Tips for Better Link Building Outreach with Segmenting & Theming

Email outreach should be memorable. Here are some tips for segmenting your prospects list and using unique themes in your subsequent link-building outreach campaigns.

It wasn’t because I could not resist the comforting warmth of chicken coverage. Outreach, it’s how you say it.

I was invited to present at the Outreach Summit. I felt very honored, but I was also super nervous.

It’s not laundry. I hate watching slideshows and online presentations.

I chose to focus my talk on kittens, chickens, and other animals.

A little bit of risk.

People loved the silliness of my slides, and they tweeted them along with their chicken puns.

I was able to stand out by the theme of my talk.

Making people laugh made me feel like I had a connection with an invisible audience.

This is what you can do with outreach.

People are tired of being emailed constantly by link builders.

Changes in the format of your email can help you get the results you want.

It involves two steps

Segmenting your prospect list.
Modify your template.

Segmenting and Theming your Outreach

Finding the right balance between personalization and scaling can be challenging when building outreach-based relationships can be challenging.

Your conversion rate is higher the more personalized email. People are more likely to respond to someone genuinely interested in them.

It takes time and energy to create bespoke, hyper-personalized emails.

I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty tired lately.

On the other hand, the more specific your email is, the easier it will be to scale and systemize your outreach.

Increase the quality of your content with keyword intent analysis

Semrush’s keyword-intent metric makes it easier than ever to align keywords with the correct audience and create the right content.

Your conversion rate will typically be lower.

Also, you run the risk of being flagged for spam as your email could be entirely off-target for your prospects.

It permits you to target a segment of your prospects and create a template to suit that specific audience.

Building Relationships

Let me pause for a moment. A lot of emphases is placed on building relationships in link-building.

You can reuse them for links or other collaborations when you establish a relationship with the editor of a company.

That is just awesome.

Not everyone has a while to do this, so some hesitate to start that journey.

It’s possible to make a personal connection in a matter of seconds, especially if cold-emailing is your preferred method.

Instant Personal Connection

It’s similar in that it is easy to connect with an image, a song, or a movie quote.

Imagine being at a party with a stranger, and then five minutes later, you realize they love RuPaul’s Drag Race.

The two of you geek out for an hour on Symone’s runway feat and Kandimuse’s shade at Utica.

So how can you establish a quick connection with someone you don’t know yet?

First, you place them in a specific category based on their topic angles and audience.

You can then research their language, interest, and other issues.

You can then customize your outreach template.

Let’s look at how it would work in actual life link building.

Segmenting Example

Let’s assume you’re MACK Trucks. You want to increase interest in your new eCommerce platform that allows you to order parts.

Because you don’t have a lot of linkable assets, you decide on a guest post-campaign.

This is the time to find prospects to pitch your content.

Broad Prospecting

You can build a list of prospects by looking for websites that focus on trucks.

You’d have a lot of different people on this list: truck sellers, truck owners, truck repair service providers, logistics companies, and environmental bloggers.

This would indicate that your email cannot be too targeted or tailored.

This would mean that you have to stick with a generic email. It can seem disingenuous.

Prospecting at the narrow end

I frequently use one or more of these angles when prospecting.

Sites that rank according to the keywords I’m looking for, such as: [macktruck parts].
Areas related to my customer’s journey include [fleet managers].
Sites on topics that interest me have [road safety].

Once I’ve decided on an angle, I search the Internet for more information and narrow my focus to a particular group.

I’m looking for companies that offer fleet management solutions. Two reasons are why I prefer to get in touch with real businesses:

They monetize through the sale of products and services and not via selling links. You can pitch content that benefits their audience if it has intrinsic value.
They take care of their website and content over time and won’t allow anyone to dump links for money.

This is a bonus: these prospects could become partners in other types of collaborations.

It’s mutually beneficial for all involved.

How to Find Prospects

Here’s an example: I’m looking to find fleet management software companies.

Pitchbox is the best tool I use to create Google Search Operator campaigns. But you can also Google and scrape directly (SEOruler – a free scraper)

An excellent way to rank keywords for which actual software companies would rank is [fleet management system inurl: demo].

You can bypass large sites that review tons and tons of software.

You can also check for lists like [Top 1000 Fleet Management Software].

Or, you can go all ninja to scrape software directories.

Another project required that one of my colleagues go into Shopify’s app category and grab all the companies there.

Quick Quality Check

You should ensure that the prospect list you receive contains only actual companies targeting your target audience.

It is essential to get organized before you begin reaching out. Here’s a quick checklist.

Avoid websites that:

You can only make money with content (except for substantial dog publishers).
Do not look spammy or ignored.
You are likely to be link sellers.
Scream FOR US.

You should:

Actual companies & honest people.

You can always reject a link prospect if they do not reply. After looking at their responses, the link behavior and any other quality metrics, you can also dismiss them.

Theming Your Outreach

You now have a highly-specialized list. Now you can do some research to find out what’s happening in that particular corner of the Internet.

You can answer these questions:

What is their vocabulary?
How do they write?
What type of content does the company have?
What are their common interests?
What are their most significant pain points?
What’s happening in their niche at the moment?
What cultural inspirations are most relevant to them? Images, movies, music or quotes? Puns??

It doesn’t sound effortless, but Google allows you to do it quickly.

Theming research example

There are many ways you can dive into a segment. But the best is the one you choose.

I often Google back-and-forth in a creative flow, jumping from one topic to another.

It is what I refer to as “having an open conversation with Google.”

While fleet management may not be the sexiest topic, it can still be enjoyable.

Start by simply searching for “fleet Management Trends 2021” and clicking on some of the articles you find.

If the trends are interesting enough to be used in outreach emails, make sure you take note.

They could be used anywhere within an email, starting with the subject line and ending with the send-off.

Remote Fleet Management and Safety and Sanitation Measures could be topics that I might use as inspiration.

Maybe this headline could work as a guest blog pitch: “How To Implement Safety Protocols In Remote Fleet Management.”

This was also something I noticed as I was going through the SERP.

It made me think, “Fleet of the Future is catchy, let’s use that!” So I wrote it down.

So, in summary, you should be looking through articles and search results to find any you can use in your themed outreach emails.

Make ‘Em Smile

Humor in your emails is another element that works well.

It’s a great tool to disarm any negative associations prospects may have with being approached for links. It allows you to establish a rapport with someone new instantly.

Although fleet management may not sound funny at first, people often make jokes about it because they are passionate about what they do.

Even large deal editors at enterprise companies can get involved.

Punstoppable provided a list of puns for fleet management when I searched:

While the Quaker one may not be the best, I could use it to stand out in an email inbox.

One example: The subject line could read, “What do Quaker think Quaker calls its delivery fleet?”

When a prospect opens my email, I can give them the punchline: Haulin’ Oats

Here are some examples of what an email could look like. (I hope yours is better thanthan mine; my team makes all of our templates so it’s a bit of a pain for me)

Subject line: Your best fleet(ing) memory?

Hey Joe

2020 is fast disappearing in rearview so I would like to focus my attention on new challenges for the audience. .

I was thinking of something like this: How do you implement safety protocols in remote fleet management, or Fleet of the Future – Optimization for Last Mile Deliveries.

We are happy to clarify if we feel that another angle is more suitable, or to take your suggestions on other topics I should cover.

Keep going.

Kirstie

A copywriter is a person who can do this task if you don’t have time or creativity.

Because copywriters see outreach emails as products, not means to an end, I believe they are the best at outreach.

It’s how you say it, that makes it possible to get the link.

Takeaway

Many link-building strategies are possible.

They will decide whether they do or not depending on how well-executed they are.

Segmenting and theming are great tools for scaling without compromising quality.