This document provides guidance on systematically managing relationships and links. It emphasizes that link building and outreach are about relationships, not just content or promotions. It recommends focusing on understanding people's motivations by finding emotional triggers. Connections should be fostered over time by becoming a helpful resource rather than just promoting content. The goal is to build long-term influencer networks that provide ongoing benefits.

1. A Systematic Approach to
Managing Relationship & Links

2. Who dis?
• Co-Founder of Kerboo (Was LinkRisk)
• Chequered past
* Hat tip Carly Wood / Nichola Stott via FB

3. Paul Madden Kelvin Newman Paddy Moogan

4. What the hell are we all doing
anyway?

5. The current position
Content marketing
PR
More traditional SEO

6. Links are the signal

8. Its all about the people

9. Outreach

10. It’s a false economy
And we are addicted to it

11. Create the content
outreach and pitch

12. Create the content
and pray?

13. We all need to up our game
in outreach and understand
the psychology of action

14. So how should we think about
outreach and the people we interact
with online?

15. Too much marketing is: -

16. Hey FNAME,
We have made something cool,
you’re gonna love it so much,
gimme linkage
Thanks
Random Dude

17. “There is NO action without
reaction”

18. Reaction is prompted by
emotion

19. What makes a site owner or editor
or author or influencer act?

20. We have to know what our
target will respond to

21. Cold hard money

22. Friendship

23. Do they have a need we
can fulfill?

24. Link building is
RELATIONSHIPS

25. Any outreach is
RELATIONSHIPS

26. Sales is
RELATIONSHIPS

27. PR is
RELATIONSHIPS

28. Content Marketing is
RELATIONSHIPS

29. RELATIONSHIPS

30. DEFINE

31. SUCCESS

32. Think about content
promotion and coverage

33. The aim is to build a network of
influencers in niches that can
benefit all future projects

34. Pick your most common broad
niches

35. The Pareto Principle
applies as it always has
and always will

36. Its this top 20% of sites
and people that make 80%
of the difference

37. Why ?

38. Why market what you have with
people you already know?

39. The risk is far far lower

40. Some signals count
for us

41. Some signals count
against us

42. Marketing and by extension SEO
succeeds today more than ever as a
result of leveraging those people
you know

43. So how do we define ‘Know’?

44. Make a connection

45. Once we have a connection we
are free to ask questions

46. Once we can ask we can
understand the motivations

47. And once we understand
what motivates we can
use emotional triggers to
illicit action

48. Trust is something you have to
earn

49. Give rather than take

50. Start from a position of
trying to help them in
some way
And you’ll stumble onto the
emotional trigger naturally

51. Finding the right
contacts

52. Find content and work upwards
from there

53. Excellent interface (Slightly
limited inventory)

54. 100 Million websites searchable
using 50 filters

55. Hunt down ANY deck by
Paddy Moogan
Stacey MacNaught

56. First contact

57. Emails emails.. And more emails
• Email is cheap easy
• Its simple to hide
behind the inbox
• Its harder to make a
connection
• You’re often not in
control of their
attention span

58. Social interaction
• Hard to initiate
• It’s a long game
• Usually better to
augment an existing
relationship

59. https://www.submarinecrm.com

60. Keep EVERY communication
You will need a CRM package

61. Notable CRM packages
• https://highrisehq.com/
• https://www.pipedrive.com/
• https://www.submarinecrm.com/
• https://kerboo.com/
• http://www.sugarcrm.com/uk
• http://batchbook.com/

62. Think like a salesperson

63. Every conversation
brings you closer to the
goal

64. The best way to have
conversations isn’t always email

65. Fear is the differentiator

66. Pick up the phone

67. Phone is scary… but
when done well phone
beats almost every
other method

68. Learn how to use the
phone..
Learn proper conversation
direction

69. http://www.slideshare.net/spline/questioning-skills-training-materials

70. Two ears, one mouth

71. Set a goal for each
communication

72. “I’ve really enjoyed some
of the stuff you’ve
published lately and I’m
just curious on how you
decide what to publish and
when”

73. “Can you tell me a little
more about how you plan
what to cover”

74. “If I understand you
correctly you say that each
month you pick X themes to
write about and then Y
happens, is that correct?”

75. The question cycle
• Open question
• Listen
• Ask closed question to qualify
• Propose suggested help
• Listen for objection
• Open question to work round objection

76. Open question
• A question you cant answer Yes or No to
• Can you tell me a little about…
• In interested in how you do x…
• What are the main things you consider when
choosing y…

77. Closed question
• Normally a Yes No Answer
• Used to qualify…
• If I hear you correctly you always look for X, is
that correct?
• So its only Y that you consider?

78. Proposal of solution
• The WMT method: -
• Because you do X
We do Y
Which Means That you sort X

79. Objection handling 101

80. People say “no”
because

81. • We haven’t understood the
motivations
• We haven’t explained the value
• We haven’t ensured that value
meets their need
• For ALL of the above you need
to…

82. Go round our objection
loop again

83. “OK so I may have misunderstood how you do that
part of the research for your articles, is it not
correct that you spend X hours looking for
resources to support the piece?”

84. “Umm well yes we do we just don’t take pieces
from external people”

85. “OK so if I understand that correctly if we were
to share the research that we had done for the
similar piece that we did you would find some
value in that”

86. “Is that correct?”

87. Close….

88. However….
Probably just gonna
stick with the emailing
ok….

89. Cold email is less cold if
they’re aware of you

90. Cold email is less cold
when it comes from a
contact form

91. Sent from my iPhone

92. Very brief often gets a response
• Look at the emails you respond to and why …
• Something in the first line or subject catches
your eye
• 3 Lines of text and then close…

93. Short looks personal
• Sacrifice detail to illicit response..
• Just do enough to get attention
• Things like typical typing errors and ‘sent from
my iPhone’ make it look like a spur of the
moment email rather than mass spam

94. And by common typing errors I mean..
Hi John,
Can you let me know if you’re the right
person to takl to about X ?
Just got something I think might be of
interest.
Thanks
Paul
Sent from my iPhone

95. Not… Poor grammar
Hi John,
Are you the person who looks
after there content?

96. Making them know you exist
• Share their stuff
• Comment on their content
• Write about them

97. To get the big fish you’ll have to work
your way upstream
• Write about them
elsewhere
• Include them in other
content
• Slowly demonstrate value

98. http://charlieapp.com

99. https://www.crystalknows.com

102. Tools are fine but
genuinely showing
interest isn’t easy to
fake

103. Showing that you
remember them and
therefore value them is
actually key

104. That’s where a good
CRM helps you

105. Process
• Define what broad niches you want influencers
in
• Find the people and the people connected to
those people
• Make a connection
• Foster that relationship over time
• Become a resource for them
• Understand their triggers and use that to your
advantage

106. Takeaways

107. Build inventory of
relationships before the
project

108. Placement is not the
end of the relationship

109. Aim to foster such a
relationship that they
come to you

110. Unless you go the extra
mile someone else will
beat you

111. Thanks !
Paul@kerboo.com
@pauldavidmadden
@kerboo
Kerboo.com