A lot of businesses, regardless of size, send outreach emails for various reasons. Here at GOBIGGR, we do it to find guest posting opportunities for our clients.

However, not every outreach campaign performs well. You can send hundreds of emails and get few replies. Worse, the majority of those who replied is just being courteous enough to decline you.

We get that. Email outreach is never easy. That’s why we are sharing with you some tips on how you can write an effective outreach email that can help you land link building opportunities.

Why Email Outreach?

There are many reasons your business should leverage email outreach, but bombarding your prospects or subscribers with offers is not one of them.

That said, it is important to identify your campaign goal first. How do you want email outreach to help your business?

Here are some ideas:

Build Audience Relationship

According to Steli Efti of Close.com, “The true goal of any email outreach is to build meaningful relationships with the person you’re hoping to contact.”

We send emails in order to build a business relationship with our prospects. It can be for a future collaboration project, because we want to expand our network, or because we need to pick their brains.

Regardless, here are some points that you need to remember:

1. It is not all the time that you can leverage a connection. Just because you and your prospect have a common friend does not mean that they are friendly with one another.
2. Do not give your prospect a homework. Your prospects are busy people. Do not waste their time asking to expend their own network for your benefit.
3. Make your prospect a part of your network. The best way to build a relationship with an “important” person is by asking for their advice. It is non-threatening and a welcome change.

Create a Sense of Urgency

Creating a sense of urgency to your recipients is ideal if you are sending an email to a prospective customer. That’s because urgency is what can turn a subscriber into a paying customer.

Creating a sense of emergency through your email compels a human brain to make quick decisions. You can do this by setting a deadline, offering a solution to a pressing problem, or enticing them to get their hands on something scarce.

The key to creating a sense of emergency depends on how you present the information on your email.

Create a Sense of Excitement

Much like with urgency, you can also send an email to create a sense of excitement.

For instance, you are organizing a local industry conference. You can then run an outreach campaign to people you wish to attend by showing off your lineup of speakers.

This will not just only familiarize them with what your event will be about, you can also use this opportunity to grab your audience’s attention and make them excited for the conference.

In addition, your speaker lineup will be one of your event’s best assets. So it only makes sense that you create a sense of excitement about your speakers.

You can do the same when sending an outreach email to a potential sponsor. You can get them excited about your speaker lineup. You can also share with them the types of attendees who they can potentially acquire as a client or customer through your event.

Acquire New Customers

Businesses also send emails to acquire new customers.

Sure, social media can help you attract prospects. However, email is a great tactic to help you drive customer loyalty. In fact, a 2014 study by GigaOM Media revealed that marketers rely more on email as a means to promote their brand.

Sending out a relevant email to your potential customer can help you stand out from the crowd. You can do this by sending a personalized and straight to the point kind of email. Refrain from using industry jargon, and keep in mind that you are sending an email to a real person.

Find Link Building Opportunities

It is common practice to send an outreach email in order to find link building opportunities. But in order to be successful in using this tactic, you need to have a solid email list. This is possible if you have the right tools that can help you build a connection for your outreach campaign.

Once your list is built, you can leverage your email outreach campaign for link building purposes.

According to Rand Fishkin, you can use email outreach for various link building tactics. It can be link reclamation, broken link building, or including your content asset on your prospect’s resource page.

Regardless of the reason, make sure that you are sending a personalized and relevant email that aims to provide value to your prospects.

Why Your Email Outreach Campaign Fails

You see a lot of email outreach tips online, claiming that they were able to double or triple their open rate and conversion rate. You follow those tips and wonder why it is not returning a desirable result for you.

Here’s the thing: It is not about the tactic. The problem lies in your overall campaign.

You’re Targeting the Wrong Prospects

Your prospects are real people living their own lives. Thus, it will not make sense if you send the same email to all of them.

Here at GOBIGGR, we target prospects based on industry or niche. This is helpful whenever we are looking for guest posting and link building opportunities for our clients. Not to mention that it helps us ensure that we are only reaching out to relevant website owners.

Only members of the cult think and act the same. That said, you should pick prospects who are relevant to your business niche. And then send them an email that will resonate well with them.

Your Subject Line Doesn’t Spark Interest

Another reason your email outreach campaign fails is because of your subject line. Keep in mind that an employee receives an average of 121 emails per day. What more if your prospect is an important and a very busy person?

There is a slim chance that someone will open and read that much email in a day. That’s why an interesting subject line is your ticket to compelling a recipient to read what you have to say.

You can write an interesting subject line by doing the following:

• Writing benefit-driven subject lines
• Using symbols or emojis
• Creating a sense of urgency
• Showing proof of credibility
• Making your prospects intrigued

However, you should refrain from using clickbait titles on your subject lines. More and more people are becoming smart in detecting this kind of email that cannot deliver the promised content.

Writing a subject line is an art form, and it can directly affect your campaign’s open rate. Thus, you need to craft something that can hype someone to open and read your email.

Your Email Lacks Call-to-Action

Calls-to-action or CTA is one of those elements that are easy to overlook. What you do not know is that it can boost your conversion.

Having an optimized CTA on your email is important. That’s because it helps your prospect figure out what they should do next.

Do you want your prospect to learn more about your business? Do you want them to schedule a meeting with you? Do you want to book a demo of your product?

Whatever that is, it is a good idea to determine your outreach campaign’s goal first before you craft and send your email. And that goal should help prospects to take a step closer towards conversion.

Five Elements of an Effective Outreach Email

It takes a lot less effort to write and send emails compared to writing a business letter. However, that does not mean that the odds will always be in your favor.

About 269 million emails were sent and received every day in 2017, and it is expected to grow by 320 million in 2021. This means that it will be more and more difficult for your outreach emails to get noticed even if it is important.

Fortunately, you can make it easier for your prospects to notice your email and send a positive response if you can include the following elements:

The Brand You Represent

First off, it is imperative that you know the brand that you represent. By that, we mean that you are familiar with these three things:

1. Your niche or industry (e.g. travel, real estate, digital marketing)
2. Your unique value proposition 
3. Your target audience (e.g. hikers, young professionals, law firms in New York)

Knowing these three very well can help you determine (1) who your prospects should be and (2) what value can offer them.

Your Prospect

Your list of prospects can be an indicator of whether your outreach campaign will succeed or not.

Come to think of it, it is easier to ask for a guest post opportunity from the right prospect. Especially nowadays that relevance plays a big role in link building.

According to Hayley Burke, “Good link building also helps to promote your brand. It can help to show that you are an authority in your field through links to relevant content.”

So, if you are sending outreach emails to land link building opportunities, always keep these things in mind:

1. How relevant (or irrelevant) your niche is with your prospect
2. Your prospect’s most popular content
3. Their content format and writing style
4. The gap in their content
5. The name and role your prospect

Your Email Content

Your outreach email has three parts:

Subject line

Your email’s subject line can make a strong first impression on your prospect. When it is properly written and optimized, your open rate is likely to improve.

Here at GOBIGGR, our rule when it comes to writing subject line is simple: Personalize it and go straight to the point.

But depending on your prospect, you can also use emojis and try the BuzzFeed method when writing a subject line. Regardless, your subject line must be intriguing enough that it will compel your prospect to open and read your email.

Email copy

When writing an outreach email for link building and guest posting opportunities, it is important to keep your copy short and simple.

In just a few sentences, you should be able to do the following:

• Show familiarity with your prospect’s content. For instance, instead of saying “I’m a huge fan of your blog” tell your prospect which blog post resonates with you the most.
• Explain your qualifications. You can say that you are an SEO specialist for company XYZ. But it will be better if you say that you have years of experience as an SEO specialist for a law firm, which makes you qualified to write about “SEO for lawyers”.
• Describe what your content will be about. Your prospects need to make sure that your content will benefit their audience. You can also take this opportunity to convince them why they should publish your post.
• Call-to-action. As mentioned earlier, CTA helps your prospect know what to do next. Something like “Let me know if my topic idea is suitable for your audience” will do.

Your Timing

It is also important to time your email in order for your outreach campaign to succeed.

For instance, you are based in Australia and you are sending an outreach email to someone in Canada. There is a big chance that your email will be buried in your prospect’s inbox, and will never see the light of day. That’s because there is a huge difference in your time zones.

Thus, you should be wary of the time difference between you and your prospect. Tools that allow you to send an email at a later time can also come in handy.

Your Follow-up Email

Lastly, do not forget to follow up.

As mentioned earlier, your email may be buried in your prospect’s inbox. But that does not mean that your outreach fails. Sometimes, all you need is a follow-up. Doing so can help you salvage those missed chances of getting a guest post opportunity.

When sending a follow-up email, you can make it short and simple or ask if they are busy to accept guest posts at the moment. The latter allows you to figure out when is the best time and season to contact a particular prospect.

An effective outreach email has a simple structure. All you need to do is ensure that your email is in line with the brand that you represent and that you know your prospect really well. You should also take the time to analyze and experiment with your outreach campaign. That way, you can build an outreach campaign that drives favorable results every time.