Characteristics of a Successful Outreach Campaign

Characteristics of a Successful Outreach Campaign

ROB OUSBEYCOO, 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.

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

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.

Flywheel of Consultant Credibility

Rob Ousbey | @RobOusbey

Good Results

They like you

More buy in

You get more access

Hack into this process to get the flywheel turning.

For example: spend timed getting them to like you!

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

BudgetYou’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.

Flywheel of Brand Credibility

Influential People

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: 63 | DA: 58

PA: 47 | DA: 46

PA: 39 | DA: 31

PA: 45 | DA: 34

? ?

PA: 39 | DA: 31

PA: 45 | DA: 34

Good Brand

A GOOD BRAND WILL HELP WITH

OUTREACH?

PLEASE, TELL ME MORE!

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.

understanding of the

Online PR


“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.

Your Real Audience

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.

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.

Product

BRAINHACK!


Add their own egg

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.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0932633013/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0932633013&linkCode=as2&tag=twadlcom-20

Great Content

“Great Outreach begins with Great Content” claims self-appointed

expert

Advertorial ContentUsually 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.

WHY NOW?

new range

seasonalspecial event

news worthy

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.

Via: ClearDebt.co.uk

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.

Be prepared to reformat the creative.

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

Strategy


Timely content for the business ownerwho needs up-to-date information

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

Evergreen content for the small businessowner that’s getting online


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


Google AdWords for Small Businesses

Guide to Social Media Success

The Productivity Series

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

Plan & Calendar

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

Campaign Plan

Jan Feb Mar Apr

ProspectingPre-

outreach

Design & Build

Outreach

Launch

Strategy IdeaGen

CreativePlanning


Campaign Plan

Jan Feb Mar Apr

ProspectingPre-

outreach

Design & Build

Outreach

Launch

Strategy IdeaGen

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

CreativePlanning


Campaign Plan

Jan Feb Mar Apr

ProspectingPre-

outreach

Design & Build

Outreach

Launch

Strategy IdeaGen

CreativePlanning


Campaign 1

Campaign Plan

Jan Feb Mar Apr

ProspectingPre-

outreach

Design & Build

Outreach

Launch

Strategy IdeaGen

CreativePlanning


ProspectingPre-

outreach

Design & Build

IdeaGen

CreativePlanning

Outreach

Launch

Campaign 1Campaign 2

Pre-Outreach

Process (Take 1)


Research Content

Publish Content

Create Content

Push on social networks

Promote to appropriate sites

Process (Take 2)


Research Content

Publish Content

Create Content

Talk to those sites again

Promote on social

Talk to relevant sites & individuals

Process (Take 2)



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?”

Process (Take 2)



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?”

BRAIN

HACK!

Micro Conversions

BRAIN

HACK!

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.

Inbound Outreach (?!)

Conversion to Contact


Hastily-written ad copy Crappy landing page Low CPC bid

Low CTR on the AdsPoor CR on thecontact form

Campaign movedslowly


Outcome

$70 spend on Facebook ads

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

DA 52

“Sharing recipes, savings and reviews.”

DA 609,000 Twitter followers


Outcome

$70 spend on Facebook ads

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

(DA 52)

“Sharing recipes, savings and reviews.”

DA 609,000 Twitter followers

Further testing required.


I have some sort

of idea what I am doing.

Conversion to Links

BRAINHACK!



“Look at this awesome thing I found!”

– everyone


“Look at this awesome thing someone else told me to

share!”

– no one, ever

“I was told about”

“that I found”

Data via Topsy.com


Carson’s Philosophy Blog


Outcome

$180 spend on ads 15,776 visits

192 linking domains154 followed 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 Creditshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/91218927@N00/4116655514/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/35919615@N08/7333232030/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/51633081@N04/6340835985/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/joffley/4299987091/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/94507863@N00/144630706/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/83519847@N00/3454110496/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/11384441@N06/4129779298/ http://www.infomarketingblog.com/how-to-write-an-advertorial-2-examples/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996585435@N01/479766913/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/91218927@N00/4116655514/






http://www.flickr.com/photos/joffley/4299987091/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joffley/4299987091/







http://www.infomarketingblog.com/how-to-write-an-advertorial-2-examples/

http://www.infomarketingblog.com/how-to-write-an-advertorial-2-examples/



Characteristics of a Successful Outreach Campaign

ROB OUSBEYCOO, Distilled

www.distilled.net

@RobOusbey

Characteristics of a Successful Outreach Campaign

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