None of us are alien to the extraordinary rise of content marketing and its impact around the world. Every consumer, whether a potential lead or not, is attracted to the intellectual and creative promotion of brands, which often plays a major role in influencing their choices. As a result, every firm in the market is leaving no stone unturned to master at the art of content marketing. These manifest in various forms like blogs, articles, videos, case studies, interviews etc, and are spread over the most popular platforms to catch the eye of the consumer.
You have to walk the extra mile, if you wish to be heard!
Now, why will a user choose to see your content over all others who have put in the same amount of effort as yours? You will have to take up extra initiatives to make sure that your work clearly gets flashed across the screens of thousands of internet users, because what is the use of creating never-read-before content when there is no one to see and appreciate it? You cannot sit and wait to let it get viral on its own; instead take the reins in your hands.
Email outreach is the best and the most effective technique of getting your content to people, but only if you use to its full potential. There are over 3.9 billion email users, so you will be playing a big shot if you use this method to communicate. Here are a few tips that can help you leverage your email outreach tactics and contribute significantly to your content marketing strategy.
- Identify your goals
Just like every other marketing technique, it’s imperative to know your goals before you sit down to write your email outreach strategy. The primary goal is to build relations based on links collaboration, but if you straightaway ask for it in your first email, you are most likely to get ignored because only numbers suggest only 8.5% outreach emails get a response.
Try to engage in conversation with the person, and establish let the connection gradually follow. This study by Backlinko proves that the best way of achieving your goal is to contact multiple people, multiple times. Don’t use emails to buy you a business bargain – this includes exchanging money for links, or sending the site owner a “free” product in return for a piece of content with a backlink to your website. While you will be on the run to grab more traffic, guest posting in an alias of business transaction can inadvertently hurt your site’s rankings – even Google admits to that!
- Reckon the right place and right time
Whenever you talk about an amazing incident or opportunity you chanced upon, everyone says that you were in the right place at the right time. How does this apply to email outreach? The right place here means the people you choose to communicate with through your system. There are many types of blogs and content creators out on the web. Some are treated like Gods and have enough traffic on their sites to send your business rocketing through the ceiling. While a few others might not be that popular, but have considerable influence.
In the bottom of the scale lies the beginners or bloggers who haven’t created much impact as yet. But, each of these categories have their own pros and cons. Gods are likely to not even notice your email, the lesser Gods may agree after a lot of toil and constant pestering and the others may be easy but not worth it. This is where you decide the website will align with your goals what steps to follow in order to appease them. The right time is either Tuesday or Thursday for blogger outreach because on these two days, you have a high chance of receiving a reply almost immediately. Consider the time before you send your emails and this stitch will save you nine other ones!
- Know THEIR plan
In the business world, no one takes action until it brings them profit or boosts the popularity of their name. This is an important point in the establishment of a business relationship with someone. Just like you need them to spread a positive word out in the world, they will also look forward to gains from your collaboration.
The website owners/bloggers receive overwhelming numbers of emails everyday for guest posting and if you offer something interesting, it is sure to set you apart in the clutter. This is why it is of extreme importance to know what your potential partner is looking for. Usually, it comes in the form of good quality and grammatically accurate content, which has the ability of grabbing eyeballs. If you can ensure this, then you’re good to go. For example, you could attach a piece of your best produced matter to pique their interest and demonstrate what’s in store for the future.
- Don’t pounce on strangers
Sometimes an unknown person can pull off an unexpected deed of kindness, but this word does not exist in the transactional world. Here, everything is based on the growth and riches of a company. That is reason enough for you to not ask for a partnership from people you have never seen or heard of.
Here, the more advisable way is to build relationships before you ask for favours. The best way is to expand your network – participate in conversations with entrepreneurs during conferences and meetings and also engage with the content they have been putting up. Make full use of the business cards and carefully let a meaningful communication establish before you drop the bomb. It takes effort, but when you see your website traffic jumping to the rooftop, its surely going to be worth it!
- Personalization is the key
Everyone gets tired and bored of reading the same thing over and over again, and your business prospects are no different. If you are going to use an automated technology to compose your emails, it is going to resemble the thousands they have deleted without reading. This is where you add a personal touch to your approach. Why should I sound more like a stalker than a partner? Because personalized emails have an open rate of approximately 30% higher unique open rates Try to customize the email according to the recipient: think like a website owner/blogger and then create what you would like to read. Use references to their older content, include subtle compliment for their websites (specifically a well-researched content piece already posted, but be sure to sound genuine because falsehood is easily detectable.
Quick tip: Do your research and find the name of the person who is responsible to read all the emails and send out responses.
- You can’t NOT follow up!
From your personal experience, you may agree that you are likely to stay in touch with a friend or acquaintance when they show interest in reaching out to you. This brings us to the most common flaw in email outreaching, that is not following up.
If you have started a conversation with the firm you are interested in partnering with, then your flow of emails must go uninterrupted and smoothly. But what if you don’t get a response? That calls for a follow up message! There’s no shame in sending another email after say 3 days of sending your first email, asking if they had checked it out, or simply composing a new one with another reason for them to respond.
People can miss out on emails for various reasons and it doesn’t hurt to send a follow up. On the other hand, it shows them that you are genuinely eager to associate with them. But again, be cautious to not pester them with repeated emails. An optimum number is two to three mails, and undoubtedly the first one is the most effective and can bring you 40% of response rate if your email has been designed to perfection.
- Use smart tools
You can send out effective emails using your account and browser, but why work so hard if you have specially designed apps to do it for you? You can find the rare and inaccessible emails through Hunter.io or Vocus.io. For finding influencers, you can also try Social Animal. There are a lot of apps available in the market and all you have to do is look and experiment to make your work easier! After all, It’s 21st century and you can’t afford to be slow in the race.
Conclusion
The competition will never end, but if you have considered the above mentioned tips in your email outreach strategy, you have already kick-stated with an edge. You just have to keep following it to the end and not flinch from your efforts. It’s only time when you create a buzz in your industry and leverage all the other benefits that comes along with effective email outreach.
