Outreach is a regular and vital task for most people who spend time on digital marketing. Businesses need to get the word out about their products and services to bloggers and other online influencers, they also need to attract links. Outreach is a necessary and acceptable practice.
But if you’re one of the influencers who receive outreach emails, you’ll be familiar with the regular howling errors being made by marketers an PR people across the web.
Here are five of the most prevalent mistakes being made with outreach emails today:
1. Sending emails en masse
So, you’ve altered the subject line to include your blogger’s name, and you’ve even mentioned the name of their blog in your email. But the fact that, other than those small changes, you’re able to send the same email out to one hundred recipients shows how lacking in personalisation your approach is. Genuine influencers can smell mass emails from a mile off and they won’t touch them with a barge pole. It might seem like a longwinded process, but if you’re really interested in getting someone’s attention, do your research and prepare the entire email from scratch, your success rate will skyrocket as a result. Here’s an example of where a truly personalised email worked wonders.
2. Failing to make your request crystal clear
Not everyone has a talent for communicating clearly, but the worst examples of waffle in outreach emails leave recipients baffled or even fuming. It’s a common mistake to assume that others will be as passionate about your subject as you are, but in reality most people, especially the influencers you’re trying to impress, will not have the time nor the patience to wade through paragraphs of introduction before you get to the point. Make the premise of your email crystal clear right from the start and you’re much more likely to hold your target’s interest.
3. Patronising the author
There have been a number of articles describing the importance of showing your awareness and interest in an influencer’s work within your outreach emails. While this is true, too many marketers have tried to create shortcuts, simply noting the heading of the last blog article and claiming that the subject matter interested them, or attempting to make a personal connection based on a cursory glance at a story they’ve published. Blog writers are human and a real interest in their work will flatter them just as much as anyone else. The key here is to show your interest is genuine and not cooked up in seconds to achieve your goal.
4. Expecting something for nothing
A common mistake made by marketers and PR people is to assume bloggers are simply crying out for information to publish on their blog. Most popular bloggers will be keen on doing their own research for ideas, or will have a regular stream of interesting subjects they’re already eager to write about, simply because they’re so engaged with their subject matter. An emailed press release detailing a new product is therefore unlikely to be of much interest. Think of how you can give added value to your subject, perhaps by letting them trial your product for free, or inviting them to suggest their own ideas to improve a prototype. Treat your subject as the expert they are and give them an incentive to get engaged with what you’re doing.
5. Making cringeworthy errors
Some outreach emails appear to have the best intentions until you get to the part where they make a shocking spelling mistake or, worse, get the name of the recipient, their blog or their company completely wrong. The reason for mistakes like these is usually the need for emails to be created at speed, leading to simple human error, or a cutting and pasting disaster from an earlier mail out. Here lies another reason you need to take time to construct a completely individualised email if you’re really interested in getting your recipient’s attention – otherwise the mistakes like these will inevitably creep in, putting recipients off your emails for ever.
By Andy Atalla, Founder of atom42.
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