Web Marketing Strategy Update

If you are a webmaster looking to increase sales and conversions, establishing a quality relationship with bloggers is crucial.

Long gone are the days where you could throw a few dozen cheap backlinks at your site, buy 2 cent traffic or stuff keywords to rank better.

Bloggers often have tens of thousands of followers, bloggers can rapidly direct traffic to your website, and bloggers can provide essential backlinks to increase your search engine presence.

All online relationships start the same way, outreach. But it’s critical that you get it right. The difference between a good outreach email and a GREAT one could make our break your entire online marketing efforts.

Here are 5 Tips to Craft a Killer Outreach Email

Be Sincere:

Make sure your outreach emails are sincere. Be sure to quickly address the blogger by their first name. Do not say “dear blogger”, “Dear Webmaster” or “hello CEO”. Any intelligent person can see right through these. Think of how you would react to an email that is clearly a bulk email sent solely for their gain.

BAD Example: “Dear Webmaster, I read your blog it is great value content…”

GOOD Example: “Hey John, I read yesterday’s blog post on the overtime playoff victory…

Offer Value to the Blogger

Refrain from begging. Webmasters and bloggers know the power that they have, they know the potential in their network. That being said — bloggers and webmasters can be very helpful. Just like anyone else in this world, they want to do things to better themselves (or better their website). Think of what you have to offer. If you are a graphic designer, offer to make a new logo. If you are a web designer, offer to help them with their website. Many people reading this are experienced search engine optimization, tell them you will promote their site if they help promote you.

Telling them you’ll help “promote” their website isn’t going to cut it. If you actually do plan on promoting their blog in exchange for their help, explicitly tell them how you are going to do it.

BAD Example: “I will promote your website on my network in exchange for a link”

GOOD Example: “I’m a graphic designer. I’d love to make you a new logo if you could help me out”

Keep them short

Make sure your outreach emails are short. Many top bloggers get bombarded with dozens (if not hundreds) of messages per day. Your email needs to get right to the point — you don’t want to fill an email with any unnecessary words, thereby making it harder to get through the Email.

I usually write my E-mail first, then cut out all unnecessary words. For an outreach E-mail, try to keep it under 150 words. You can always right much more in follow-up E-mails after you build rapport with the blogger.

Establish Credibility to Increase Conversion Rate

With emails, it’s often hard to tell the difference from spam and real emails. Make sure to clearly show your credibility. (Link to your LinkedIn page, your Facebook page, your website, your bio, etc)
Adding something as simple as a thumbnail of your photo to the bottom of the email can drastically increase the chance of a conversion. Bloggers are afraid they are responding to automated system (often time they are).

Get to Know the Bloggers

Make sure to find the right bloggers and be sure to focus directly on them. Research their blog, follow them on social networks, and get a feel for the blog before sending out any outreach.

There is no one size fits all E-mail that will work for every blogger. Rather then message a larger number of bloggers, focus on a smaller group that you can actually manage. Correspondence takes time and effort (especially when you actually write real responses)

Conclusion & Other Tips:

• If you can help it, do not use an “@Gmail” or “@Yahoo.com” E-mail, use a branded E-mail to your website — It looks more credible.
• The shorter the better!
• Use Excel (or any management software) to help manage correspondence. Remember: it takes time before getting the end result.
• Once you establish a relationship, ask them if they can refer you to other bloggers (chances are, they can)
• Don’t make it seem like the E-mail is solely being sent for your benefit.
• Spell check!

Jesse Leimgruber studies Computer Science & Stanford University and is an Internet marketing / SEO consultant at Rank Executives, who offer a variety of Link Building & SEO Packages for webmasters that are all based on blogging, webmaster outreach and White Hat SEO tactics.

Related articles

• Why Webmasters Aren’t Replying to Your Outreach
• SEO’s Persona Problem: The White Lie of Link Building
• Using Personal Experience To Qualify Your Outreach
• Everything Blogger Outreach: How to Start a Blogger Outreach Campaign
• What Bloggers Are Saying About Your PR Pitch
• Blogger Outreach: Download the Ebook

Don’t tell Facebook, but email marketing is still the most effective way to get business online. Even though people despise unsolicited spam mail, most still appreciate emails from the companies they care about. They’ve opted to be a part of your email list, and that means they want to hear from your business.

Directly contacting all the people who want to be contacted by you? Well, it’s easy to see why that works. If you really want to maximize the potential of your email list, however, you need to do some segmenting. Here are some tips on dividing up your list in ways that work.
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If you’re reading this article you probably already have an email marketing list, or are planning to start one. And chances are good that you have a website where people can register for your newsletter, which generates a small amount of leads each month, or a Facebook page where you promote your newsletter and other associated services.

But if you’re like most budding email marketers, you want more subscribers to your list; preferably quality recipients who are actually interested in what you have to say. The best way to achieve that is by enticing people with exciting offerings rather than standard, predictable and stale traditional marketing techniques. The following tactics are creative ways to grow your email list. Some may not be easy to implement, but they’re more likely to deliver results than the same old techniques that your competitors are already using (with dwindling success).
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Having a website is obviously the first step in any online business venture. The second step is to target relevant traffic, and inspire them to take a look at your site. The third step is to get them to do something on your site.

This may be to purchase something, or to undertake some sort of call to action. But one of the most important things you can do, is to obtain their email address legitimately. This article will describe why this is important, and why developing an opt-in subscriber list should be the cornerstone of your business.

Each time a targeted visitor arrives at your website or blog, they’ll in all likelihood spend around 7 seconds before making the decision to stay or move on, and look at the next one. You really haven’t much time to grab their attention, and when they leave, it’s highly likely they’ll never return. The fact is, approximately 99.5% of your potential customers will leave your site without obtaining anything. Your site effectively attracts just 0.5% of your hits. Why not consider the huge majority?

But if you were to obtain their email addresses you could then communicate with them directly, providing even more information about your unique products or services. That’s the basis of developing an opt-in subscriber list.

However, you don’t get something for nothing, so you’ll need to present them with some sort of incentive to get their email address in return. It could be something like a free ebook or report, relating to the product and/or service you’re promoting. It could be a simple 7-day e-course, a free trial, or even a discount coupon code for a future purchase. Think of what ot would be pertinent to offer, that will inspire them to provide you with their email addresses.

As your site receives more visitors, your goal is to get more and more people on to your opt-in subscriber list, so that eventually, you’ll have an impressive list of prospects that you can contact on a continuing basis. These people are likely to see you as an expert in your field, and will therefore be far more willing to purchase anything you ask them to.

All the most successful internet and affiliate marketers utilize this strategy. It’s a basic marketing tool, but one of the most important tools you need to create an online business with long-term sustainability. All the major companies like as Amazon, Best Buy, Target, etc. use it as well.

Building relationships and communicating with your subscribers regularly is vital to your success. It makes the difference between a list of names and a responsive list of buyers — people who will not only purchase your own products, but others you recommend while taking a cut as an affiliate. Since your optin list is so essential to your business success, ensure you make regular backups of it. You don’t want to end up having to start all over again.

With the right strategy, you’ll be surprised at how simple and effective building an opt-in subscriber list can be. And it’s the only way to make money from 99.5% of visitors who intended to leave your website, never to return.

Discover exactly how to get (and keep) more visitors to your website or blog with a free 7-day e-course from Charles McDuffie’s List Building Academy and see how to create a successful online business by first building an opt-in subscriber list.