Let’s be honest: outreach can be make-or-break for today’s businesses.
If you can write a powerful outreach email, you can do anything from scoring valuable press mentions to potential funding from investors.
And on the flip side, the inability to craft a decent outreach message means that you’ll struggle to get more eyeballs on your business.
The reality, though? It’s not just your writing chops that could be impacting your outreach campaigns.
Listen: today’s influencers and industry players are insanely busy. This means that even the smallest error in your outreach campaigns could be the culprit for your poor performance.
To help guarantee your outreach campaigns are crafted in such a way to engage responses, we’ve put together a list of tips to check your messages against. If you’re currently having trouble getting replied to, this list could be a game-changer for you.
Double-Check Your Prospects’ Contact Info
This might seem like a no brainer, but a poor response rate would very well be the byproduct of having your prospects’ contact information all wrong.
Perhaps you’re using an outdated email address. Maybe you’re blasting your emails to the right company but the right point of contact.
Bear in mind that there are six ways to get your prospects’ email addresses, some of which might require some digging but are definitely worthwhile in the long run. Some of those tactics include:
- Using LinkedIn to confirm an outreach candidate’s email
- Testing an email address within a third-party lead contact tool
- Signing up for and responding to company newsletters with relevant feedback
Even if you don’t always find the address you’re looking for, taking the time to do the steps above could be the difference between crafting a message to someone who simply doesn’t exist and actually getting in contact with a flesh-and-blood person.
Optimize Your Messages for Engagement
Reality check: writing better outreach emails oftentimes is a matter of practice.
Over time, you can better refine your style and pitch to be as succinct and to-the-point as possible, all the while speaking to why your message benefits your reader.
However, there are time-tested ways to better set yourself up for responses. On a related note to the pointer above, keeping your messages brief is a good starting point. Ideally, you should strive to get your point across in approximately 125 words or less based on current data.
Also, consider that the best times to send emails is somewhat up in the air, but conventional wisdom says weekdays from the mid-morning to early afternoon.
Do these optimization tips make your messages foolproof? Absolutely not. That said, they do make them more attractive to busy readers on-the-go who might otherwise gloss over your emails.
Diversify Your Prospects
If you’re only reaching out to one “type” of a person in terms of company size, industry, or influence, chances are you’re only shooting yourself in the fish.
In short, don’t ignore smaller influencers for the proverbial big fish. Getting a response from 10 businesses or brands with smaller audiences is better than getting static from your “ideal” candidate, right?
That’s why you should mix up your outreach candidates. For example, prospective link-builders can use keyword research tools to identify relevant niche blogs that might otherwise be unlikely outreach candidates. By building up influence with smaller relationships, you can better set yourself up to land “the big one” down the line.
Get More Specific with Your Target Audience
“What’s in it for me and my audience?”
The answer to this question needs to be front and center in every outreach email, especially the latter part. Creating customer personas can help you hone in on the wants, needs, and frustrations of any given candidate’s target audience to identify why your own messages are so valuable.
Speak to problems and pain points that are as specific as possible. This allows you to not only verify you understand your candidate’s target audience but also know a thing or two about your industry.
Supplement Your Email Outreach with Social Media
Among the tools to speed up influencer outreach are the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn. Beyond using these tools to research prospective candidates, you can likewise use them to follow-up. Whereas someone might be flooded with emails, push notifications, and social alerts might help you break through the noise of their inbox.
The next time someone sleeps on an outreach message, why not send them a nudge on LinkedIn? Doing so may very well be less intrusive than a full-blown follow-up and likewise, result in a more immediate response one way or the other.
There’s no denying that putting yourself out there to influencers can be both daunting and discouraging when you don’t get the replies you so desperately seek.
But remember: there is no “silver bullet” for better outreach. That said, the principles and tips above, you can better hone in on the right candidates and optimize your messages to encourage a response.
