If you have a PR firm that is telling you they do outreach to bloggers make certain you ask them how they're doing outreach. Just sending press releases to bloggers is not blog outreach. That's called blog blasting and it's a big problem in the blogosphere and seems to be growing as more people want to get blog coverage by any means necessary.
The unfortunate aspect of this is that most of the coverage does not come through because bloggers aren't your NEWS feeds, they are there to serve their readership.
And don't even get me started on the pay for play bloggers that are emerging.
My advice is to really keep your approach integrity based and collaborative based. If you really have some news that a blogger can use and you have read that blog then you can simply send a brief query. If they then ask for more information or a product sample etc. then you can followup.
Give bloggers a break!