Characteristics of a Successful Outreach Campaign

Characteristics of a Successful
Outreach Campaign

ROB OUSBEY
COO, Distilled

www.distilled.net

@RobOusbey

Outreach?

Distilled has a specific meaning for „outreach‟.

Prospecting

Contacting

Communicating

Conversion

This is the part of Online Marketing that Distilled calls „outreach‟.

These are my priorities for an outreach team.

Outreach!
This presentation shares the characteristics that I‟ve seen correlate well to a successful outreach
campaign.

Buy In
By nailing this – getting buy in from your client / boss – everything will be twice as
easy and 10 times as successful. You recognize how important it is when it‟s absent.

I had asked a client for photos of their data center to use for outreach – which they
weren‟t able to provide. I was focused on asking why they couldn‟t take the
photos, but should have asked why they didn‟t. I hadn‟t yet built up any personal
credibility or trust with the client.

http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/

Flywheel of
Consultant Credibility

Hack into this process to get
the flywheel turning. Good
Results
For example: spend timed
getting them to like you!

Or: do something quick & You get They like
easy that gets good results – more access you
and then the client/boss will
start to trust you with more
of the resources you need.

More buy in

Rob Ousbey | @RobOusbey

Budget
You‟ll need commitment to budget, to make sure you‟re all planning to work on this for the long term.

There‟s an inherent riskiness to all these activities. You can‟t be too risk averse if you want to „speculate
to accumulate‟.

"This message is sent in bulk so if you are receiving it
again please ignore. If you are not looking for guests
posts in your blog, we would appreciate if you could
refer our services to someone who are looking for
guest posts on their blogs."

– real ‘outreach’ email footer
This can be the result of trying to do outreach too cheaply, or turn human tasks into automated
processes.


Avoid „PageRank Magpies‟

Be wary of people who only judge outreach successes on the quantitative metrics of a site. Influence,
relevancy and genuineness can trump raw link data.

PA: 63 | DA: 58 PA: 47 | DA: 46

PA: 39 | DA: 31 PA: 45 | DA: 34

Good Brand
Help your outreach team learn more about the brand and consumers.
When you‟re doing this work properly, you‟re not just using the brand, you‟re building it.

“That PR person kept pestering me
about their story.
I guess I should write about it!”
– no one, ever
There are lots that Outreach teams can learn from PR‟s activities – but don‟t copy their bad habits of
shoving a story down someone‟s throat.


Outreach teams are talking to bloggers, website owners and journalists – these
people are how you‟ll get your content in front of a big audience.

Your Real Audience

Gatekeepers
Why are the site owners doing what they do? For increased audience, because they love the niche, to
make money or for other reasons?

Good Niche
A good niche will have people that like your brand, that like what you‟re offering them
(content, product, etc) and is well connected – so you can take advantage of network effects.

Product
Giving away product can be hugely effective. The value isn‟t just in the one piece of coverage, but it
makes getting the next piece easier as well. So, even if this is a slightly more costly exercise for each
piece of coverage, it‟s a great way of getting the Brand Credibility Flywheel turning.

I highly recommend reading „The Secrets of Consulting‟ by Gerald M. Weinberg. (AL)
Discover why your cake tastes better when you add your own egg.

Add their own egg

Advertorial
Content
Usually Fails


Competitive Aspect
Via: MyAssetTag.com

Added Interactivity
Via: MyAssetTag.com

Competitive Aspect
Via: Razoo.com

Competitive Aspect
Via: AdamEve.com

WHY NOW?

Being able to answer this question makes your outreach loads more effective.
It adds honesty and credibility to your communication, and the time constraints also encourages people
to take action soon.

new range
news worthy
WHY NOW?
special event seasonal

Alignment of Outreach with
Content Planners & Creators

The people who are on the front-line of Outreach are in a great position to tell you what might and
might not appeal to the site owners in a particular niche.

Be prepared
to reformat
the creative.
It only took a few minutes to
update this IG with other
currencies – this allowed us to get
coverage from foreign sites.

Be prepared
to reformat
the creative.
MSN.com insisted on only
embedding an interactive piece.
It cost $150 to get this IG turned
into an interactive Flash
embed, which then allowed us to
get links from MSN.

Via: ClearDebt.co.uk

Be prepared to reformat the creative.

http://www.distilled.net/blog/distilled/a-new-species-video-infographics/

Expert content that positions them as the most
knowledgeable in the business insurance niche

Evergreen content for the small business
owner that‟s getting online

Timely content for the business owner
who needs up-to-date information


http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/microsites/wordpress-for-small-businesses/
http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/microsites/productivity/workload-guide/
http://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/microsites/hiring-your-first-employee/


Data via: http://www.google.com/trends


Guide to Social Media Success

The Productivity Series

Google AdWords for Small Businesses

Data via: http://www.alexa.com


Plan & Calendar
They only work when people believe that everyone will stick to the schedule.

Campaign Plan

Idea
Strategy
Gen
Pre-
Prospecting Outreach
outreach
Creative
Planning Design & Build

Launch

Jan Feb Mar Apr


Existence of this chart is well
Campaign Plan correlated to campaign success &
extremely well correlated to team
happiness.

Idea
Strategy
Gen
Pre-
outreach
Creative

Launch

Jan Feb Mar Apr


Campaign Plan

Idea Campaign 1
Strategy
Gen
Pre-
outreach
Creative

Launch

Jan Feb Mar Apr


Campaign Plan

Idea Campaign 1 Idea
Strategy Campaign 2
Gen Gen
Pre- Pre-
Prospecting Outreach Prospecting Outreach
outreach outreach
Creative Creative
Planning Design & Build Planning Design & Build

Launch Launch

Jan Feb Mar Apr


Process (Take 1)
Research
Content

Create Content

Push on social networks
Publish Content
Promote to appropriate sites


Process (Take 2)
Research
Talk to relevant sites & individuals
Content

Publish Content Create Content

Talk to those sites again

Promote on social


Process (Take 2)
Talk to relevant sites & individuals

Ask these people to:

give their feedback on content / draft
“what do you think of this?”

give their feedback on the idea / concept
“would you be interested in this?”

suggest resources or data
“what should we include?”


Little Black Book
With that series of curated guides for small business content, the same sites were a great first set of
people to reach back out to on every occasion.

Employees are much happier spending time talking to their existing contacts & online friends, rather
than trying to get through to new people 100% of the time.

Hastily-written ad copy Crappy landing page Low CPC bid

Low CTR on the Ads
Poor CR on the
contact form
Campaign moved
slowly


Outcome “Women’s
events, jewelry, fashion, product
reviews!”
DA 52

$70 spend on Facebook ads

“Sharing recipes, savings and
reviews.”
DA 60
9,000 Twitter followers


Outcome “Women’s
events, jewelry, fashion, product
reviews!”
(DA 52)

$70 spend on Facebook ads

“Sharing recipes, savings and
reviews.”
DA 60
9,000 Twitter followers


“Look at this awesome thing I found!”

– everyone


“Look at this awesome thing
someone else told me to share!”

– no one, ever


“that I found”

“I was told about”

Data via Topsy.com

Carson’s
Philosophy Blog


Outcome
$180 spend on ads 15,776 visits

154 followed linking domains 192 linking domains


Outcome

154 new relationships


Metrics
You‟re asking your ORT to do something you think is important; judge them based on what you‟ve asked
them to do. It‟s likely that this will be fairly activity driven, and to some degree output driven.
It‟s hard to judge an ORT on results, because you‟re making an assumption about how outputs will relate
to results.

Personal Optimization
Work on optimizing the effectiveness of your personal activities.
For example: trainee chefs try to make better food, but the way they actually get ahead is by making
great food faster. So – they directly measure themselves, timing themselves doing different tasks.
(A trainee chef I met recently was proud of getting her finely chopped onion down to under two minutes.)

Sunk Cost Fallacies
Use the metrics & the expectations for output as a way of making sure you LET GO; learn to get
unattached from something that‟s not working.

You can come back to the tactic when it‟s appropriate and you‟re more prepared.

Image Credits
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91218927@N00/4116655514/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joffley/4299987091/
http://www.infomarketingblog.com/how-to-write-an-advertorial-2-examples/


Characteristics of a Successful Outreach Campaign

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