Framework for high converting outreach emails
1. Pre-outreach
This is the most time-consuming
step, but it’s by far, the most fruitful. Before you even think about sending
an email, you need to get on the blogger’s radar.
At a basic level, this could include:
- Commenting
on their blog
- Sharing
their content on social media and tagging them
- Replying
to their social media updates
- Help
them out with something – e.g. an error on their site they may have missed
It’s also worth having set up to display your profile
picture. This should be the same profile picture on your social networks – it will make you more
recognizable when you eventually email them.
2.
Personalization
At a bare minimum, you should be
including the name of the person you’re trying to reach.
If you don’t know it – go and find it because people will be far more likely to
reply. If you’re emailing a generic email address, look for a contact who works
at that company – a little bit of personalization goes a long way.
3.
Help the recipient
Many outreach emails are just poorly
written pitches that mostly ask people to give up their time
for free and by doing something to help the blogger out, before you’ve even
asked them for anything – you’re far more likely to grab their attention. But,
to be clear – you need to do something to help them.
I get a lot of pitches from startups
that want me to write reviews of their tools, and they make out they’re giving me a super exclusive free
trial. Then I discover that it’s the same free trial that everyone gets.
4.
What do you want them to do for you?
Be absolutely crystal clear with
what you’re asking from the blogger. The key here is to make the call-to-action
sound like it’s beneficial to both of you.
5.
What’s in it for them?
By this point, you’ll have already done
something to help the blogger you’re trying to connect with. That’s usually
enough, but not always so I recommend going a step further.
The idea here is to tell them what
you’ll do if they agree to your call-to-action. I particularly like to focus on
the challenges that bloggers face when agreeing to someone else’s request.
A lot of bloggers will publish guest
posts and then realize that the contributor has no interest in sharing the post
with their audience or replying to comments.
6.
Let them know who you are
A lot of outreach emails come from
random Gmail accounts with no way of finding out that that person really is. No
links to their website, social profiles or anything.
This makes it difficult to put any
trust in that person’s ability to write a decent post for your audience. So,
use your email signature here – include your name, links to your personal social profiles and include a link back to your site.
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