A huge aspect of content marketing now revolves around good PR. You need to be building – and maintaining – relationships left, right and centre in order to effectively promote and help brand the clients you work with, not just for search engine rankings, but for real consumers to discover. Speaking to people who run websites or blogs online is incredibly important both for placing content for link building purposes and adding credibility to internal pieces, and the sites ought to be in the right niche and of the right level of quality for your clients.

Whether you have a great idea for a guest post, an infographic to share, some newsworthy information or you’ve even gone old school and are holding a full blown publicity event, the co-operation of the people whose help you will need really does rely on your outreach. Perhaps you want to use their expertise to add to your original content and need to source quotes and so on and so forth? In that case, this arguably matters even more. Clichés aside, first impressions really do count and approaching someone with respect works the same no matter which method you use – whether it’s email, phone or, just like back in the day, in person.

It’s About Finding A Balance

There are some great tools out there for contacting prospective individuals online in bulk. At Datify, we use BuzzStream, which is fantastic for bookmarking people of interest that we want to talk to. It even allows us to compartmentalise and categorise different websites depending on the project we’re working on and the tags are useful for remembering what we wanted to talk to them about. Sometimes the sheer numbers of people we want to approach can make it incredibly tempting to send out a mass email. However, you should really avoid this. Whilst setting a template email is totally acceptable, it should sound natural and not spammy. You can then personalise each email slightly to give a more genuine feel.

Personalisation Options

If you’re approaching loads of different websites, writing fifty different emails isn’t going to be a productive use of your time, because unfortunately, lot of people aren’t even going to get back to you – we’ll get to that! Again, feel free to set a template, but don’t just fire it out to everyone and anyone, especially when looking at sites people have put a lot of their own personal time and effort into! Be polite and take interest in the site you’re trying to contact. Use a first name wherever possible, and offer praise that indicates you’ve not only read but understand or agree with the things they’re trying to put across. People are often far more receptive and feel more inclined to pay attention to what you have to say, if you have demonstrated first that you can do the same. Praise them – use keywords about their ‘expertise’ and the fact you find them ‘influential’, but work this in by backing up why you’re complimenting them, and not just like you’re saying it to get something for nothing.

Offer and Add Value

Life is a game of give and take – so don’t forget to give. By this, I do not mean you should offer financial compensation, but rather, add something worthwhile to any proposals you’re making. Perhaps you’re looking to write a guest post on a website owned by the person you’re currently emailing. Will the post be useful to their readers? Explain how! If they can see how their audience will benefit and draw traffic, it’s going to be more likely to succeed. Likewise, fully outline what you intend to write, and give examples of your previous work if need be. This helps to assure them you’re not trying to place some awful, spammy content that acts as nothing more than a thinly veiled sales pitch. Content should not be for content’s sake. It should be for real people to take something away from, and so this means thinking about quality control, usefulness and uniqueness every time. I feel very strongly that a lot of people hate digital marketing type people for good reason – half of them just can’t cut it with what they can offer. Prove you’re the exception to the rule and surprise them in a good way.

Be Realistic

You can contact 100 people a day, but that doesn’t mean 100 people will get back to you. If this was the case, our jobs would be done by the second day of the month! Of these people, you’ll be lucky if ten reply. Of course, some types of site will be more responsive than others, and so it’s usually a case of trial and error, and approaching more than you need each and every time, so that you have options rather than a desperate need for more places to contact.

Choose Good Websites

There are plenty of ways to find websites, from running a keyword search, using Google Blog Search, Google Search Operators, to finding influencers by making use of tools like Followerwonk and LookBook, depending on the industry you’re looking at. Not all sites are created equal, however, and it’s key to look at page rank, trust flow and/or the amount of followers or social traction it has. These factors will help make your decision, and although the ideal metrics will vary from industry to industry, they’re a good indicator of quality. The higher the quality is, the better results you’ll work will drive. The world and its wife blog now, so make sure you’re picking the good ones people actually read to market your clients.

Build Relationships

Really try and develop and work on a relationship with someone, especially if they’re high profile. As I mentioned earlier, being genuine is key, but you can also take it one step further and act loyal to their work. Comment on their blogs, Retweet their tweets, and generally get on their radar, so that you’re not just another SEO or marketing person coming out of the blue.

Maintain Relationships

It’s far more respectful to keep up a relationship with someone who’s helped you out than to simply cast them aside once you’re done. They’re more likely to work with you in future, too. You can do this by speaking from the heart right from the initial contact – and you can forget about templates the second they actually engage in a discourse with you. Respond intelligently and honestly, and try and keep in touch even if you don’t need them for anything right now – you don’t know when they’ll come in handy! With bloggers, compliment their work even when you aren’t necessarily looking to place content. With journalists, be more careful as they have plenty to do and you don’t want to overwhelm them. A simple follow on Twitter keeps you in the corner of their eye, which is where you’ll need to stay.

Remember…

Don’t be afraid to pick the phone up from time to time. There’s also no harm in polite follow ups as well – if this is done right, it just shows that you’ve put some thought into the initial contact, but don’t duplicate your second attempt, as it will seem automated and stilted. The trick is to put some personality into something that you aren’t afforded the time to be all that personal with after all… you just have to make it seem like it is!

Good Emails + Good Content = Great Results!