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How to Kick Butt with Your Email Outreach
Rand Fishkin discusses effective email outreach strategies, emphasizing the importance of personalization and relevance over generic messages. He highlights that successful outreach often requires understanding the target's values and establishing prior relationships, rather than direct requests. The document provides tactical advice for improving outreach success rates, focusing on building authentic connections and aligning outreach efforts with individual and business goals.
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How to Kick Butt with Your Email Outreach
- 1. Rand Fishkin |Founder & CEO How to Kick Butt with Your Email Outreach Get Everything You’ve Ever Wanted (professionally) by Sending the Right Message to the Right People
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- 3. Analysis of Rand’sStrengths & Weaknesses BloggingSEOSales WritingCodePublicSpeaking Email Top1% Solid Mediocre Dismal GAH!Run! DamnGood BeingGeraldine’s Husband So how come you never talk about your top skills!?
- 4. Rand Fishkin |Founder & CEO How to Be Married to Geraldine! A comprehensive guide on how to be an excellent partner to my favorite person in the world.
- 5. What We’ll Coverin Today’s Talk: How to plan for inevitable hangriness Shopping Tips for TJ Maxx and Nordstrom Rack Baking ingredient emergencies Protecting your legs from frozen feet Emotional support during writer’s block The subtle art of not bringing up JFK “conspiracy” theories
- 6. Analysis of Rand’sStrengths & Weaknesses BloggingSEOSales WritingCodePublicSpeaking Email Top1% Solid Mediocre Dismal GAH!Run! DamnGood BeingGeraldine’s Husband OK… Fine… We’ll talk about this one.
- 7. First: How Notto Use Marketing Tactics Awesome new tactic I learned at Searchlove Go back to the office and re- shuffle marketing efforts to prioritize it Think up a way to use it for your organization/goals
- 8. Instead, Do This: Awesomenew tactic I learned at Searchlove If it doesn’t fit cleanly right now, don’t force it! Align it to current business & marketing goals Experiment on side projects; have tactics ready when they’re useful
- 9. E.g. Podcasts… SOHOT RIGHT NOW! ViaChartable
- 10. E.g. Influencer Marketing…Everyone else is doing it; shouldn’t we? ViaGoogleTrends
- 11. E.g. SEO Keyword+DateHack ViaMoz
- 12. Tactics First Leadsto Poor, Long-Term Results Business Goals Marketing Channels Marketing Goals Individual Tactics Learning about these at conferences leads tofeedback of “this wasn’t actionable,” or “advanced enough.” So… events & speakers bias totactical topics (including this talk!)
- 13. Promise to usethese tactics only when it fits with your business and marketing goals? Let’s talk about how to kick butt with email outreach. Cool.
- 14. As Part ofMy Research for SparkToro… I Spoke to Lots of Outreach-Focused Marketers
- 15. The Sobering Reality: Content,social, &link agencies have told metheir outreach response rates are even lower… ~1 in 200
- 16. The 1-minute outreachemail: Found an EmailAddress Sent a Crappy, Low-Value, Programatically-Customized Bulk Email Google Search Probably has a <0.1% success rate
- 17. The 5-minute outreachemail: Dug around my site to find my email Slightly customized a mildly clever message Tried toID reasonable customer targets Probably has a <1% success rate
- 18. 100 messages at1% 5 messages at 20% vs. Spend 20X as long on these and get the same results? Yes, please!
- 19. Just a fewlinks or atiny bit of amplification, and your work’s in the top 1-5% of all web content ViaBacklinko
- 20. Focus on 1:1Outreach?Why
- 21. Broadcast is HARD (untilyou have a loyal, engagement-heavy audience) ViaRivalIQ2019
- 22. ViaRivalIQ2019 Engagement w/ BrandsIs Dismal…
- 23. But Individuals CanDo Far Better! ~30X the avg onTwitter; ~100X the avg on Facebook
- 24. Many of theMost Powerful Marketing Tactics Are Impossible without Individual, Human Supporters ViaSEERInteractive
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- 29. The Outreach Spectrum AltruisticTransactional Helpsonlythe outreacher Helpsthetarget and/ora3rdparty Offersvaluetoboth parties Self-Seeking
- 30. Transactional Usually YieldsEvaluation I want X in exchange for Y. to meet you to get your input to raise money from you to get a link/share to get an endorsement to use your work money reciprocation credit (link or other) exposure connections
- 31. Altruistic Usually Does,Too I want X in order to help Y . to meet you to get your input to raise money to get a link/share to get an endorsement to use your work social cause political issue friends/people charitable org thing we believe in
- 32. Purely Self-Serving… NotSo Much I want X .
- 33. This is WhyMost Self-Serving Outreach Pretends to Be Transactional or Altruistic Of course, these make us all more suspicious of outreach.
- 34. Successful Outreach Needsto Avoid Certain Characteristics that Correlate with: Low quality Messages Spam Scams Harassment Irrelevant Junk Self-Serving Outreach in Disguise
- 35. Unclear, difficult-to-evaluate request Multipleasks in a single message Historical Reputation from Gmail/Hotmail/etc (i.e. recipients have marked your email as spam in the past) Poor targeting (i.e. request has low relevance to the target) Source characteristics (name, email address, photo/image, writing style, etc) align with common spam features To Break Through, Avoid These Characteristics
- 36. Clear Request UnclearRequest
- 37. Two Requests atthe Same Time?!
- 38. One Ask perEmail. In the Subject Line.
- 39. If you’re relevant,well-targeted, and well-timed, the odds of getting read improve. Who? What? Why? How?
- 40. Even a FewSpam Characteristics, & Your Targets Will Never See Your Message
- 41. Modern Spam FiltersAre VERY Aggressive
- 42. Email Spam ReputationCan Linger for Years Ifyou’re an actual spammer, you probably don’t care. But, if you’re trying tobuild areal business…
- 43. Brand Memory &Associations Also Suffer Forbes has trained me (through bad outreach, sketchy authors, & their annoying interface) not to visit their site
- 44. Unclear, difficult-to-evaluate request Multipleasks in a single message Historical Reputation from Gmail/Hotmail/etc (i.e. recipients have marked your email as spam in the past) Poor targeting (i.e. the request is irrelevant to the target) Source characteristics (name, email address, photo/image, writing style, etc) align with common spam features To Break Through, Avoid These Characteristics Nailed These? You’re already better than 95% of outreach
- 45. Can Outreach Do ForMy Marketing?What
- 46. Amazing Things Professional,Personal Messages Can Do For Your Marketing13
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- 48. Inclusion in CuratedNewsletters/Resources ViaTheEvergrey
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- 53. Guest Spots onPodcasts ViaIndieHackers
- 54. Turn Unlinked Mentions→ Links Grrr…No link
- 55. Interviews & People-FocusedContent ViaGoodLifeProject
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- 57. Project/Product Advice &Input (which often turns into amplification support too) ViaCone&Steiner
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- 60. But, Rand… When Iask directly for this stuff, I get nowhere
- 61. Direct Works GreatOnce a RelationshipAlready Exists… Request for something comes into my inbox… Do I KnowThis Person? Yes!And I like them. Never heard of them. No, but I know of them or their company/organization High Likelihood of a Yes High Likelihood of a No Depends on the ask, their brand, my history, the relevance, timing, etc.
- 62. In Some Cases,Indirect is the Way to Go: I want these things Get more people to know, like, and trust me (and my brand) Links to my site Create unique value that stands out to your audience Press coverage SocialAmplification What can I do that will deliver those? Focus outreach on these goals first
- 63. Tactical Hacks toImprove Your Odds of Getting a “Yes” from Someone Who Doesn’t Know You6
- 64. #1: Reach OutFirst When You Have an Interest, Not an Agenda ViaTwitter
- 65. #2: Grow YourPotential Connections Through Networking (But Most People Get This Wrong) I want a bigger, better network. I should go to “networking events” and… “network.”
- 66. I want abigger, better network. I should go to “networking events” and… “network.” #2: Grow Your Potential Connections Through Networking (But Most People Get This Wrong)
- 67. Instead… Create Catalystsfor Organic Network Growth You Good Connection Bubble of ComfortThat _______ You’ve Been Thinking About Good Connection Good Connection class conference club adventure activity podcast video series Good Connection
- 69. The Networking Spectrum WorseOpportunities Smaller Events Larger Events Better Opportunities In-Person Remote Relatively Specific inAppeal Appeals to aWide Group Shared Personal &Professional Values Dissimilar Values NotActually Focused on “Networking” Specifically Focused on “Networking” More Unusual More Common
- 70. #3: Align YourOutreach with Your Target’s Personal Beliefs, Causes, and/or Values
- 71. #4: Get HighQuality Introductions
- 72. Opt-In-First Yields theBest Results
- 73. #5: Create YourOwn Amplification Email Group
- 74. #6: Find AuthenticAffinities that Intersect
- 75. If You’re Strugglingfor Ideas…
- 76. Should I ReachOut? To Whom
- 77. Meh. The Most Followed Influencers The Most- Trafficked Publications ThoseWho’ve Amplified Similar Work People & Publications YourAudience Engages With Most OK. Better. Suh-weet.
- 78. The “Most Followed”Influencers in Target Field?
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- 80. Those Who’ve AmplifiedSimilar Stories? ViaBuzzsumo
- 81. People & Publications MyAudience Engages With Most Sneak peek atSparkToro’sAlpha Version (still a few months from launch)
- 82. People & PublicationsYour Audience Engages With… That Already Know & Like You! Huzzah!
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- 84. Don’t Forget… LikeThis: Bunch of outreach tactics I learned at Searchlove If it doesn’t fit cleanly right now, don’t force it! Align them to current business & marketing goals Experiment w outreach for small/side projects so you’re ready when your biz needs it!
- 85. Rand Fishkin |Founder & CEO Thank You! Bit.ly/artofoutreach