Email outreach is the key to any successful marketing and link building strategy. It really does not matter if you will promote your articles, build new connections, or increase the number of backlinks to your website. In any of those scenarios, you need to outreach.
Outreach & and Why It Is Important to Solve Them
Today, it looks like everyone is sending outreach emails. Most of them end up in spam because some people believe an outreach campaign is about numbers. It isn’t. In reality, it is about quality. We’ve all got bad outreach emails before. So many of them would start with “Dear Sir or Madam.” No wonder such messages go straight to spam or trash folders. This letter was sent automatically, without any regard for the recipient.
email marketing
So, anyone who believes that outreach emails do not work is obviously not treating their campaigns right. Outreach emails work for link-building, guest blogging, press coverage, recruiting, and even meeting new business partners. But, emails that work must be personalized. And it’s not just about addressing the recipient by name. There is way more to a successful outreach strategy.
How to Make Your Outreach Campaign Work: Best Pointers
The success of any outreach campaign will mostly depend on its specifics. There is no universal formula that would be equally effective for link-building, recruiting and influencer marketing. But, several suggestions should help marketers get started.
Create a carefully targeted list
If you do not want to come off as a spammer, target your recipients very carefully. So many outreach emails end up in the trash because they are clearly meant for someone else. Try asking an eco-activist to advertise rocket fuel and see how that works out.
To make sure you are emailing the right people, do your research about each recipient. Obviously, starting background research on every new prospect is time-consuming. So, creating a broad list of people you’d like to contact is a better start. At this stage, you may just create a spreadsheet with people’s names, links to their websites, and emails if available.
Once you have come up with a general list, start researching each recipient. Take a look at their websites, social media pages, past employment — whatever you need for your outreach goals. You will see that most people on this draft list are not good fits. So, please clean it up until you have a very narrow outreach audience.
Make sure you contact people over valid emails
So many outreach emails end up in spam because marketers do not always use the right addresses. Fortunately, there is more than one tool that can help you build an email outreach list. Like Voila Norbert and ContactOut, some of them are designed to look up emails by a person’s name. Like SignalHire, others are way more versatile because they can be integrated with social media via handy extensions.
For example, when you browse LinkedIn, you can immediately verify their valid contact details in a single click when looking for prospective outreach contacts. So, even as you research people for your initial draft outreach list, you can already include their valid email addresses into the spreadsheet. That will save plenty of time and energy. Or, you could even make a search via a pro contact database to get even more leads for your outreach draft.
Create a unique, personalized email
The last and the most challenging step in any successful outreach campaign is creating a unique message for every recipient. A quality campaign is not about addressing the recipient by name and then copy-pasting the same text to everyone else. To catch your readers’ attention, you have to give them something that speaks to them and them only. Here are some tips that should point you in the right direction:
Even if you did everything right, your recipients may still take their time responding to your message. Sometimes, it happens because they are not interested. But, they could have got distracted and forgot to send a reply. So, the question is — should you try and follow up? If the person did not receive your first message or forgot to reply, a follow-up could be useful. So, there is nothing wrong with sending another message — as long as you do it once.
Besides, follow-up emails can be automated with special tools like BuzzStream, because you no longer need to make these messages so personal. You can just write something “I am not sure if you got my first email, but in case you didn’t, I wanted to add…” Then, include a few more details about your offer.
The tips above are the backbone of every successful outreach campaign. As you can see, the essential steps are not that difficult — they just take a bit of time and imagination. Still, all this effort should pay off in the long run. After all, if you treat people like human beings and not like faceless recipients on your outreach list, you can expect the same attitude in return.
