This might sound like it’s going to be a repeat of this post. Well it kind of is. But I’ve been receiving soooo many of these outreach emails lately that I felt obligated to say something about it again in order to stop this horrible trend before it’s too late. I’m going to keep it short and sweet.
Here’s one of the emails I’ve been getting. They all follow this exact same format for the most part:
Subject: Get More Readers Today
Hi Dominique,
Please may I introduce myself.
I’m Alan and like yourself I’m also a fellow blogger looking to use the web to grow.
I’m currently doing some promotion for a blog post I wrote for bloggers like yourself.
It’s a post on how to get more readers.
If you’re interested…
You can find it here:
www.linktohispost.com
I’d love to hear what you think of it and I’d be ecstatic if you’d consider adding it to your blog ? 🙂
Cheers
Alan
Some of you might be looking at that email thinking, what’s the problem? The issue is that Alan isn’t offering me any value. He’s just asking for something. And it’s sad because his article and is actually pretty good. If he would’ve put more effort into the email, he’d probably have a lot of success with it.
Now I know exactly why he sent his email like this. There are a ton of posts on popular blogs that teach the exact technique Alan is using so he’s doing what he thinks is right. But I’m urging you all to stop using this strategy.
For one, it requires a shotgun approach. You send out the exact same email to as many different blogs as possible and hope that a few of them bite. Yea it’ll work sometimes, and I’m sure some people will share Alan’s post. But you’ll have a lot more success if you make your emails more personalized and add some type of value.
I’ll admit that I’m much tougher on this type of stuff than most bloggers that receive these emails. Mostly because I know that the emails are sent with pure laziness. But that doesn’t change the fact that this approach isn’t going to be around for very long. Here’s why.
Like I said, this exact same technique is being taught by some very popular blogs. That means that more and more people are going to be doing it. Which means more and more blogs will be receiving these exact same emails, and they’ll eventually catch onto the fact that the emails are basically automated. And after a while they’ll start to become less and less effective.
Back to Alan’s email though. One of the worst things about it is the end/call to action.
“I’d be ecstatic if you’d consider adding it to your blog ?”
I don’t even know what that means. Add it to my blog how? As a post? As a link within another post?
A better approach would’ve been to ask me to share it on Twitter. That’s something that’s actionable, simple and clear. Most bloggers would be more than happy to tweet out a link to your post. But if your goal is to get a backlink, you need a different approach like broken link building. Just asking someone to add it to their site isn’t clear enough.
How To Offer Value
Like I mentioned, the main problem with Alan’s email is that he’s not offering me any type of value in his email. Always ask yourself, what’s in it for them? No disrespect and I’m sure your blog posts are awesome. But just offering them a good piece of content to share isn’t anything special. There’s content all over the place. You need to take it to the next level. And that doesn’t even mean doing anything super time consuming. You could say something as simple as:
“I just came across your post on “topic of post”. I shared it with my email list and tweeted it to my followers. I actually just published an article similar to yours and mentioned your post in the part about …… I was wondering if you could check it out and give me some feedback”
You’ve offered value by sharing their content with your own followers. And you’re not asking for a tweet or anything in return. You’re just asking them to check out your article. Nine times out of ten if they end up looking at your article and it’s good, they’ll share it with their followers naturally.
It’s all about changing the way you view outreach marketing. Way too many bloggers are looking at it as a way to get something for themselves. When the reality is that you need to look at it from the other blogger’s point of view. We’re getting a ton of these emails every day, so if you’re not doing anything different to set yourself apart or providing any level of personalization and value with your emails, you’re going to get lost in the sauce.
That’s the end of my little lecture/ramble. The point is, rethink the way you’re doing your email outreach.
Key takeaways:
- Consider the other blogger’s point of view when you’re creating your emails
- Personalize each email you send. It takes more time but it’ll increase your success rate
- Don’t be a beggar. Offer value to them and they’ll most likely reciprocate even without being asked
- If you do ask them to do something, ask for them to share your post on social media, not to add it to their site
Let’s do better guys. We’re shooting for awesomeness, not average.
