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In the realm of digital marketing, driving traffic is crucial. Increasing traffic often involves effectively promoting your content to secure links and social media shares.
Even highly popular bloggers face challenges in this area. Surprisingly, even established digital content creators with engaged audiences struggle to generate the desired level of interaction.
For smaller blogs, this can be disheartening. If even Seth Godin has posts that go unnoticed, how can you expect your grandma’s cheesecake recipe to go viral, despite being the best cheesecake ever?
But fear not, because I’m about to introduce you to a valuable tactic called the pre-outreach strategy.
So, what exactly is a pre-outreach strategy? It involves laying the groundwork before releasing your content, building relationships with industry players, journalists, editors, and other bloggers.
Typically, this approach involves a mutual partnership where you promote someone else’s content, and they reciprocate by promoting yours.
What’s truly remarkable is that pre-outreach isn’t limited to blogging. It can also be applied to email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), influencer marketing, and social media marketing campaigns.
If your pre-outreach strategy is effective, you’ll experience a consistent increase in traffic, even without releasing new content.
Sounds fantastic, right? Let’s delve into the process of creating and implementing a pre-outreach strategy that can generate links and shares for all your content.
Before we proceed, there’s one crucial point to consider: if your business lacks visibility, investing time in a pre-outreach strategy may not be the most effective use of your resources. Instead, it would be wise to focus on improving your profile first. Once you’ve achieved that, you can revisit your pre-outreach plan.
Begin by examining your social circles
I always initiate my pre-outreach campaigns by compiling a comprehensive list of experts and partners with whom I frequently collaborate on content promotion.
This task becomes effortless if you utilize CRM systems like Nimble or Pitchbox or maintain a spreadsheet containing their names and contact information.
I suggest starting by reviewing your existing list of subscribers and social media followers. There’s a high probability that among them, you’ll find individuals who would be interested in sharing your content.
Once I have created this spreadsheet, I categorize my contacts into two separate lists.
The first list comprises individuals whom I will approach to request their support in endorsing and promoting my content across their channels.
The second list consists of people to whom I will reach out regarding the possibility of obtaining backlinks.
In both cases, I always keep in mind that I am asking for a favor. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that helping me out is easy and beneficial for them. No one appreciates being asked to do a favor by someone who makes it difficult or offers nothing in return. I also take the opportunity to inquire if they have anything they would like me to promote.
Some people may think that the best way to obtain backlinks is by sending out mass emails to unfamiliar recipients. However, I do not recommend this approach.
Recent studies have shown that cold outreach emails have a response rate of only 1-5%. My personal experience confirms this statistic. It took me around 40 cold emails to acquire a single link.
As a rule of thumb, I only ask people to reference my content if I know them and have previously collaborated with them on link-building endeavors. With the help of Pitchbox, I can easily filter out contacts I have not built links with from my pre-outreach list.
While I occasionally utilize automated email outreach funnels for pre-outreach, I prefer to handle it manually. This allows me to double-check that I am sending emails to the right individuals and add a personal touch to each message.
Another noteworthy aspect is that, thanks to my involvement in the Digital Olympus conference, I have established connections with several digital marketing influencers who are always willing to assist me in spreading the word when my content goes live.
Launching your own event or podcast is an excellent idea as it helps you cultivate relationships with industry leaders. For instance, Afritia serves as a platform to effectively showcase products and services by involving the guests he invites to the show, covering topics such as SEO and copywriting.
Lastly, if you are fortunate enough to have strong ties with companies that send out mass emails to their subscribers, this can be a valuable resource.
The concept is straightforward: Request to be featured in their mass emails and, in return, offer to mention their content in your email marketing campaign.
As you can see, the more solid relationships you have established, the greater your chances of obtaining backlinks and social shares become.
Now, let’s proceed to the next steps after reaching out to all your contacts.
Going Beyond Your Circles To Secure Links
Expanding your outreach beyond your existing contacts is crucial to secure an ample number of links. This is where pre-outreach comes into play, allowing you to “warm up” individuals and establish relationships with them.
The key is to initially offer value and benefits to the contacts you’ll be engaging with in your pre-outreach efforts, creating a sense of reciprocity.
Nevertheless, it’s important to note that if you are unfamiliar with industry experts in your field, this process may require a significant amount of time and effort.
Those are the steps you should take:
Identify experts who frequently contribute guest posts to diverse blogs.
To compile a list of contributors, one approach is to begin by examining websites that accept guest posts.
Alternatively, you can utilize the “Top Authors” tool on BuzzSumo, where you can conduct a search using keywords relevant to your pre-outreach content. This will provide you with a list of authors.
Next, you should review the list of authors and identify contributors who have published across multiple blogs.
Craft A Powerful Value Proposition
Crafting a compelling value proposition is crucial for those of us who aren’t as widely recognized as Rand Fishkin or Matthew Woodward.
In our case, there are two straightforward ways to approach potential linkers:
- Request their quotes: If they are interested and have the time, ask them to provide a quote that you can include in your content.
- Share your final draft: Invite them to review your final draft and see if there’s any specific post of theirs that they would like to reference.
Both of these options offer value to the potential linkers while also helping to establish a mutually beneficial relationship.
Additionally, I highly recommend checking out this post that provides valuable insights on increasing email outreach response rates.
Here’s a hint: I recently conducted a roundup with numerous experts and realized that my new post would be published soon. I took the opportunity to ask the contributors to consider linking to my recent article. Surprisingly, I received ten links almost immediately because they were eager to be helpful, further strengthening our collaborative relationship.
The secret to working with unfamiliar individuals is to provide them with value. While cold mass emails may seem like a more convenient approach, investing your time and effort into building relationships with experts will yield significant results. Who knows, you might even become link-building partners in the future.
Start Building Rewarding Relationships
Now that you have a clear understanding of what a pre-outreach strategy entails, it’s time to put it into action.
However, you may soon realize that executing the strategy is not as simple as it may seem. In reality, you may encounter several roadblocks along the way, such as unresponsive emails from seemingly ideal linking partners or not receiving the expected level of shares.
But don’t let these setbacks discourage you. Remember, you’re playing the long game. As long as you approach each person with a proposition that benefits them, you will gradually build your network and generate the desired exposure you need. Stay persistent and focused on your goals. Hire a outreach expert for quick response and improve your website seo.
