multiple ways to work together and to contact the blogger as he or she chooses—or, if desired, not at all.