As the owners of CollectiveRay.com, we are both on the receiving and the sending side of blogger outreach emails, so here's our take and tips on doing it successfully. We receive plenty of blogger outreach emails (daily) and offers for guest posts that get deleted instantly. On the other hand, we've also got quite a good hit rate with our blogger outreach. By following these ten email outreach tips, you'll be breaking outside the mold, increasing your chances of success significantly.
10 Blogger Outreach Email Tips
1. Warm-up your recipient rather than sending a cold email.
Humans are social animals. They have an inherent, instinctive mistrust of the unknown. Before you can earn trust, you need to be seen as a friend rather than a foe. This is human nature.
Blogger outreach is the same. Your cold email outreach is like getting sweets from strangers. The recipient is wary of you.
You have to foster a relationship first. But how do you build trust?
It's not as hard as you might think.
You simple have to engage with the blogger on their channels.
- Comment on their site or blog.
- Like and reply to their social media posts.
- Share and retweet their stuff.
Interact with them.
Then when you pitch with blogger outreach email, your name will be familiar.
And you won't be the mistrusted stranger.
2. Make it all about what will be beneficial to the recipient.
You've got all to gain but nothing to lose.
But what benefits are you bringing to the receiver of your outreach?
As a person doing outreach to bloggers, for you, it's a numbers game. Anybody who replies and gives you a link (eventually) is a win.
The site on the other side needs to get a benefit too. It takes two to tango.
What is your blogger outreach pitch bringing to the table? Work and edits? Publishing your post? Why is your pitch worth my time?
Make sure your pitch brings benefits to the site you're pitching.
3. Create an outreach email that is specific to the blogger.
Don't spray and pray.
As a high traffic site, you are not the first to make a pitch. We no longer ask for people to send us their blog posts (but we did in the past), so we've seen hundreds of guest posting pitches.
We've also done plenty of guest posts ourselves too, so we've had to send hundreds of blogger outreach emails.
So grab our attention. Pique our interest. Do you know what we are passionate about? Did you just come across the site in your keyword search and thought you'd "try your luck".
Pique their interest. Study and show that you truly know and follow the blogger.
Address the blogger by their name.
Do not send a generic email without addressing the person. "Hi" there is very different from "Hello David, how are you doing? How's the newly married life going?"
Read More: Email Service Providers without Phone Number Verification
4. Do not use a blogger outreach template from your guest posting course.
Blog owners receive far too many near-identical blogger outreach emails. It gets very stale very quickly.
It even becomes funny at a point.
It also gets very unsuccessful. If all the effort you did was a copy-paste from a template, then your work ethic leaves much to be desired. And if that's the effort you're going to be putting into the content, then we're already turned off!
We've been in the business. We've learned to see through all the guest post templates.
We've even learned the template structure.
Break out of the blogger outreach email template. Make sure your outreach email is for each recipient specifically, or for the blogger you're addressing the email to.
Look at this level of crap we've seen this before. Several times. Thanks but no thank you.
Then again, some cold email templates are pure gold.
Dmitry from Criminally Prolific has been hugely successful at creating very successful cold email templates, so you might want to have a look at this stuff.
5. Keep your pitch short but interesting.
Bloggers would rather read a long outreach email which clearly shows how you could benefit their site.
When your outreach email pitch keeps the recipient interested in what you have to say - they're going to read it.
If you want to make it interesting and compelling, research and understand what interests the blogger.
Have a look at the articles they post, their personal Twitter account, and find out whatever you can about them. If you spend all of 5 minutes doing research, you'll learn a lot of what keeps me going, and what gets their juices flowing.
Then think about how you can make your blogger outreach interesting for me.
If you're pitching something interesting to you rather than to them - you're wasting your time. And their. But mostly yours. They'll probably just delete your outreach email.
Look at the below mess!
My eyes! They hurt!
6. Do make sure your spelling and grammar is spot on.
Especially if you want to guest post. Not getting your blogger outreach email spelling right, says a lot about your overall reputation and perfectionism.
Read it and proofread it. Twice. Send it to yourself and read it again.
Use Grammarly if you're not a native English speaker.
Do not send this type of blogger outreach email - it is a fail on so many levels it hurts.
7. Do create awesome content or offer the blogger something awesome to link to.
When asking for links through blogger outreach emails, only pitch your best content. Pitch only to sites which have shown a constant interest in the topic.
Linking to content requires means a huge endorsement of your content.
These are the levels of endorsing as we see them
Level 0: Clicked on a link because it roused our interest
Level 1: We bothered to read it
Level 2: Liked it on Social Media. Takes just a click, very little endorsement. Can like it without reading it to shut you up
Level 3: Commented on it because it was intriguing
Level 4: Shared it - found it useful and want to make a statement with it
Level 5: Linked to it from our site. That's putting our recommendation on it.
As the level goes up, the endorsement goes up. Going from one level to the next is quite a leap. Linking to a piece of content is an incredible endorsement.
Your content must be incredibly useful to make such a heavy endorsement of it, that we link to it. Don't bother with your tired, repetitive suggestions.
8. Ask for feedback, not a link.
Rather than sending a link to the post you want to get linked you should ask the blogger for feedback. Send an enquiry whether they would like to see a post about their favourite topic.
The link may come if the content is great.
If they don't answer you within a week - resend. Some people are busy. Or away. Or on vacation. Or your blogger outreach email ended in their spam trap. Or something.
Use an email open tracker to know when they have opened the email. If they open and don't reply within half an hour, resend while it's hot. Use your judgement though.
9. Ask for their preferences, don't pitch yours.
If you are sending an outreach email asking for something from the blogger, such as a guest post, ask whether they have a preference towards specific topics first. Don't just offer to guest post about topic which interstate you only - make sure the blog will benefit the recipient too.
Remember that for you, it's always a win.
Make sure your blogger outreach email gives something valuable to the recipient. If it doesn't, why should they act on it?
It would be nice if you asked the owner, what they would prefer rather than asking me to post what you need.
10. Save the blogger some time.
When TemplateMonster offers to guest post on my site, they prepare the guest post in full HTML. Headers, italics, links with affiliate code built-in, and images ready with the correct name. We just copy, paste into my editor upload the images, save and publish.
It takes us all of 5 minutes.
Offer to do that for the person you will be submitting too. Style to what their site looks like, not what you find easiest.
Ask them what format they prefer. Google Doc? Markdown? Pure HTML? Do they prefer it if you actually upload it?
Prepare the imagery and designs which go with the content. Make sure they fit the style or ask for guidelines.
Only include a pitch about your product where it compliments the content only. Even if it does, ask for permission to link. Website owners hate becoming unwitting banners and endorse products they are not fond of
Frequently Asked Questions
What is influencer outreach?
Influencer outreach is a type of outreach that is aimed at influencers in a particular niche. Whether these are fashion or beauty influencers, or influencers in sports, they are bound to be on the receiving end of hundreds of emails every day. So you offer has to be much more compelling than ever if you want to cut through the trash.
How do bloggers rank on Google?
Ranking on Google is typically a combination of keyword research, excellent content and getting endorsements, through links and social media shares, to your website. These are the fundamentals of SEO (search engine optimization), but the process takes a coordinated, sustained effort over several months to start having an effect.
How do you outreach?
In its simplest form, outreach is done via contact forms or email. Email is typically more effective, if you find a personal email address. You can also do outreach via social media pages or LinkedIn, but the tactics are typically common and a small variation of the above outreach tips.
How do you outreach a guest post?
Outreach for guest posts has become much too common and harder these days, so you need to use the above tactics. You can also use an additional method of doing a small competitive analysis, where you find and propose content that your target does not have when compared to their competitors
What is a guest post service?
Guest post services are offered by digital marketing agencies specializing in SEO. They are responsible for the complete execution of the campaign in all its phases: prospecting, outreach, negotiation, and writing. It is advisable to opt for agencies with a transparent methodology, as the guys at Linkbuilder.io do for their guest post service. On the other hand, it is advisable to avoid services such as those found on Fiverr, which historically have a reputation for using private blog networks (PBN).
Wrapping Up: These blogger outreach email tips will put you on the right track
Last but not least, it's really nice if you end the email nicely. Again, the king of cold outreach email has some very great suggestions for email endings.
Do take note of the above do's and don't for your next blogger outreach email. It will drastically improve your chances for success ;-)
Please leave a useful comment with your thoughts, then share this on your Facebook group(s) who would find this useful and let's reap the benefits together. Thank you for sharing and being nice!
Disclosure: This page may contain links to external sites for products which we love and wholeheartedly recommend. If you buy products we suggest, we may earn a referral fee. Such fees do not influence our recommendations and we do not accept payments for positive reviews.
and many more ...