The profession of an “online marketer” requires us to do lot of so-called “outreach.” We reach out to let others know about our content, ask for a backlink or simply make a connection. But there’s one more group of people who do lots of “outreach.” SPAMmers. So where’s the red line between the two? And which I Just Deleted camp would you put yourself into? You just published a new article on your blog and now you’re going to send a mass email to 100+ top people in your niche with an excuse: “I saw you tweeted a similar post.” I’m sorry to say this, but your article is not welcome in their inbox.
Otherwise they would
Probably already be signed up to your email list. And besides, it’s just disrespectful to mass-email top people in your niche with some generic “outreach template.” The more company data famous a person is, the more of these outreach templates he gets in his inbox daily. That’s why you should divide your list of prospects into four groups and treat each group differently: 1. Sharks These are the people with a huge audience and notable achievements (think Gary Vaynerchuk, Malcolm Gladwell, Tim Ferriss, etc.). They don’t 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.
It will take a ton
Of work (and probably luck) to get on their radar, but these people can send hundreds of customers your way with just a single tweet. So the outcome is well Find List worth the effort. 2. Big Fish These people are not as famous as the Sharks, but their audience is big enough to make an impact on your own business I Just Deleted (think Noah Kagan, Nathan Barry, Glen Allsopp, etc.). There’s a good chance to reach them with a nice personal email, but never with a template. Asking Big Fish for tweets and links is unproductive (and silly), you will get much more value by asking them to critique your work or validate your ideas. And if what you’re doing is worth attention, they will tweet it and link to it anyways. These people don’t have a big audience yet.
