5 essential elements for outreach
Quality content doesn’t guarantee you valuable links and citations, or increased brand awareness for example. You need to take the time to consider your outreach approach because if done correctly this will be the key to your success.
So firstly, what is outreach? Outreach is when you contact relevant journalists, influencers and bloggers to promote your content with the intention of them sharing, linking to or hosting your content on their site. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the five essential elements for outreach.
It’s essential that you think about your audience at the ideation stage. This includes individuals that will read your content, but also those that will link to and share it. Will they be interested in your topic?
Research
Before you start your outreach, make sure that you are contacting the right industry and then hone it down to the right department and individual. Otherwise, you run the risk of contacting someone who has no interest in your content. If it isn’t relevant to them, don’t waste their time. Tools like Gorkana are very effective for locating the most up-to-date contact details for journalists.
Timing
Timing is key. If a story breaks that is relevant to your client or business you need to be quick to react. Be the first to talk about it, but make sure that you back up your content with statistics, sources and quotes.
If the story has been around for a while, take time to consider your approach. Imagine a room full of people having the same conversation; if you’re just going to add the same content to the mix then there’s no point in doing so.
Storytelling
Another tip for improving the success of your outreach is to utilize storytelling. You need to bear in mind that journalists and bloggers get thousands of calls and emails a day. So you need to make yours stand out. Make sure that you include the details that make it unique in your pitch; the who, what, why, when, where and how. Try to get into the habit of describing your content’s topic in just one sentence. This will help you to get straight to the point when you’re outreaching and get journalists and bloggers invested from the get-go.
Goals
Aim high. Don’t just aim for the low-hanging fruit. Once larger publications and sites pick up your story, this will often lead to a snowball effect, with the smaller publications and sites taking notice of what the larger ones are talking about.
