Welcome to the lesson #10. How to build links and promote content via blogger outreach.
Here's what we're going to cover in this lesson.
How to use outreach for content promotion.
How to find thousands of high-quality outreach prospects.
And how to write ridiculously effective outreach emails.
So let's go!
Part #1. How to use outreach for content promotion.
First of all, outreach is not a digital marketing strategy.
Influencer marketing, guest blogging, broken link building - these are the strategies in digital marketing,
or tactics, whatever you prefer.
And outreach is just a tool that you use in order to execute on them.
If you want influencers to promote your content, you need to reach out to them.
If you want bloggers to publish your guest articles, you need to reach out to them.
If you want website owners to fix their broken backlinks, well… you get the idea.
That said, there's no such thing as an "Ultimate Guide To Outreach."
It simply cannot exist because there's just too many use cases to consider.
So in this lesson I will not teach you all possible applications of outreach, which
in fact go way beyond marketing and into business development and networking.
We're only going to focus on using outreach for spreading the word about your content
and landing some high-quality backlinks along the way.
And before I tackle the two common outreach issues - where to find outreach prospects
and what to say in your outreach emails -
I want to address three things that people often get wrong when promoting their content via outreach.
And the first thing that many people fail to understand is that outreach is in fact
content promotion.
Imagine the situation:
You emailed 100 people with a link to your article:
80% of them opened your email, 30% clicked your link and read the article
10% emailed you back with their feedback but non of them tweeted or linked to it.
Most people would conclude that their outreach has failed and would probably never bother
doing it again, because "it doesn't work."
But think about it, by sending 100 emails with 80% open rate, you're putting yourself
on the radar of 80 awesome hand-picked people from your industry.
30% clickthrough rate means that 30 of these awesome people have actually visited your
blog and read your content.
And a 10% reply rate means that you've just made a connection with 10 awesome people
from your industry.
Which, as we learned in previous lessons, can often lead to a ton of additional benefits.
Yes, you didn't get any tweets or backlinks.
But it would be WRONG to say that your outreach has failed, as long as your emails get opened,
your links get clicked, and people reply to you.
That's why I said that outreach is content promotion.
Obviously, 30 people visiting your blog is far from a life-changing amount of traffic.
But you've only sent 100 emails.
What if you send 1,000 or even 10,000 emails?
That will translate into 300 or even 3,000 people visiting your blog.
And I have no doubts that many of these visits will eventually result in tweets, backlinks
and all sorts of other "side benefits."
"Tim, but isn't sending 10,000 emails called SPAM?"
That is a great question and it brings us to the second thing that people often get wrong:
#2. There's a fine line between outreach and SPAM
Yes, if you send 10,000 emails in a week, or even in one month - that is SPAM.
There's no way to properly research this many people and send each one a personalized email
in such a short timeframe.
So when I talk about reaching out to 10,000 people, I actually refer to a long term strategy,
that would be executed in the course of a year or maybe two.
Which gives you enough time to do it right and not be a SPAMmer.
Think of outreach and SPAM as two ends of one spectrum.
This spectrum represents the amount of effort that you put into each individual email
that you send.
This includes finding the person you want to get in touch with;
researching them, to make sure they're a good fit;
and, obviously, writing a personalized outreach email to them.
On one end of this spectrum we have an auto- generated list of people which you never bothered
to manually review.
Plus a generic outreach template which you copied from some popular "guide to outreach"
and barely even customized.
This approach is pretty much the definition of the word SPAM.
And on the other end of this spectrum we have a small list of people who you took time to
thoroughly research, which gives you the opportunity to write a unique and very personal
outreach email to each of them.
That is how outreach should be done in the ideal world.
But in all honesty, both ends of this spectrum are nothing but extremes, that you should
stay away from.
You don't want to send 10,000 nearly random people a generic email template.
Especially if you care about your reputation in that industry.
That would be an equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.
But at the same time, you don't want to spend weeks researching a handful of people and
crafting the most perfect outreach emails possible.
Just to realize they're too busy right now for whatever you're sending them.
The right approach is somewhere in the middle albeit leaning more towards the "Ideal Outreach"
end of the spectrum.
Each industry is very different and I recommend that you experiment with the amount of effort
that you put into each outreach email before deciding where on this spectrum is right for
you to settle.
And just in case you're reluctant to give up on the quality of your outreach, I have
one last piece of advice for you:
#3. Perfect outreach doesn't guarantee any results.
I just mentioned a situation where you spend weeks thoroughly researching a handful of
people and sending them the best outreach emails they have ever received.
And then it turns out they're too busy to reply.
In all honesty, this is quite a common scenario.
If you tried outreach before, I'm sure you will agree with me on that.
And the reason why it happens is painfully obvious.
Life gets in the way.
Your "perfect outreach email" may flop due to a hundred different reasons that you're
not even in control of.
What time of the day the person will see your email.
Will they open it on their mobile phone or desktop computer.
Are they in a good mood.
Is their schedule full right now.
How many other emails they have received today.
Etc, etc, etc...
So yeah, perfect outreach doesn't guarantee any results"
You need to mentally prepare yourself for this and not get discouraged when people
don't reply your emails.
Here at Ahrefs we rarely get Open rates above 80% and the Reply rate almost never crosses 30%.
And we consider these numbers to be quite good.
If your own numbers are way lower than ours, here are a few quick tips.
If your Open rate is low, make sure you're sending to the right email address.
Especially if you're using some automated software to pull these email addresses for you.
We have a great post at Ahrefs blog that should help you with that: "9 Actionable Ways To Find
Anyone's Email Address."
Also experiment with your email subject.
If you're using a generic email subject like "something you might like," don't expect
people to open it.
You should create subject lines that would somehow reflect your outreach excuse.
More about this later.
Now, if your Clicks rate is low, invest more time into vetting your outreach prospects.
It can be that you're simply reaching out to the wrong people, or they are no longer interested in that topic.
Or make sure to clearly specify what's so unique and awesome about your article that would make them
want to click the link and check it out.
And finally, if your Reply rate is low, make sure you ask for their feedback.
A simple request like "Let me know your thoughts"
actually works quite well in terms of getting replies.
Also make sure you're not asking for a favor.
Most people prefer to not reply emails because they don't want to say "no."
As you can tell, these tips are mostly based on common sense and might even seem obvious.
But I get so many awful outreach emails that I felt I had to include this advice in my lesson.
And we're done with the basics.
Now, let me show you how to find thousands of high-quality outreach prospects.