{"id":14470,"date":"2019-06-04T12:43:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T20:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?p=14470"},"modified":"2023-07-17T19:35:44","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T00:35:44","slug":"blogger-outreach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/blogger-outreach\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogger Outreach: How to Do It and Scale It Without Feeling Like a&nbsp;Jerk"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intro-txt\">Most people <em>hate<\/em>&nbsp;blogger outreach. It makes them feel like a jerk. But it doesn\u2019t have to be that way. It\u2019s possible to do outreach, at scale, without feeling like a spammer.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<p>You did<em>&nbsp;a thing<\/em>&nbsp;on the internet.<\/p>\n<p>You think it\u2019s good, but nobody knows it exists.<\/p>\n<p>You wish there were more buzz about it\u2014more tweets, links, all that good&nbsp;stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Not one to be defeated, you head to Google in search of a solution. That\u2019s when you come across this <em>blogger outreach <\/em>thing.<\/p>\n<p>It sounds like hell. Sending templated emails, en masse, to strangers, who will <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">probably<\/span>&nbsp;definitely hate you and confirm your worst fear: your content sucks\u2026 that\u2019s why nobody cares about&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"772\" height=\"175\" class=\"wp-image-27882\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/outreach-response.png\" alt=\"outreach response\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/outreach-response.png 772w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/outreach-response-768x174.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/outreach-response-680x154.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 772px) 100vw, 772px\"><\/p>\n<p>But still, you have nothing to lose, so you decide to give it a&nbsp;go.<\/p>\n<p>Now you\u2019re here\u2026 hoping to learn how to do this thing without feeling like an annoying door-to-door salesperson.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, that\u2019s <em>exactly<\/em> what I\u2019m going to teach&nbsp;you.&nbsp;\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\">\n<h2>What is blogger outreach?<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Blogger outreach is a process of putting your product or content in front of relevant bloggers and journalists by sending them <strong>personalized<\/strong>&nbsp;emails. The primary objective of blogger outreach is to convince those with large targeted audiences to talk about you and link to your website.<\/p>\n<p>How is that different from SPAM, you&nbsp;ask?<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s play a quick&nbsp;game.<\/p>\n<p>Below are two emails I received recently. All you need to do is tell me whether you see them as outreach or&nbsp;spam.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"727\" height=\"350\" class=\"wp-image-27864\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/bad-outreach.png\" alt=\"bad outreach\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/bad-outreach.png 727w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/bad-outreach-680x327.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 727px) 100vw, 727px\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"674\" height=\"596\" class=\"wp-image-27891\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/good-outreach.png\" alt=\"good outreach\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/good-outreach.png 674w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/good-outreach-481x425.png 481w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 674px) 100vw, 674px\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"polls-12\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t<form id=\"polls_form_12\" class=\"wp-polls-form\" action=\"\/index.php\" method=\"post\">\n\t\t<p style=\"display: none;\"><input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_12_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"b943df69c9\"><\/p>\n\t\t<p style=\"display: none;\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"poll_id\" value=\"12\"><\/p>\n\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Which of these two emails is&nbsp;SPAM?<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"polls-12-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-130\" name=\"poll_12\" value=\"130\"> <label for=\"poll-answer-130\">Email #1<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-131\" name=\"poll_12\" value=\"131\"> <label for=\"poll-answer-131\">Email #2<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-132\" name=\"poll_12\" value=\"132\"> <label for=\"poll-answer-132\">Both!<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><input type=\"button\" name=\"vote\" value=\"   Vote   \" class=\"Buttons\" onclick=\"poll_vote(12);\"><\/p><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"#ViewPollResults\" onclick=\"poll_result(12); return false;\" title=\"View Results Of This Poll\">View Results<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"polls-12-loading\" class=\"wp-polls-loading\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-polls\/images\/loading.gif\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading ...\" title=\"Loading ...\" class=\"wp-polls-image\">&nbsp;Loading&nbsp;\u2026<\/div>\n\n<p>Leave your vote before you read any further. I\u2019m curious to see the results.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026..<\/p>\n<p>My verdict? The first email is spam; the second email&nbsp;isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s clear that both emails are templates, but only the second one makes any attempt whatsoever to be relevant, personable, charming, and engaging.<\/p>\n<p>The first is literally just some guy broadcasting the fact that he\u2019s written an article.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to another point:<\/p>\n<h3>Outreach != broadcasting<\/h3>\n<p>Nobody wants to receive emails like that first example in their inbox. If they did, they\u2019d sign up to your email&nbsp;list.<\/p>\n<p>To assume otherwise is just plain disrespectful.<\/p>\n<p>People aren\u2019t stupid. They can spot a generic outreach template a mile off, and when they do, they\u2019ll know three things about&nbsp;you:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>You\u2019re selfish.<\/li>\n<li>You\u2019re lazy.<\/li>\n<li>You don\u2019t give a damn about them or their business.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Wow. What a great first impression.&nbsp;\ud83d\ude44<\/p>\n<p>But here\u2019s the thing: nearly all outreach emails look like this, which can lead to two somewhat contradictory thoughts:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>These outreach emails are terrible. Surely nobody ever replies to these things, right!?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>These outreach emails are terrible. But everyone seems to be sending them, so they must work,&nbsp;right!?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Weirdly, both of those statements are kind of&nbsp;true\u2026<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\">\n<h2>The two outreach approaches<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>There are two main trains of thought (approaches) in the world of blogger outreach:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The <em>sniper<\/em>&nbsp;approach.<\/li>\n<li>The <em>shotgun<\/em>&nbsp;approach.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Let\u2019s briefly cover what these&nbsp;are.<\/p>\n<h3>The sniper approach<\/h3>\n<p>Advocates of the sniper approach choose their \u201ctargets\u201d carefully and send highly-personalized outreach emails to each of&nbsp;them.<\/p>\n<p>They believe that effective outreach is all about giving some kind of value to a relatively small list of targeted prospects and expecting something positive in return.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This is the approach we use and advocate at Ahrefs.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>The shotgun approach<\/h3>\n<p>Advocates of the shotgun approach send lots of outreach emails to a broader list of \u201ctargets\u201d and spend little or no time personalizing those emails.<\/p>\n<p>They believe that effective outreach is all about \u201cscale\u201d\u2014more emails equals more&nbsp;links.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026..<\/p>\n<p>The reason bad blogger outreach still exists is that so many opt for the <em>shotgun<\/em>&nbsp;approach.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to see why,&nbsp;too:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It takes less&nbsp;time.<\/li>\n<li>It requires less effort.<\/li>\n<li>It <em>feels<\/em>&nbsp;like you\u2019re making tracks\u2026 even if you aren\u2019t.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, in the interest of being totally honest and transparent, here\u2019s the&nbsp;truth:<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re playing a short-term game, and couldn\u2019t care less about burning bridges, the shotgun approach makes a lot of&nbsp;sense.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, from a pure link building perspective, there\u2019s no difference between sending 100 personalized emails and convincing 10% of them to link to you, and sending 1,000 non-personalized emails and convincing only 1% to link to&nbsp;you.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"404\" class=\"wp-image-27885\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sniper-vs-shotgun-table.png\" alt=\"sniper vs shotgun table\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sniper-vs-shotgun-table.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sniper-vs-shotgun-table-768x345.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sniper-vs-shotgun-table-680x305.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>So, personal preference and contempt for spammy emails aside, why don\u2019t we recommend the shotgun approach?<\/p>\n<p>Three reasons:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Link prospects aren\u2019t infinite<\/strong>. No matter what niche you\u2019re in, there are only a finite number of websites from which a backlink is likely to move the needle. If you burn through and alienate 99% of these prospects, the ceiling for your link building efforts is going to be pretty low.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Deliverability issues.<\/strong>&nbsp;Have you ever seen <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/mail\/answer\/1366858?co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS&amp;hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">that button in Gmail<\/a>&nbsp;that marks emails as spam? The more people that click this, the less Google is going to trust your emails. And if that happens, your emails may end up in your recipients\u2019 spam folders.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lower quality links. <\/strong>Because bad outreach is so prevalent, anyone with a half-decent website has likely received shotgun-style emails before. So, it\u2019s probable that this approach is more likely to work on those with newer or weaker sites who don\u2019t get so many bad pitches.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div class=\"sidenote\"><div class=\"sidenote-title\">Sidenote.<\/div> If anyone wants to test point #3, or show proof that I\u2019m entirely wrong in this assumption, I\u2019ll be happy to change my&nbsp;tune!&nbsp;\ud83d\ude42&nbsp;<\/div>\n<p>For those reasons, the process that I\u2019m about to outline focuses on a sniper approach.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\">\n<h2>Step #1: Find prospects<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Many <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/link-building-strategies\/\">link building strategies<\/a>&nbsp;rely on a specific way to find outreach prospects.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/skyscraper-technique\/\">Skyscraper technique<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;= Websites that&nbsp;link to inferior articles.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/resource-page-link-building\/\">Resource page link building<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;= Websites with relevant resource pages.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/broken-link-building\/\">Broken link building<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;= Websites&nbsp;linking to relevant dead&nbsp;pages.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/unlinked-mentions\/\">Unlinked mentions<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;= Websites that&nbsp;mention but don\u2019t link to&nbsp;you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Those tactics work well, but only in specific circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re only&nbsp;pulling prospects within the confines of specific tactics, you\u2019re leaving a lot of links on the&nbsp;table.<\/p>\n<p>So here are <strong>four<\/strong>&nbsp;main ways to find more outreach prospects:<\/p>\n<h3>1. People who\u2019re featured in your article<\/h3>\n<p>If you\u2019re mentioning and linking to useful resources from other bloggers in your content, then why not reach out and let them know about the mention?<\/p>\n<p>This one is easy enough to&nbsp;do.<\/p>\n<p>Load up your blog post, then skim through looking for mentions of bloggers in your&nbsp;space.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"669\" height=\"149\" class=\"wp-image-27896\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/mention-in-article.png\" alt=\"mention in article\"><\/p>\n<p>If this sounds like too much work, you can speed up the process using a tool that extracts all external links from the page, like <a href=\"https:\/\/urlextractor.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"712\" height=\"600\" class=\"wp-image-27852\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/extract-links.png\" alt=\"extract links\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/extract-links.png 712w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/extract-links-504x425.png 504w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 712px) 100vw, 712px\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>IMPORTANT!<\/strong>&nbsp;Make sure to choose \u201cExternal\u201d from the drop-down (there\u2019s no point to extracting internal links) and uncheck the \u201cImage\u201d and \u201cMeta tag\u201d&nbsp;boxes.<\/p>\n<p>Export the results to CSV, then sift through deleting any irrelevant prospects.<\/p>\n<h3>2. People who\u2019ve written articles on the same&nbsp;topic<\/h3>\n<p>If someone has written an article about the same topic as you have, then you can bet that they\u2019re pretty damn interested in that topic. That\u2019s why I only write about SEO and not fashion\u2014I couldn\u2019t care less about fashion, and my wardrobe consists mainly of joggers and $2 t-shirts.<\/p>\n<p>Here are two ways to find these people:<\/p>\n<h4>Use Google<\/h4>\n<p>Head over to Google and search for some keywords related to the topic of your content. Collect a list of articles that appear in the results.<\/p>\n<p>If I were looking for prospects for this post, I\u2019d search for something like \u201cblogger outreach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"563\" class=\"wp-image-27857\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/blogger-outreach-search.png\" alt=\"blogger outreach search\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/blogger-outreach-search.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/blogger-outreach-search-768x480.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/blogger-outreach-search-680x425.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>Because people are generally more likely to update newer posts that they still care about, you might also want to filter for and focus on \u201cfresh\u201d content. To do that, hit <em>Tools &gt; Any time &gt; choose a recent date range<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"796\" height=\"99\" class=\"wp-image-27871\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/google-time.png\" alt=\"google time\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/google-time.png 796w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/google-time-768x96.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/google-time-680x85.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 796px) 100vw, 796px\"><\/p>\n<p>Beyond that, you can also get creative with <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/google-advanced-search-operators\/\">advanced Google search operators<\/a>&nbsp;to find super-relevant and hyper-specific results.<\/p>\n<p>For example, this article mentions the shotgun vs. sniper outreach approaches, so I could use search operators to find only posts about blogger outreach that <strong>don\u2019t<\/strong>&nbsp;mention those two things.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"331\" class=\"wp-image-27867\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/advanced-search.png\" alt=\"advanced search\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/advanced-search.png 800w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/advanced-search-768x318.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/advanced-search-680x281.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\"><\/p>\n<p>That way, I\u2019m already starting to build up an excuse for my outreach (\u201cI saw that you wrote about blogger outreach but didn\u2019t mention the shotgun vs. sniper approaches - my article mentions those\u2026\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>But still, copy-pasting hundreds of URLs from Google search results can be quite tedious (unless you\u2019re good with <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/web-scraping-for-marketers\/\">scrapers<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, you can speed this process up using <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/seo-toolbar\">Ahrefs\u2019 SEO toolbar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Just install the toolbar, then hit the download arrow to extract and export all search results on the page to a&nbsp;CSV.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"534\" height=\"174\" class=\"wp-image-27854\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-toolbar.png\" alt=\"ahrefs toolbar\"><\/p>\n<p>Even better, the CSV includes all <a href=\"\/blog\/ahrefs-seo-metrics\/\" data-ahr=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/seo-metrics\/\">Ahrefs SEO metrics<\/a>&nbsp;like Domain Rating, estimated organic traffic, and so on. (These will come in handy&nbsp;later).<\/p>\n<p>Still too tedious? Keep reading.<\/p>\n<h4>Use Content Explorer<\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/content-explorer\">Content Explorer<\/a>&nbsp;is a searchable and filterable database of over a BILLION web pages, from which you can export tens of thousands of results in just a couple of clicks.<\/p>\n<p>If we search for blogger outreach, we get 6,026 results.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"593\" height=\"291\" class=\"wp-image-27863\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-blogger-outreach.png\" alt=\"content explorer blogger outreach\"><\/p>\n<p>All these are instantly exportable to&nbsp;CSV.<\/p>\n<p>But because Content Explorer searches for mentions of these keywords anywhere on the page by default, it often pays to get a bit more granular.<\/p>\n<p>So let\u2019s change the search type to \u201cintitle,\u201d put our term in quotes, and toggle the \u201cOne article per domain\u201d button so that we don\u2019t end up pitching the same sites more than&nbsp;once.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"597\" height=\"290\" class=\"wp-image-27848\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-title-search.png\" alt=\"content explorer title search\"><\/p>\n<p>Now we\u2019re down to 385 hyper-relevant results.<\/p>\n<p>If your list is still too big, you might also want to use the \u201chighlight unlinked domains\u201d feature to find only websites that have never linked to you before:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"580\" height=\"152\" class=\"wp-image-27847\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/unlinked-content-explorer.png\" alt=\"unlinked content explorer\"><\/p>\n<p>These \u201cunlinked\u201d prospects should be given special care in your outreach emails because a link from them will bring more value than a link from someone who has already linked to&nbsp;you.<\/p>\n<p>How do we know? Because we <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/search-traffic-study\/\">studied<\/a>&nbsp;almost a billion webpages and found a clear correlation between the number of backlinks from unique websites (referring domains) and traffic:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" class=\"wp-image-27866\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/referring-domains-vs-organic-search-traffic-ahrefs-content-explorer.png\" alt=\"referring domains vs organic search traffic ahrefs content explorer\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/referring-domains-vs-organic-search-traffic-ahrefs-content-explorer.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/referring-domains-vs-organic-search-traffic-ahrefs-content-explorer-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/referring-domains-vs-organic-search-traffic-ahrefs-content-explorer-638x425.png 638w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>Once you\u2019re happy, hit export to download the results to&nbsp;CSV.<\/p>\n<h3>3. People who\u2019ve linked to articles on the same&nbsp;topic<\/h3>\n<p>Head over to Content Explorer and search for something related to the topic of your article.<\/p>\n<p>Then follow these two steps to identify the articles with the most backlinks:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Set \u201cReferring domains\u201d to only show articles with at least 10 websites linking to&nbsp;them;<\/li>\n<li>Sort the results by referring domains (high to&nbsp;low)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"298\" class=\"wp-image-27879\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/referring-domains-ce.png\" alt=\"referring domains ce\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/referring-domains-ce.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/referring-domains-ce-768x254.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/referring-domains-ce-680x225.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>From there, it\u2019s just a matter of putting the URL of each article into <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Site Explorer<\/a>&nbsp;and examining its backlinks one by one to see if there\u2019s an opportunity for outreach.<\/p>\n<p>This can be super tedious at first, but with some experience, you get very good at identifying the most promising outreach prospects just by looking at the title of the linking page and the text that surrounds a&nbsp;link.<\/p>\n<p>You can also use the inbuilt filters to hone in on the best prospects.<\/p>\n<p>This is one of my favorite filter combinations for speeding up this&nbsp;task:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"903\" height=\"395\" class=\"wp-image-27888\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/filters-backlinks.png\" alt=\"filters backlinks\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/filters-backlinks.png 903w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/filters-backlinks-768x336.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/filters-backlinks-680x297.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 903px) 100vw, 903px\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"recommendation\"><div class=\"recommendation-title\">ALTERNATIVE METHOD<\/div><div class=\"recommendation-content\">\n<p>It\u2019s also possible to use Google to find prospects, as I mentioned in the previous point.<\/p>\n<p>You can then extract and export the SERP using the Ahrefs SEO toolbar, which will give you a spreadsheet that looks something like&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"230\" class=\"wp-image-27892\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-toolbar-export.png\" alt=\"ahrefs toolbar export\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-toolbar-export.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-toolbar-export-768x196.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-toolbar-export-680x174.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>Just sort by the Referring Domains column from high to low, then paste any relevant pages into Ahrefs Site Explorer one by&nbsp;one.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<h3>4. People who tweeted articles on the same&nbsp;topic<\/h3>\n<p>I listed the four groups of prospects in order of decreasing effectiveness.<\/p>\n<p>So this group is the least effective of the three for two reasons:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Firstly<\/strong>, people tweet out a lot more content than they publish or link to. So unless you\u2019re also planning to ask these people to tweet your article (which we don\u2019t recommend), the chances of them linking to you is slim to&nbsp;none.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Secondly<\/strong>, people tweet a lot, and usually, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/the-intersect\/wp\/2016\/06\/16\/six-in-10-of-you-will-share-this-link-without-reading-it-according-to-a-new-and-depressing-study\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">they don\u2019t even read what they share<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But that doesn\u2019t mean that you should ignore this group of prospects altogether.<\/p>\n<p>As with the other two groups, it\u2019s just a matter of cherry-picking the best prospects to reach out to and investing some time to personalize your outreach.<\/p>\n<p>Finding people who tweeted a particular piece of content is quite easy. Just plug the URL into a Twitter search:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"485\" class=\"wp-image-27862\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/twitter-search.png\" alt=\"twitter search\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/twitter-search.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/twitter-search-768x414.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/twitter-search-680x366.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>By default, Twitter will show you the \u201cTop\u201d tweets, which is very convenient for outreach prospecting. But you can also click on the \u201cLatest\u201d tab to see everything they\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n<p>The issue with this approach is that <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/web-scraping-for-marketers\/\">scraping<\/a>&nbsp;the data you need from Twitter is a total nightmare.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, we have that data in <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/content-explorer\">Content Explorer<\/a>\u2014just paste in a URL and check the \u201cWho tweeted\u201d tab:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-27926\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/who-tweeted-ahrefs.png\" alt width=\"900\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/who-tweeted-ahrefs.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/who-tweeted-ahrefs-768x291.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/who-tweeted-ahrefs-680x258.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>However, if you\u2019re going to bother doing this at all, you should filter for recent tweets only.<\/p>\n<p>Reason being, people are unlikely to remember what they tweeted last week, let alone a month or six months ago. If you hit people up with a \u201cHey, saw you tweeted x last December\u201d in mid-August, then you\u2019re going to look like a total stalker.<\/p>\n<p>I recommend opting for \u201cLast 24 hours\u201d or \u201cLast 7 days\u201d at the&nbsp;most.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"816\" height=\"329\" class=\"wp-image-27895\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/last-7-days-who-tweeted.png\" alt=\"last 7 days who tweeted\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/last-7-days-who-tweeted.png 816w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/last-7-days-who-tweeted-768x310.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/last-7-days-who-tweeted-680x274.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 816px) 100vw, 816px\"><\/p>\n<p>The only problem with this approach is that you\u2019ll often end up with few or no results, which renders the whole activity somewhat pointless. So here\u2019s a much better workflow:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Search for a topic in Content Explorer;<\/li>\n<li>Filter for only articles published in the last 7-30 days and only \u201cPublished once\u201d;<\/li>\n<li>Sort the results by Twitter shares.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Now you should have a list of relevant articles, with tweets, that are all recent.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"611\" class=\"wp-image-27856\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-tweet-search.png\" alt=\"content explorer tweet search\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-tweet-search.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-tweet-search-768x521.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-tweet-search-626x425.png 626w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\">\n<h2>Step #2. Segment your prospects<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Good outreach relies on <strong>not<\/strong>&nbsp;treating everyone the&nbsp;same.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why you should divide your list of prospects into groups according to their level of \u201cinfluence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s are the four groups our CMO, Tim Soulo<a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/outreach\/\">&nbsp;recommends<\/a>\u2014which generally work very&nbsp;well:<\/p>\n<h3>1. Sharks<\/h3>\n<p>These are the people with a huge audience and notable achievements.<\/p>\n<p>In the marketing and entrepreneurial space, this would be people like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gary Vaynerchuk<\/li>\n<li>Tim Ferriss<\/li>\n<li>Guy Kawasaki<\/li>\n<li>Seth Godin<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>How to get on their&nbsp;radar<\/h4>\n<p>These people don\u2019t have time to read emails from strangers, so your only chance to reach them is by a personal introduction or by doing something really creative and outstanding.<\/p>\n<h4>Should you reach out to&nbsp;them?<\/h4>\n<p><strong>No<\/strong>. It might seem enticing to pursue these prospects, but it\u2019ll be too tough to get their attention.<\/p>\n<h3>2. Big&nbsp;Fish<\/h3>\n<p>These people are not as famous as the Sharks, but their audience is big enough to make an impact on your own business.<\/p>\n<p>In marketing, <em>Big Fish <\/em>might be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Brian Dean<\/li>\n<li>Noah Kagan<\/li>\n<li>Glen Allsopp<\/li>\n<li>Robbie Richards<\/li>\n<li>Matthew Woodward<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>How to get on their&nbsp;radar<\/h4>\n<p>There\u2019s a good chance to reach them with a nice personal email, but <em>never<\/em>&nbsp;with a generic template.<\/p>\n<p>Asking <em>Big Fish<\/em>&nbsp;for tweets and links is unproductive (and silly). You will get much more value by asking them to critique your work or validate your&nbsp;ideas.<\/p>\n<p>If what you\u2019re doing is worth their attention, they will tweet and link to it anyway.<\/p>\n<h4>Should you reach out to&nbsp;them?<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Yes<\/strong>. A link or tweet from these people can have a lot of value to your business.<\/p>\n<h3>3. Small&nbsp;fish<\/h3>\n<p>These people don\u2019t have a big audience yet. Their websites are only just starting to get traction and they are actively promoting themselves by contributing to niche communities, writing <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/guest-blogging\/\">guest posts<\/a>&nbsp;and participating in all sorts of events.<\/p>\n<h4>How to get on their&nbsp;radar<\/h4>\n<p>These people usually respond to personalized, respectful, and value-adding outreach emails, even if they\u2019re loosely template-based.<\/p>\n<h4>Should you reach out to&nbsp;them?<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Yes<\/strong>. While a link or tweet from one of these people won\u2019t bring as much value to your business as one from a <em>Big fish<\/em>, they\u2019re usually more eager to build relationships.<\/p>\n<h3>4. Spawn<\/h3>\n<p>They are just starting out in your industry and have yet to build a substantial audience.<\/p>\n<h4>How to get on their&nbsp;radar<\/h4>\n<p>These people will often reply to your outreach emails even if they\u2019re 100% templated.<\/p>\n<h4>Should you reach out to&nbsp;them?<\/h4>\n<p><strong>No<\/strong>. As harsh as it sounds, a link or tweet from these people won\u2019t offer much in the way of&nbsp;value.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026..<\/p>\n<p>So, now we know who we should and shouldn\u2019t reach out to, how do we segment the list of prospects we&nbsp;have?<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s start by filtering out the people we don\u2019t want to contact: <em>Sharks<\/em>&nbsp;and <em>Spawn<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no totally foolproof way of doing this, but I\u2019ve found that filtering by <a href=\"\/blog\/ahrefs-seo-metrics\/#section10\" data-ahr=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/seo-metrics\/#section10\">Domain Rating (DR)<\/a>&nbsp;is the best way to do it at&nbsp;scale.<\/p>\n<p>If you used Content Explorer (or the Ahrefs SEO toolbar + Google) to find and extract your initial list of prospects, the resulting CSV should have this metric for all the&nbsp;sites.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"765\" height=\"324\" class=\"wp-image-27850\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/domain-rating-export.png\" alt=\"domain rating export\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/domain-rating-export.png 765w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/domain-rating-export-680x288.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 765px) 100vw, 765px\"><\/p>\n<p>To filter out the Spawn, delete prospects with a DR lower than&nbsp;20.<\/p>\n<p>To filter out the Sharks, delete prospects with a DR higher than&nbsp;80.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sidenote\"><div class=\"sidenote-title\">Sidenote.<\/div> These numbers aren\u2019t set in stone, so feel free to play around with them. If you don\u2019t have so many prospects, you may want to be less restrictive with that lower DR filter.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div class=\"recommendation\"><div class=\"recommendation-title\">TIP<\/div><div class=\"recommendation-content\">\n<p>Don\u2019t have the Domain Rating for your list of prospects?<\/p>\n<p>Paste them into <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/batch-analysis\">Ahrefs\u2019 Batch Analysis tool<\/a>&nbsp;in batches of up to 200 at a&nbsp;time.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"269\" class=\"wp-image-27894\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/batch-analysis.png\" alt=\"batch analysis\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/batch-analysis.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/batch-analysis-768x230.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/batch-analysis-680x203.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>From here, you should be left only with <em>Big Fish<\/em>&nbsp;and <em>Small Fish<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>To segment this resulting list, you can once again filter by&nbsp;DR.<\/p>\n<p>As a general rule of thumb, I would class prospects with a DR equal to or above 50 as <em>Big Fish<\/em>, and those with a DR lower than 50 as <em>Small Fish<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IMPORTANT! <\/strong>This is not an exact science. It\u2019s up to you to choose how to segment your prospects.<\/p>\n<p>To reiterate, the reason for doing this is because <em>Big Fish<\/em>&nbsp;are more valuable than <em>Small fis<\/em>h, so it pays to spend more time and effort reaching out to those people.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\">\n<h2>Step #3: Find the <em>right<\/em>&nbsp;contact details<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Let\u2019s face it: this is the real bottleneck when it comes to doing blogger outreach at&nbsp;scale.<\/p>\n<p>Finding email addresses is tedious, time-consuming, and actually surprisingly tricky to automate\u2014at least if you care about finding the <em>right<\/em>&nbsp;contact details.<\/p>\n<p>Lots of people rely on some automated tools to scrape (or sometimes even guess) their outreach prospects\u2019 email addresses instead of investing a bit of time to research each person and find their actual email.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Tim\u2019s email address is listed on <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/team\">our team page<\/a>&nbsp;for everyone to see: <strong>timsoulo@ahrefs.com<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>But as Tim explains in <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/outreach\/\">his outreach guide<\/a>, some people prefer to send emails to a non\u2010existent <strong>tim@ahrefs.com<\/strong>, which are picked up by our catchall:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"451\" class=\"wp-image-27851\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/00-wrong-email-outreach.jpg\" alt=\"00 wrong email outreach\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/00-wrong-email-outreach.jpg 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/00-wrong-email-outreach-768x385.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/00-wrong-email-outreach-680x341.jpg 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>He&nbsp;ignores these emails.<\/p>\n<p>In his own&nbsp;words:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"small\"><div class=\"quote-content\">\n<p>The fact that a person didn\u2019t bother to find my real email tells me they\u2019re not that interested in getting in touch with me. So I\u2019m not interested in replying either.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"quote-info clearfix\"><div class=\"quote-photo\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tim Soulo\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/tim-soulo.jpg\"><\/div><div class=\"extra-box\"><span class=\"quote-author\">Tim Soulo,<\/span> <span class=\"quote-author-job\">Head of Marketing<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019m actually not going to go into much more detail about finding email addresses in this post because we already have <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/find-email-address\/\">a comprehensive guide showing eight ways to do that<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But what I am going to share is a nifty \u201chack\u201d to speed up this process.<\/p>\n<p>FYI, I\u2019ve not seen anyone share this tip before.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sidenote\"><div class=\"sidenote-title\">Sidenote.<\/div> Sam Oh told me about this, so he deserves the credit here!&nbsp;<\/div>\n<h3>The Hunter \u201cHack\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>Hunter.io is a popular automated tool for finding the email addresses associated with a website.<\/p>\n<p>For example, if you install <a href=\"https:\/\/chrome.google.com\/webstore\/detail\/hunter-find-email-address\/hgmhmanijnjhaffoampdlllchpolkdnj?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their Chrome extension<\/a>&nbsp;and hit it while browsing <em>ahrefs.com<\/em>, it\u2019ll kick back the email addresses of a few people you might recognize.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"638\" height=\"122\" class=\"wp-image-27875\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hunter-extension.png\" alt=\"hunter extension\"><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s cool, but there\u2019s a problem:<\/p>\n<p>You often end up with a list of many people\u2019s email addresses but have no clue to whom you should reach&nbsp;out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The problem here is a flawed methodology.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t start with a website, find the emails associated with it, then try to guess the best one. Instead, start with a name <em>and<\/em>&nbsp;website, then find that specific person\u2019s email address.<\/p>\n<p>Hunter has <a href=\"https:\/\/hunter.io\/email-finder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a tool<\/a>&nbsp;for this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"721\" height=\"187\" class=\"wp-image-27878\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hunter-name-search.png\" alt=\"hunter name search\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hunter-name-search.png 721w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hunter-name-search-680x176.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 721px) 100vw, 721px\"><\/p>\n<p>Even better, they have a bulk version of this tool, meaning you can upload a list of names and websites and Hunter will try to find <strong>each person\u2019s email address<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>So now only one question remains: how do you find a list of names and websites?<\/p>\n<p>Well, if your list of prospects came from Content Explorer, you may have noticed that we show author names for <strong>some<\/strong>&nbsp;of the results:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"583\" height=\"157\" class=\"wp-image-27874\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-author.png\" alt=\"content explorer author\"><\/p>\n<p>These appear in CSV exports too.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"712\" height=\"106\" class=\"wp-image-27893\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-author-1.png\" alt=\"content explorer author 1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-author-1.png 712w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/content-explorer-author-1-680x101.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 712px) 100vw, 712px\"><\/p>\n<p>The only thing that\u2019s missing is the raw domain. But you can pull that easily with this formula in Google Sheets: <code>=REGEXEXTRACT(C2,\"^(?:https?:\\\/\\\/)?(?:[^@\\n]+@)?(?:www\\.)?([^:\\\/\\n]+)\")<\/code><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"869\" height=\"162\" class=\"wp-image-27881\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sheets-domain-extract.gif\" alt=\"sheets domain extract\"><\/p>\n<p>You can then filter the spreadsheet only for URLs with author names, and upload to Hunter\u2019s bulk email finder tool.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"396\" height=\"315\" class=\"wp-image-27849\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/hunter-upload-bulk.png\" alt=\"hunter upload bulk\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"sidenote\"><div class=\"sidenote-title\">Sidenote.<\/div> If your prospects didn\u2019t come from Content Explorer, but rather <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Site Explorer<\/a>&nbsp;or Google, then you can do something similar by running the pages through <a href=\"https:\/\/urlprofiler.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">URL Profiler<\/a>.<\/div>\n<p>Of course, Hunter is never going to find emails for all the prospects, but it\u2019s an excellent way to get a headstart.<\/p>\n<p>You can use a virtual assistant to find the rest based on the process outlined <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/find-email-address\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommendation\"><div class=\"recommendation-title\">IMPORTANT<\/div><div class=\"recommendation-content\">\n<p><strong>Always<\/strong>&nbsp;verify your emails before starting an outreach campaign.<\/p>\n<p>If you fail to do this, bounces may affect the deliverability rate of your campaign.<\/p>\n<p>There are lots of tools out there for verifying emails, but <a href=\"https:\/\/neverbounce.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Neverbounce<\/a>&nbsp;and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerobounce.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zerobounce<\/a>&nbsp;are the two I\u2019ve seen the most success with.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\">\n<h2>Step #4. Craft your&nbsp;pitch<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>This is the point at which most outreach guides tell you to come up with a template for your campaign that looks something like&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Hey <strong>%First_Name%<\/strong>,<\/p>\n<p>I just came across your article: <strong>%URL_of_their_article%<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Great stuff!<\/p>\n<p>I noticed that you linked to this post: <strong>%URL_where_they_link_to%<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a great post, but I wrote an even better article on that same&nbsp;topic.<\/p>\n<p>Check it out here: <strong>%URL_of_my_article%<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I hope you can add a link to my post in your article or at least tweet&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Now there\u2019s nothing wrong with templates. You need them to succeed if you want to scale your outreach.<\/p>\n<p>But the problem with starting with a templated approach is obvious:<\/p>\n<p><strong>You end up with something that looks and feels like a template\u2026 because it&nbsp;is.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So, for now, throw away your templates and instead, focus on crafting a winning pitch to just ONE person.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some tips for doing that, a few of which come from <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/outreach\/\">this post<\/a>:<\/p>\n<h3>1. Evoke curiosity with your subject line<\/h3>\n<p>Get your subject line wrong, and nobody is going to open your email, let alone read what you have to say or link to&nbsp;you.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s probably why 2,200 people search for \u201cbest email subject lines\u201d every month in the US&nbsp;alone.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"343\" height=\"75\" class=\"wp-image-27868\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/best-email-subject-lines.png\" alt=\"best email subject lines\"><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re one of those people, please stop.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the advice in articles about \u201cbest subject lines\u201d is total garbage. Even if you don\u2019t want to take my word on that, what do you think happens when 2,200 people read the same article, with the same subject lines, and proceed to use&nbsp;them?<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s right, everyone ends up using the same subject lines, and <strong>nobody<\/strong>&nbsp;stands out.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, try to write a subject line that describes the reason for your email and evokes curiosity.<\/p>\n<p>Example:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Subject: <\/strong>Blogger outreach (5-step process)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You should also aim to keep your subject lines as short and sweet as possible. Otherwise, the email will get truncated in most email clients.<\/p>\n<p>And whatever you do, try to avoid sounding sleazy, sales-ey and robotic.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Subject: <\/strong>Josh, Compliment On One Of Your&nbsp;Posts!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Subject: <\/strong>You\u2019ve GOT to see&nbsp;this!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Subject:<\/strong>&nbsp;backlink request<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you\u2019re struggling, just pretend its a regular email to a work colleague.<\/p>\n<p>Why a colleague and not a friend? Because unfortunately, \u201clol\u201d isn\u2019t going to cut it as a subject line.<\/p>\n<h3>2. Show them you know&nbsp;them<\/h3>\n<p>Take the time to learn a little more about the person to whom you\u2019re reaching out, and your response rate will go through the&nbsp;roof.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s one of my favorite emails from a few years&nbsp;back:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"566\" height=\"292\" class=\"wp-image-27870\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/personalized-email.png\" alt=\"personalized email\"><\/p>\n<p>I sent this cold email I sent to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JulieJoyce?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Julie Joyce<\/a>&nbsp;in 2016. I knew from brief exchanges on Twitter that Julie was a HUGE <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alan_Partridge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alan Partridge<\/a>&nbsp;fan, so I incorporated that fact into my&nbsp;email.<\/p>\n<p>Was this extra effort worth&nbsp;it?<\/p>\n<p>Definitely. Not only did Julie and I exchange many an Alan Partridge-related email\u2026<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"677\" height=\"81\" class=\"wp-image-27872\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/julie-joyce-emails.png\" alt=\"julie joyce emails\"><\/p>\n<p>\u2026 but she also mentioned the email in <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/ill-stop-world-link-260383\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a column on SEL<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"612\" height=\"279\" class=\"wp-image-27876\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sej-julie.png\" alt=\"sej julie\"><\/p>\n<p>Julie linked to my website from that article too. Unfortunately, SEL stripped it.&nbsp;\ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n<p>Back to business\u2026<\/p>\n<p>I recommended showing the recipient that you know them in the first couple of lines of your email. Why? Because this part shows up before opening in most email clients\u2026<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1073\" height=\"38\" class=\"wp-image-27877\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/email-intro-client.png\" alt=\"email intro client\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/email-intro-client.png 1073w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/email-intro-client-768x27.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/email-intro-client-680x24.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1073px) 100vw, 1073px\"><\/p>\n<p>\u2026 so it\u2019s part of your first impression.<\/p>\n<h3>3. Avoid fake flattery<\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cHey, I just read your article about %topic%. Great&nbsp;stuff!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yeah\u2026 I believe you.&nbsp;\ud83d\ude44<\/p>\n<p>Empty compliments like this are in nearly all outreach emails, and there\u2019s just no need for&nbsp;them.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, do you really think you\u2019re fooling anyone with such a vague and clearly untrue statement? I doubt&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n<p>Either say something meaningful or don\u2019t say anything at&nbsp;all.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some good examples:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I love what you said about <strong>XXX<\/strong>. I\u2019m totally going to implement it this&nbsp;month.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Your story of <strong>XXX<\/strong>&nbsp;is totally inspiring. I\u2019ve just shared it with a couple of my friends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Still sound pretty generic? That\u2019s because you need to fill in the \u201cXXX\u201d part with something personable and&nbsp;real.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s an email I sent a couple of years ago with a 100% genuine compliment:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"656\" height=\"333\" class=\"wp-image-27880\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/compliment-real.png\" alt=\"compliment real\"><\/p>\n<h3>4. Explain<em>&nbsp;why<\/em>&nbsp;you\u2019re contacting them<\/h3>\n<p>Here are the three most common outreach excuses:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You <strong>tweeted<\/strong>&nbsp;this post, and <strong>I wrote a similar one<\/strong>\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>You <strong>published<\/strong>&nbsp;this post, and <strong>I wrote a similar one<\/strong>\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>You <strong>linked<\/strong>&nbsp;to this post, and<strong>&nbsp;I wrote a similar one<\/strong>\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019ll let Tim <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/outreach\/\">explain<\/a>&nbsp;why these don\u2019t make much&nbsp;sense:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"small\"><div class=\"quote-content\">\n<p>Why would anyone want to check out a post that\u2019s similar to what they just read? \u201cSimilar article\u201d is a very poor excuse, as it shows you didn\u2019t study the person you\u2019re reaching out&nbsp;to.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"quote-info clearfix\"><div class=\"quote-photo\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tim Soulo\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/tim-soulo.jpg\"><\/div><div class=\"extra-box\"><span class=\"quote-author\">Tim Soulo,<\/span> <span class=\"quote-author-job\">Head of Marketing<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/blockquote>\n<p>I couldn\u2019t agree more. So here\u2019s what a decent reason might look&nbsp;like:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026 I saw that you tweeted <strong>XXX<\/strong>&nbsp;the other day, so I thought you might appreciate reading a different opinion on that&nbsp;topic\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026 I saw that you wrote this post but didn\u2019t mention anything about <strong>XXX<\/strong>, which is an important topic I talk about in my&nbsp;post\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>\u2026 I noticed you linked to this article when talking about <strong>XXX<\/strong>, but that\u2019s actually no longer true. My post has more up-to-date\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Most people don\u2019t say these kinds of things in their outreach emails because it takes more time. You have to research your prospects, skim their content, and come up with a genuine reason that might actually resonate with&nbsp;them.<\/p>\n<p>Sounds like a lot of work,&nbsp;right?<\/p>\n<p>It can be, but if you\u2019re reaching out to people who linked to articles on the same topic, there\u2019s a trick you can use to make this process faster.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s called: <em>prospect bucketing. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how it&nbsp;works:<\/p>\n<p>Instead of coming up with a 100% unique outreach excuse for every one of your prospects, you instead group prospects into \u201cbuckets\u201d based on the reason they linked to that similar article.<\/p>\n<p>Let me explain with an example.<\/p>\n<p>Say that we want to promote our <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/long-tail-keywords\/\">guide to long-tail keywords<\/a>&nbsp;by reaching out to those who link to a similar guide. If we throw the URL of that competing guide into <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Ahrefs Site Explorer<\/a>, then check the Backlinks report, it only takes a bit of skimming to see that quite a few of those people are linking to the guide for the same reason:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"875\" height=\"231\" class=\"wp-image-27865\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/long-tail-keywords-1.png\" alt=\"long tail keywords 1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/long-tail-keywords-1.png 875w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/long-tail-keywords-1-768x203.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/long-tail-keywords-1-680x180.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 875px) 100vw, 875px\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"872\" height=\"243\" class=\"wp-image-27858\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/long-tail-keywords-2.png\" alt=\"long tail keywords 2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/long-tail-keywords-2.png 872w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/long-tail-keywords-2-768x214.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/long-tail-keywords-2-680x189.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 872px) 100vw, 872px\"><\/p>\n<p>Basically, the article those people are linking to defines long-tail keywords as those that consist of three or more words. <strong>Our guide challenges that notion.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So, we could group anyone linking for that reason into one bucket, and reach out to each of them with something like&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I\u2019m reaching out because I saw you mentioned \u201clong-tail keywords\u201d in your post about {post topic}, where you describe them as keywords consisting of three words or&nbsp;more.<\/p>\n<p>Here at Ahrefs, we believe that this definition of the term \u201clong tail keywords\u201d needs revisiting for 2019, as well as the actual strategy of getting traffic from them. So we wrote an article explaining our thoughts. (Hint: It\u2019s more about search volume than the number of&nbsp;words).<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the link: https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/long-tail-keywords\/<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hopefully, you agree that this is a much more compelling \u201cwhy\u201d than \u201c\u2026 I wrote a similar article.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>5. End with a clear call-to-action<\/h3>\n<p>No, this doesn\u2019t mean ending your outreach emails with something like&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Can you please add my link to your article?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Is there any way I can get a&nbsp;link?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I won\u2019t lie: there are times when asking for a link in your first email makes sense. But most of the time, it\u2019s not appropriate. It\u2019s kind of like proposing on a first date\u2014the answer will almost certainly be a swift \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If not asking for a link in your first email sounds crazy to you, then you\u2019re viewing this all&nbsp;wrong.<\/p>\n<p>The aim of your first email isn\u2019t to close the deal, but rather to start a conversation.<\/p>\n<p>So you want to end with something that prompts the recipient to&nbsp;reply.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some&nbsp;ideas:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Is there anything I missed?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>What do you&nbsp;think?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Do you agree with our conclusion?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019ll level with you, those are still quite generic, which is why it\u2019s important to craft a unique outreach email not only for each campaign but also for each segment of prospects.<\/p>\n<h3>6. Only use your best&nbsp;work<\/h3>\n<p>Most people publish new content all the time. For example, we publish 1-2 new blog posts per week on the <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/\">Ahrefs blog<\/a>, and we now have more than 150 posts in&nbsp;total.<\/p>\n<p>Do you really think it makes sense to do outreach for all of those&nbsp;posts?<\/p>\n<p>Absolutely not. If we did, we\u2019d soon start to annoy other bloggers in our industry and burn bridges.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why <strong>we only do outreach for the very best&nbsp;ones.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The problem is that \u201cbest\u201d is subjective, so how do you choose which posts to perform outreach for, and which not to perform outreach for?<\/p>\n<p>Simple. Paste your website into <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Ahrefs Site Explorer<\/a>, then check the \u201cTop content\u201d report.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"856\" height=\"398\" class=\"wp-image-27887\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/top-content.png\" alt=\"top content\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/top-content.png 856w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/top-content-768x357.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/top-content-680x316.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 856px) 100vw, 856px\"><\/p>\n<p>This report ranks the content on your website by \u201csocial power\u201d\u2014i.e., the total number of social shares they\u2019ve generated across all social networks currently tracked by Ahrefs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bonus tip:<\/strong>&nbsp;Use these stats as social proof in your outreach emails.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026..<\/p>\n<p>If that all sounds quite basic, it\u2019s because it is. Outreach isn\u2019t rocket science, and it\u2019s not about using clever psychology or tricks to try to get what you want. It\u2019s about treating people like human beings and letting your content do the talking.<\/p>\n<p>The best way to think of it is like&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You\u2019re contacting this person because you know they\u2019re interested in a certain topic.<\/li>\n<li>You think they might find value in your content.<\/li>\n<li>Sending this email just so happens to be the quickest and most direct way to introduce them to that content.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\">\n<h2>Step #5. Scale your outreach<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Here\u2019s what most people do at this&nbsp;stage:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Load up their pitch in an outreach tool like Pitchbox.<\/li>\n<li>Replace the first name using a mail-merge field.<\/li>\n<li>Upload their list of prospects.<\/li>\n<li>Blast out thousands of \u201cpersonalized\u201d emails.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Um, no. This <em>isn\u2019t<\/em>&nbsp;personalization.<\/p>\n<p>Personalization is tailoring the conversation for <strong>every<\/strong>&nbsp;recipient. And let me tell you, personalization and \u201csuccess rate\u201d are closely correlated.<\/p>\n<p>But the question is, how do you take that winning pitch you just crafted and personalize it, at scale, for hundreds of recipients? I mean, if you went the whole hog in the last step, some parts of your pitch are likely so \u201cpersonalized\u201d that you can literally only send it to ONE recipient, right?<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t panic. That was the whole&nbsp;point.&nbsp;\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Like I said earlier, if you set out to create a template, that\u2019s precisely what you end up with\u2014something super generic that reads like a template.<\/p>\n<p>By doing things this way, you can templatize a <strong>winning pitch<\/strong> instead of trying to make your robotic template sound personal and unique. That works much better in my experience.<\/p>\n<p>How do you templatize it?<\/p>\n<p>Using merge fields.<\/p>\n<h3>1. Create some custom merge fields<\/h3>\n<p>Having followed my own advice in steps 1-4, I crafted this email to send to someone who\u2019s written a similar post about blogger outreach:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Hey Paul,<\/p>\n<p>Just been reading your post&nbsp;on blogger outreach. LOVE that tip about using IFTTT then to create a database of Twitter interactions. 100% Genius. Going to set that up for myself this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m emailing you because I actually just published my own guide to blogger outreach, and it mentions a couple of things I didn\u2019t see you mention (e.g., the difference between a shotgun vs. sniper approach).<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the link: https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/blogger-outreach\/<\/p>\n<p>If you have a second, I\u2019d love to get your feedback.<\/p>\n<p>Cheers,<\/p>\n<p>Josh<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Looks pretty personalized, right?<\/p>\n<p>So the next step is to replace any personalized parts of the email with custom merge fields.<\/p>\n<p>By that, I mean chunks of the email that can be altered and adjusted for each recipient to effectively templatize this email, without losing any of the personalization.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s that same email again with the merge fields added&nbsp;in:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Hey <strong>%first_name%<\/strong>,<\/p>\n<p>Just been reading your post on blogger outreach: LOVE that tip about <strong>%nugget_of_wisdom%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m emailing you because I actually just published my own guide to blogger outreach, and it mentions a couple of things I didn\u2019t see you mention (e.g., <strong>%something_they_didn\u2019t_mention%<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the link: https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/blogger-outreach\/<\/p>\n<p>If you have a second, I\u2019d love to get your feedback.<\/p>\n<p>Cheers,<\/p>\n<p>Josh<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can see that some of these are basic data points: %first_name%, %URL%, etc.<\/p>\n<p>But some are more contextual, e.g., %nugget_of_wisdom%.<\/p>\n<h3>2. Fill in your merge fields<\/h3>\n<p>Before you can send any of these emails, you need to actually decide what these merge tags will be replaced with for each prospect.<\/p>\n<p>The best way to do that, in my opinion, is in a spreadsheet.<\/p>\n<p>So, open up a blank sheet and give is a name. Something like \u201cPost name - Prospect type - Segment\u201d will suffice.<\/p>\n<p>Next, add each of your custom merge fields as column headers.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"554\" height=\"227\" class=\"wp-image-27859\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/spreadsheet-headers.png\" alt=\"spreadsheet headers\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>IMPORTANT! <\/strong>You also need to create a column for their email addresses, which you should have already found in step #3.<\/p>\n<p>From here, add in your prospects and start filling in the columns.<\/p>\n<p>Just make sure to consider the context of your email when filling them. It needs to make sense and read naturally once you bring these two things together.<\/p>\n<p>You should end up with something like&nbsp;this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"736\" height=\"144\" class=\"wp-image-27884\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/spreadsheet-with-data.png\" alt=\"spreadsheet with data\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/spreadsheet-with-data.png 736w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/spreadsheet-with-data-680x133.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\"><\/p>\n<p>Of course, this is where the segmentation you did earlier comes in handy, because you can spend more time personalizing emails meant for <em>Big fish<\/em> over <em>Small fish<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommendation\"><div class=\"recommendation-title\">Not good with spreadsheets?<\/div><div class=\"recommendation-content\">\n<p>It\u2019s perfectly fine to shun merge tags altogether and instead fill these parts in on the fly when sending emails. The reason I prefer a spreadsheet approach is that it\u2019s much easier to outsource.<\/p>\n<p>For example, we could easily hire a freelancer to find the following data points for each of our prospects:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Unique nugget of wisdom from their&nbsp;post<\/li>\n<li>Something our post mentions that theirs doesn\u2019t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not only does this reduce your workload, but it\u2019s also often more cost efficient.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<h3>3. Review and&nbsp;send<\/h3>\n<p>Here\u2019s where everything starts to come together because now, all that\u2019s left to do is to upload your spreadsheet to your outreach software along with your template.<\/p>\n<p>It will then replace those merge fields in the template with the data points in your&nbsp;sheet.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"798\" height=\"619\" class=\"wp-image-27855\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/merge-fields.gif\" alt=\"merge fields\"><\/p>\n<p>You now have hundreds of emails ready to&nbsp;go.<\/p>\n<p>Just make sure to skim each email to make sure everything makes sense before hitting send.<\/p>\n<p>Seriously, don\u2019t neglect that last step and be tempted to hit send. It takes a lot of work to get to this point, and outreach faux pas are all too common. Believe me.<\/p>\n<h3>4. Follow-up, once!<\/h3>\n<p>Read any half-decent article about blogger outreach, and it\u2019ll say the same&nbsp;thing:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Most of your replies and links will come from follow-ups.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s true, but at the same time, you don\u2019t want to pester people with constant follow-ups. So the solution, in our opinion, is to follow-up once and only&nbsp;once.<\/p>\n<p>Something polite and straightforward works&nbsp;well:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Hey %name%,<\/p>\n<p>Just a quick follow up in case you\u2019ve missed my&nbsp;email.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re short on time right now\u2014no worries. I won\u2019t bug you about it&nbsp;again.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n<p>Please don\u2019t send more follow ups. You\u2019ll only annoy people and burn bridges.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\">\n<h2>How to find new prospects on autopilot<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>The fact that you\u2019ve read this far means that you now know more about outreach than 99.9% of so-called link building experts. Nice work! Great&nbsp;stuff!&nbsp;\ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s still a problem, and it\u2019s the fact that every campaign comes to an end eventually. Or does&nbsp;it?<\/p>\n<p>What if there was a way to continually find new outreach prospects for your campaigns?<\/p>\n<p>Good news: there is\u2014a few ways, actually.<\/p>\n<h3>1. Mentions of relevant keywords<\/h3>\n<p>SEOs and marketers have been using tools like <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/how-to-set-up-google-alerts\/\">Google Alerts<\/a>&nbsp;for years.<\/p>\n<p>Not familiar with such tools? All you do is enter a few keywords related to your piece of content, and you\u2019ll be notified whenever someone mentions these keywords online.<\/p>\n<p>Depending on the context of that keyword mention, you then decide if it makes sense to reach out to the author of that article and show them your content.<\/p>\n<p>Since Ahrefs has the second-best web crawler after Google (according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.incapsula.com\/blog\/most-active-good-bots.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a third\u2010party study<\/a>), we\u2019ve developed our own web alerts functionality.<\/p>\n<p>To add a mentions alert, go to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/alerts\">Alerts<\/a>&nbsp;&gt; Mentions &gt; + New&nbsp;alert<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"245\" class=\"wp-image-27853\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-alerts.png\" alt=\"ahrefs alerts\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-alerts.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-alerts-768x209.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-alerts-680x185.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<h3>2. New links to relevant articles<\/h3>\n<p>Here\u2019s a fun observation: Put the URL of any almost article that ranks #1 in Google into <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Ahrefs\u2019 Site Explorer<\/a>, and you\u2019ll see that it consistently gets new backlinks:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"715\" class=\"wp-image-27860\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/link-growth-ahrefs.png\" alt=\"link growth ahrefs\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/link-growth-ahrefs.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/link-growth-ahrefs-768x610.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/link-growth-ahrefs-535x425.png 535w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>Far too often, people settle for whatever is the #1 result in Google, and they rarely do any additional research. So, whenever they need to reference a resource on that topic, they give that top-ranking article yet another link.<\/p>\n<p>We call this the \u201cvicious circle of&nbsp;SEO.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"900\" class=\"wp-image-27861\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-circle-seo.png\" alt=\"ahrefs circle seo\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-circle-seo.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-circle-seo-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ahrefs-circle-seo-425x425.png 425w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>Your job is to use the vicious circle of SEO to your advantage by monitoring any new links to the top-ranking pages for your target keywords.<\/p>\n<p>For this, you can use the backlink alerts functionality in Ahrefs Alerts.<\/p>\n<p>Just enter the URL of any article you\u2019d like to keep an eye on, and you will get an email notification whenever they get a new&nbsp;link:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"206\" class=\"wp-image-27890\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/alerts-backlink.png\" alt=\"alerts backlink\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/alerts-backlink.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/alerts-backlink-768x176.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/alerts-backlink-680x156.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<h3>3. New tweets of similar articles<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dsayce.com\/social-media\/tweets-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Millions of new tweets<\/a>&nbsp;go live every day, and some of them almost certainly link to articles about something similar to&nbsp;yours.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it may only be a few people, but that\u2019s all you&nbsp;need.<\/p>\n<p>Take a look at the number of tweets linking to this post about blogger outreach, for example:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"100\" class=\"wp-image-27869\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/tweets-content-explorer.png\" alt=\"tweets content explorer\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/tweets-content-explorer.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/tweets-content-explorer-768x85.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/tweets-content-explorer-680x76.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>Looks like there have been 280 in the past ~3&nbsp;years.<\/p>\n<p>Do the math, and that comes out to roughly one tweet every four&nbsp;days.<\/p>\n<p>If we could somehow monitor tweets about that one article, we\u2019d have a new potential outreach prospect every four days, on average.<\/p>\n<p>If we did the same for a few other articles, we could easily end up with 50-100 new prospects every&nbsp;month.<\/p>\n<p>But how do you monitor tweets?<\/p>\n<p>Use the \u201cNew tweet from search\u201d function for Twitter on <a href=\"https:\/\/ifttt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IFTTT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"796\" height=\"615\" class=\"wp-image-27873\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/new-tweet-from-search.png\" alt=\"new tweet from search\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/new-tweet-from-search.png 796w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/new-tweet-from-search-768x593.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/new-tweet-from-search-550x425.png 550w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 796px) 100vw, 796px\"><\/p>\n<h2>Before I wrap this&nbsp;up\u2026<\/h2>\n<p>\u2026 I want to talk very briefly about outreach tricks.<\/p>\n<p>People are <em>obsessed<\/em>&nbsp;with outreach tricks.<\/p>\n<p>By \u201ctricks,\u201d I\u2019m referring to small changes that they think will take their outreach campaign from zero to&nbsp;hero.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s one of the latest ones I\u2019ve&nbsp;seen:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"632\" height=\"68\" class=\"wp-image-27886\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sent-from-my-iphone.png\" alt=\"sent from my iphone\"><\/p>\n<p>You end all your emails with \u201cSent from my iPhone\u201d to trick people into thinking that the email was, well, sent from your iPhone. In which case, this email can\u2019t be spam,&nbsp;right?<\/p>\n<p>*facepalm*<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve got news for&nbsp;you.<\/p>\n<p>If your email looks like&nbsp;spam\u2026<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"720\" height=\"400\" class=\"wp-image-27889\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sent-from-my-iphone-1.png\" alt=\"sent from my iphone 1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sent-from-my-iphone-1.png 720w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sent-from-my-iphone-1-680x378.png 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\"><\/p>\n<p>\u2026 then there ain\u2019t no outreach \u201ctrick\u201d in the world that\u2019s going to save&nbsp;you.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, people aren\u2019t as dumb as most link builders think they are. Many outreach tricks are quite obvious and serve only to increase the blatant scumminess of your emails.<\/p>\n<p>Now, does that mean that no outreach tricks work?<\/p>\n<p>No. It just means that they\u2019re not likely to rescue a failing outreach campaign because the reason it\u2019s failing is always going to be bigger.<\/p>\n<p>Having said that, there is one \u201ctrick\u201d that will improve your results:<\/p>\n<h3>The importance of timing<\/h3>\n<p>Here at Ahrefs, our marketing team spends the vast majority of time working with the \u201cnew\u201d blogger outreach prospects rather than sifting through the thousands of old&nbsp;ones.<\/p>\n<p>If a person wrote\/linked\/tweeted something a year ago, it is unlikely that they are still interested in that same topic today. Therefore, our most sophisticated outreach email will seem \u201cspammy\u201d\u2014simply because the timing isn\u2019t&nbsp;right.<\/p>\n<p>But once a brand new opportunity lands in our inbox, we want to react as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<p>The topic is still fresh on the author\u2019s mind, so they are usually still open to discussion.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, we don\u2019t completely ignore \u201cold\u201d prospects. We\u2019re just very picky about who we decide to contact and ruthlessly filter out prospects that don\u2019t look promising.<\/p>\n<h2>Final thoughts<\/h2>\n<p>Blogger outreach <em>isn\u2019t<\/em>&nbsp;rocket science.<\/p>\n<p>It may seem like it given the length of this article, but once you get the hang of things, everything usually fits into place rather quickly.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not to say it\u2019s always easy because it&nbsp;isn\u2019t!<\/p>\n<p>To truly succeed with outreach, you need to be a highly organized person, a good problem solver and above all, a people person.<\/p>\n<p>Not all of those things? Don\u2019t worry, most of us aren\u2019t. The trick is to outsource each part of the process to people who excel at each aspect.<\/p>\n<p>Do that, and you\u2019ve got a system for all the links you\u2019ll ever&nbsp;need.<\/p>\n<p>Let me know in the comments or <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joshuachardwick?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on Twitter <\/a>if I missed anything.&nbsp;\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You did&nbsp;a thing&nbsp;on the internet. You think it\u2019s good, but nobody knows it exists. You wish there were more buzz about it\u2014more tweets, links, all that good&nbsp;stuff. Not one to be defeated, you head to Google in search of a<span class=\"ellipsis\">\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more \u203a<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":14687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"coauthors":[336],"class_list":["post-14470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-link-building","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Blogger Outreach: How to Do It At Scale (Without Feeling Like a Jerk)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how to use blogger outreach to promote your content and build more backlinks to your website.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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