Outreach emails are one of those most common and, arguably, most effective ways to get your message out to as many recipients as possible, but they need careful thought and planning as, if you get them wrong, they may waste not only your time but that of your long list of carefully selected recipients! You may send plenty out, but how many people actually respond? You may think you have the snappiest subject lines and the most amazing content, but are you missing a few tricks?
When it comes to your list of email addresses, are you verifying each and every one? Take a look at your good luck at those subject lines – are they misleading in any way or likely to have your bored recipient shouting ‘Next!’ and bypassing your email entirely? Are the emails you are sending not totally relevant or too impersonal? Are the links included in your emails broken or sending people to the wrong places? Did you remember to include a call to action, and have you carefully considered your follow up emails?
When it comes to an email outreach campaign, there’s certainly lots of consider, but if you break down the ins and outs and the dos and don’ts of your campaign, you should reap the benefits for your business.
Here are ten tips to get the most out of your outreach emails:
1. Verify your email addresses
You really don’t want the frustration and the waste of time resulting from unverified email addresses and all those bounce-backs can seriously dent your deliverability rate and your standing with your domain, which may not be impressed! Run your list of emails through software like NeverBounce or Clearout first, to make sure each and every email is verified, and double-check any that need replacing. You need to make sure your list is top notch and will bring you the best value. After all, the list of people you are sending your message to is the most important thing, as you want these people to respond – in your favour! So, think smart, get those email address in perfect order!
2. Research, research, research
Do as much background research as you can to make sure your outreach emails are going to the right recipients. Are you targeting the very best people to receive them? Are your emails going to the right companies in the first place? Thoroughly research each company and its policies and employees, so you really know who you’re talking to and why. Do you have a mutual connection to your recipients? Is there something you can tap into – a shared goal or experience that will really connect with them? Use all the weapons in your armoury to get that engagement! If you’ve spent time writing your email, it will show, and will ensure the recipient doesn’t waste time reading it. Nobody wants to read a rushed, badly written email that doesn’t seems as though its even directed to them.
3. Tailor your tone
Think carefully who you’re writing to. Is it the CEO of the company or a mid-level employee of a start-up? Make sure you pitch your tone right so you are not too formal or two friendly, or vice versa. You want the tone of the email to be tailored to its reader, so it doesn’t fall on wasted ground, or worse, annoy or offend. Do you want to be humorous, or impress with larger words in the dictionary? Do you need to use longer sentences or short? Think about exactly who you are ‘talking’ to and adjust your ‘voice’ accordingly.
4. Don’t be boring!
Think carefully about each and every word of your email. Are you getting to the point quickly enough? Are you droning on in a repetitive way? Could you use a touch of humour to lighten things up and get that interest? Think about the length of the email – is it so long that the attention span of the reader starts to drift, or they don’t want to read it in the first place? Can you think of a unique angle to really get their juices going and – better yet – the desire to respond? Martin Fitz-Johnson, Marketing Manager at Big Assignments and UK Writings, says, “There’s nothing worse than a long dry email that will have the recipient snoozing over their laptop. Be concise! Be engaging! Be relevant! And you’ll see much better results.’”
5. Use snappy subject lines
Your subject line is your headline. It’s like shouting a punchline through a megaphone and you only have a few words to do it in, so make it arresting! Make it punchy, engaging and truly effective so the recipient of your email stops in their tracks when they read it and thinks ‘Well, I need to take a look at this!’ Humour can work really well too, or something unique or quirky. With stats showing only 8.5 outreach emails receive a response, make sure yours is one of those 8.5% emails! Apparently, subject lines that are between 36-50 characters long are optimum for generating responses, so don’t make the subject lines too short. Outreach emails with long subject lines are said to have a 24.6 higher response rate, on average.
6. Avoid being misleading!
Check, check, check and double check that everything in the content of your subject line and the body of the email is correct and not misleading in any way. This is especially true of the subject line. The last thing you want is the recipient thinking they’ve been tricked in any way, and worse for you could be if they decide to report you for violating anti-spam laws. Be smart and craft and email that directly responds to the content of the email and what you’re trying to achieve.
7. No bad links!
Bad links are to be avoided at all costs! They will have the recipient of your email rolling their eyes and possibly vowing to never do business or interact with you again. Franklin J. Pearce, marketing writer at Write my Australia and Australian Reviewer says, “Make sure you check your links by doing a dummy email. Check each and every link to avoid looking highly unprofessional and bringing your company into disrepute, no company wants to be known for bad links!’ Running a dummy email will also make sure you check each and every word of the email and your call-to-action links, too.
8. Effective calls to action
The whole point of an outreach email is that the recipient of it responds in the way in which you would like. You want them to act, so make sure you include a perfectly engaging, undeniable call to action in your email, but make sure you only include one, so things don’t become confusing or overwhelming. Decide what you want the recipient of the email to do and state it clearly at the bottom of the email. A single call to action can apparently increase clicks by 371%, so think carefully what you would like yours to be and make it stand out. You want to persuade, but also to be specific. The call to action should sum up the entire content of your email.
9. Avoid jargon and buzz words
If you want to irritate your recipient, use annoying and over used buzz spam words like ‘Apply now’, ‘Million cash bonus!’,‘Earn $ extra income,’ ‘Free fast cash!’ etc – you are not advertising a cheap garage sale or running a trashy get rich scheme! Also, and this may seem strange – but the stats back it up – exclude the word ‘newsletter’ as rates of emails being opened plummet by nearly 19% when you use this word in the subject line. Who knew, right?
10. The perfect follow up
Are you going to send that email and then leave it there? Sit back and wait for the clicks and the responses and the engagement? No! You need to follow up, but be savvy about it. Don’t spam over and over asking the recipient why they haven’t responded. Don’t send emails with the subject line ‘last chance’ or ‘final attempt.’ Follow up emails can boost responses – after all, your recipient may have been super busy and not noticed the first one – but keep them in line with your initial email. Don’t be annoying; general nudges with slightly new content could work well. Persistence, as we know, is bound to pay off, so schedule those follow ups in your diary and think carefully about what you want them to say and when.
With most outreach emails being ignored, follow the ten tips in this article and make yours stand out. Be relevant, tailor your tone, take time to create content that is punchy and engaging, don’t forget those call to actions and those follow up emails, and you and your emails will be good to go!
Christina Lee, a project manager at Top Canadian Writers and Top essay writing services, writes about marketing news and new technologies, for Dissertation writing service, and other websites.