9 Ways to Not Sabotage Your Outreach

Outreach is vital for good marketing campaigns and especially helpful in getting backlinks. It’s easy to fall into a trap and undermine all your progress on this endeavor. Here are nine mistakes you make that sabotage your outreach and how to fix them.

 

Getting off to a bad start

Most people are going to click away if you start off with a bad first sentence. Make a good first impression within that first tenth of a second, or it’s basically over. People don’t want (or care) to read on further to see if it gets better; this is the Internet after all. Your first sentence shouldn’t sound off alarms in their head that you’re trying to get something from them. The average person is used to receiving these kinds of emails, and just being bombarded with ads in general, so they are primed to detect a lame sales pitch beginning, and delete. The key is to personalize your message and make it stand out right from the start. You could begin by saying “[Person] suggested I get in touch with you” or something in that vein. Give them a reason to be interested in what you have to say.

 

Not focusing on the influencer relationship

Influencers are a great way to get backlinks. But you need to remember that your relationship with one must be mutually beneficial. They don’t get paid for promoting your campaign, they need your help in return. Influencers want to create partnerships with brands and people.

“The better your relationship, the higher the likelihood is they talk about you and your brand in their real life, above and beyond posting online. A relationship with an influencer can be a beautiful thing if they begin to buy into your vision and feel a connection to what your brand is all about,” advises Cassandra Everson, email marketer at SimpleGrad.

 

Gimmicky subject lines

Your subject line should be an accurate clue as to what your email contains, not a goofy clickbait attempt to get attention. The reason? It doesn’t work. These subject lines will sabotage your efforts and hurt your future campaigns as people are turned off and mark them as spam. Yes, you want to grab your recipient’s attention, but with your actual message. There’s not much point in being successful at having people open your email if they just delete two seconds later. Examples of what not to put in your subject line include: “Your copy is enclosed’” and “RE:_________,” where the subject makes you think this is part of an earlier email thread you participated in.

 

Options, options

You need to strike that delicate balance between giving too few options and dumping a bunch of options and overloading your reader. Having two to three options is a good idea. With this number, you avoid both analysis paralysis and the single hard sell call to action. You also avoid them closing the email to think about the options, and then not coming back.

 

Generic mass emails

A good outreach campaign does not send out generic mass emails to people you found at random; this is called spam. You’ll have no success sending out mass emails to people whose product you are not familiar with, and are not in the same industry. The idea is to be contacting people you have reasons to believe will be interested in what you have to say. We’re talking about people whose work you are familiar with and have similar interests and expertise. Personalize your message and include links to the influencer’s website, so they can see you are familiar with their audience and their work.

 

Mediocre ideas and content

If you’re asking someone to share your content, it’d better be interesting and original. If you show them some mediocre content, not only will they not share it, they probably won’t open another email from you. Always put forward your best ideas and content, and concentrate on creating content for outreach. Whatever you do, don’t copy and paste your outreach content. This will get you into trouble. You’ll forget to remove parts targeting a specific influencer and that will not reflect well on you, and it certainly won’t help you get backlinks.

 

Emphasizing features, rather than the story

Don’t get bogged down in going over all the features of your product. If you want backlinks, then tell them a story. Tell a story about how other people have benefited from your product. People respond to stories about people like them, especially if those stories involve succeeding despite challenges and overcoming obstacles to achieve a goal.

“Your story gives your reader a mental image of how they’ll benefit from your product. So instead of listing off the benefits, (and boring them, prompting them to delete), you’re showing them in their mind how they’ll actually benefit. It’s the difference between describing your product, and describing what your product can do for their life,” recommends Christopher Troup, outreach manager at UKServicesreviews.

 

Ending on a weak note

Similar to your opening sentence, your ending can make a big difference to your response rate and the amount of backlinks you get. Your ending can keep you at the top of the recipient’s mind. Thanking your reader is generally the way to go; gratitude promotes positive emotions between you and the reader. End your message with a closing such as “Thanks in advance” and you will increase your response rate and chances of getting backlinks. If you want to sabotage your efforts, then by all means end your message with a generic ending such as “Is [product] something you’d be interested in?” or “I know our product is the perfect solution for your needs.”

 

Write perfect outreach emails to get backlinks

Writing doesn’t come naturally to everyone, so don’t be afraid to get some help from the professionals. Here are some great resources to get you started:

1. State of Writing and Via Writing. These are useful writing resources that will help you compose effective outreach emails. A well-written email shows you’re a professional and someone the recipient can trust and do business with.
2. Paper Fellows and UKTopWriters. These are proofreading tools to help you put out emails that are polished and free of errors.
3. Academadvisor and LetsGoandLearn. These are useful writing guides to help you write emails with a good flow and structure. Your email reflects on you, so make sure it’s professional quality and doesn’t disqualify you.
4. Assignment Help and Assignment Service. These are helpful online editing tools, suggested by Studydemic, you can use to produce professional and polished outreach emails.
5. My Writing Way and Writing Populist. These are useful writing communities you can check out for ideas and suggestions on how to improve your outreach emails.
6. How to Write Outreach Emails People Won’t Hate You For and 10 Reasons Nobody’s Responding to Your Email. These are articles that will further help you with the copy of your outreach email.

 

Don’t let yourself sabotage your own outreach campaign. Pay attention to every detail in your communication, from start to finish. Then, in no time, you’ll get plenty of backlinks.

 

Author:

Grace Carter is a content manager at Revieweal and Essayroo services, where she builds content marketing campaigns, helps with email marketing and reviews content submissions. Also, Grace tutors at Assignment Writing Service, educational portal.

 

 

 

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