Email outreach is a core element of any SEO strategy. It is a skill that you will require if you want to be ahead of your competitors. It is an established way of building backlinks, getting coverage from journalists and bloggers, and building authority around your brand. But there is a lot more to email outreach than just sending an email. Here we will walk you through the entire email outreach process, covering these points broadly,
- What is Email Outreach?
- Why do emails often get ignored?
- When do people use email outreach?
- What are the golden rules of email outreach?
- Why are subject lines important?
- How to write an engaging email?
- What tools are required to plan your email outreach campaign?
What is Email Outreach?
Email outreach is a common practice used to support an SEO strategy. In a nutshell, it is the process of identifying prospects who will promote your content and then reaching out to persuade them to link to your website. For example, if you are a toy company, you can link a children’s clothing brand, because your audience will be the same. Similarly, if you are a lifestyle blogger, you could link a skincare or haircare brand in your email. And, while it may appear simple initially, there is more to email outreach than what meets the eye. Many email outreach campaigns fail for lacking a solid process.
At the same time, outreach is widely misunderstood and frequently gets a bad response for the wrong reasons. Outreach emails are often regarded as spam by customers because they widely fail to implement a planning process and send emails blindly regardless of whether or not they are likely to be interested. This approach couldn’t be more wrong.
Email outreach is not blindly sending emails to as many people as you can. It is about carefully prospecting people who will genuinely find your content useful. They will think of it as a real value-add to their lives. Outreach is about sharing it with them and asking them to take action if they like what they see. However, many of us have probably been the recipient of a bad outreach email.
To cite an example, asking a child clothing brand to link an article on digital marketing makes zero sense. No wonder, such an email outreach will get a bad reputation.
Why do emails often get ignored?
There can be many reasons for email outreach to get ignored. These are the most popular ones:
- Sending it to a prospect who is not the correct target audience for your content, so sending it to them is a waste of time.
- You don’t specify what action you want the recipient to take.
- Your outreach email fails to convey the value that your business could provide the reader.
So, before sending out an outreach email, place yourself in the recipients’ shoes. Would you have engaged with the content? If the answer is no, you should reconsider your strategy.
When do people use email outreach?
People use outreach emails for a variety of reasons. They can be used to establish new relationships, find investors, contact influencers, generate leads for businesses, and much more.
This is why people who understand the importance of email outreach, put in the time and effort to create relevant emails. When done correctly, they can be extremely beneficial.
The Golden Rules of Email Outreach
- Quality over Quantity. Always!
Focus your attention on contacting those readers you can justify as potentially interested in linking to your content. Do not take a ‘spray and pray ‘ approach, where you send it to as many people as possible and hope that someone will link.
- Add value
Your outreach should convey how your content benefits the person to whom you are reaching out and their audience. If it doesn’t, you shouldn’t be sending them an outreach in the first place.
- Communicate your request clearly
Always be explicit about the action you expect the recipient to take. If a recipient does not clearly understand what you want them to do after receiving your email, you must improve your communication skills.
- Do NOT Spam
It may seem obvious, but if you cannot justify why you are sending an outreach to someone, don’t send it.
Create a list of search operators
Scraping the SERPs begins with compiling a list of search operators. A search operator is a line of text that contains your target search terms and serves as a command to the search engine to return only to pages that meet those criterias.
For example, Assume you’re looking for guest blogging opportunities on SEO-related websites, your search operator could be – “SEO” (intitle:”write for us” OR intitle: ”write for me” OR intitle: “become a contributor”)
By typing it into the search bar, you’ll get a list of pages with the word “SEO” in your title and a mention of offering a guest blogging opportunity in any form.
Why are subject lines VERY important?
Your outreach email’s subject line is what allures a recipient to open it. If they are not convinced with the subject line, they will not open your email.
And if no one opens your email, they will not read your outreach pitch.
If they do not read your pitch, they will not see your content, which means they will not link to it.
Subject lines are like trailers of a movie. You don’t make it good enough, you won’t attract any audience.
Let’s make it more impactful with numbers
If you send a 200 outreach email with a poor subject line and get a 25% ( which is very generous for a poor subject line) open rate. That is 50 people who open your email.
Let’s say a generous 20% of those 50 people click on the link in your email to view your content. That is 10 clicks.
If 20% of those 10 people link to your content, you get 2 links.
But if that open rate becomes 50% and the rest percentages stay the same, you would see 100 opens, 20 clicks, and 4 links earned. So, the better the open rate, the better the return.
But what consists of a good subject line?
The best email subject line should be creative, alluring, and informative at the same time. It is the difference that makes your prospect open or ignores the email. It means including numbers, facts, emojis. Ones that stand out in a busy inbox.
How to write an engaging email?
A working person gets an average of 121 emails a day. It includes his work emails, promotional emails, and cold emails. It means that the competition is tough. Your email has to stand out to the prospective customer for them to read your email.
- Convey your pitch
The reader should not be confused while reading the email. So, whether it is a story or a product- mention it clearly in the email. This will give the reader an idea about what the email could be and whether he should continue reading it. You have to be specific in your ask. Do you require them to:
- Book a call with you
- Share your article
- Respond to the email
- Link back to your website
- Justify, why did you choose them for the email
Everybody wants to feel that they have been chosen and are not just part of a mass list. Justifying the reader why you are sending an email to them shows them the effort and creates a positive impression.
What tools do you require to plan your email outreach campaign?
Sometimes the research that goes into the research and customization of creating outreach email can be overwhelming. The following tools will help you to streamline the process:
- Woodpecker
- Klenty
- MailerLite
- PersistIQ
- Dropcontact
- Hunter
Takeaway
Email outreach is possibly the most effective practice for obtaining quality links from relevant websites and gaining a competitive SEO advantage.
You must have a solid process that is simple to follow and scale up. Do not try to cut corners because you will end up sacrificing the quality of your efforts.
