It's no secret that reply rate is the golden metric of email campaigns.
The reason is obvious. As opposed to open and click rate, reply rate tracks how many recipients were interested (or annoyed) enough to actually write you back. For guest blogging and email outreach, your reply rate will determine your campaign's success.
We still believe that guest blogging is a great opportunity to improve your site’s link profile and brand exposure. However, the time-investment needed in prospecting/email outreach can leave you questioning its ROI.
It doesn't often make sense to spend 3 hours prospecting and emailing different opportunities to get only 3 replies.
So how do you make all your prospecting and emailing worth your while?
Simple: Boost your reply rate to generate more "opportunities won" in the same timeframe.
The pain point: Time
At Directive Consulting, we rely on guest posting for our most valuable backlinks. ;) With that said, four months ago our email outreach was still struggling at around an 8% reply rate.
This is actually around the industry standard; guest blogger outreach emails might expect a reply rate in the 5–15% range.
With the below template, we were sending out 20–50 emails a week and receiving no more than 2–4 positive replies.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
To make the system more time-efficient, we had to get our reply rate at least into the double digits.
The hypothesis: Value
To boost our reply rate, we asked ourselves: What makes the best online content so engaging?
The answer: The best online content speaks to the user in terms of value. More specifically, the user's personal values.
So, what are these user values that we need to target? Well, to look at that we need to understand today's average user.
Image source
As opposed to their predecessors, today's savvy post-digital users value personalization, customization, and participation.
Our hypothesis was as follows: If we can craft an email user experience that improves upon these three values, our reply rate will spike.
The results: Too hot to handle
3 successful tests later, our reply rate has gone from 8% all the way up to 34%.
And our guest blog content queue is piling up faster than the lines at the mall the night before Black Friday.
In three tests we addressed those three values: personalization, customization, and participation. Each new test brought a spike in reply rate.
How did we do it? Don't worry, I'll tell you how.
3 reply rate tests (& a mini test) and what we learned
We started by stepping into the user’s shoes. Everyone knows that receiving random outreach emails from strangers can be jarring. Even if you're in the industry, it can at least be annoying.
So how do you solve that problem? The only way you can: delight.
How we approached creating a more delightful and comfortable email experience took testing. This is what we learned.
Test #1 - The personalized introduction (8%–16%)
The first feature of our email we tackled was the introduction. This included the subject line of the email, as well as how we introduced ourselves and the company.
Here's what it looked like:
As you can see, while the subject line packs some serious authority, it's not very personable. And if you look at the in-email introduction, you'd see a similar problem.
Plenty of professional context, but hardly a personalized first impression. This user-experience screams BLOGGER TRYING TO GET GUEST BLOG OPPORTUNITY.
Now let's look at the variant we tested:
Big difference, huh?
While all the same authoritative references are still there, this is already far more personal.
A few noteworthy differences in user-experience:
- Subject line: Natural, single sentence (almost seems like the email could have been forwarded by a co-worker).
- Name and title: The letterhead not only replaces a useless sentence, it supplies a smiling face the user can match the name/title with.
- Creative/disruptive branding: The creative letterhead is a real disrupter when you compare it to any old email. It also gets our logo above the fold in the email, and actually saves space all together.
Packing all the context of the email into a single, creative, and delightful image for the user was a huge step.
In fact, this first test alone saw our biggest jump in reply rate.
The results? Our reply rate doubled, jumping all the way from 8% to 16% — above the industry benchmark!
Mini test: The psychology behind "Because" (16%–20%)
If that wasn't a big enough jump to please us, we added on one more addition after the initial test.
If you don't know who Brian Dean is, I'll leave his bio for you to read another time. For now, all you need to know is that his "because" tactic for increasing reply rates works.
Trust me. He tested it. We tested it. It works.
The tactic is simple:
- Provide the exact context for your email in a single sentence.
- Use the phrasing "I am emailing you because..." in that sentence.
- Isolate that sentence as it's own paragraph as early in the email as possible.
...
That's it.
And this little change bumped our reply rate another 4% — all the way up to 20%. And this was before we even ran test #2!
Test #2 - Customizing/segmenting the offer (20%–28%)
Test #2 focused on customization. We had nailed the personalized first impression.
Now we needed to customize our offer to each individual recipient. Again, let's take a look at where we started:
As far as customization goes, this isn't half bad. There are plenty of prospective topics that the editor or blogger could choose from. But there's always room for improvement.
Customization is a fancy word for segmentation, which is our industry's fancy word for breaking lists into smaller lists.
So why not segment the topics we send to which editors? We can customize our email's offer to be more relevant to the specific recipient, which should increase our chances of a positive reply.
Instead of a single list of prospective topics, we built 8.
Each list was targeted to a different niche industry where we wanted to guest post. Each list had 10 unique topics all specified to that blog's niche.
Now, instead of 10 topics for the umbrella category "digital marketing," we had 10 topics for:
- Pay-per-click advertising blogs
- Content marketing blogs
- Social media management blogs
- Software as a service (SaaS) blogs
- Interactive design blogs
- Search engine optimization blogs
- Agency management blogs
- E-commerce optimization blogs
Not only did the potential topics change, we also changed the email copy to better target each niche.
This test took a bit of time on its own. It's not easy to build a list of 80 different targeted, niche, high-quality topics based on keyword research. But in the end, the juice was definitely worth the squeeze.
And what was the juice? Another spike in our reply rate — this time from 20% up to 28%!
Test #3 - Participating in topic selection (28%–34%)
We were already pretty pleased with ourselves at this point, but true link builders are never satisfied. So we kept on testing.
We had already addressed the personalization and customization issues. Now we wanted to take a crack at participation. But how do you encourage participation in an email?
That's a tricky question.
We answered it by trying to provide the most adaptive offer as possible.
In our email copy, we emphasized our flexibility to the editor's timeline/content calendar. We also provided a "open to any other options you may have" option in our list of topics. But the biggest change to our offer was this:
As opposed to a list of potential topics, we went one step further. By providing options for either long or short pieces (primary and focalized) we give them something to think about. They can choose from different options we are offering them.
This change did increase our reply rate. But what was surprising was that the replies were not immediately positive responses. More often than not, they were questions about the two different types of guest posts we could write.
This is where the participation finally kicked in.
(Chasing your first reply like Leo’s first oscar….)
We were no longer cold-emailing strangers for one-time guest posts. We were conversing and building relationships with industry bloggers and editors.
And they were no longer responding to a random email. They were actively participating in the topic selection of their next blog post.
Once they started replying with questions, we knew they were interested. Then all we had to do was close them with fast responses and helpful answers.
This tiny change (all we did was split the targeted list we already had into two different sizes) brought big results. Test #3 brought the final jump in our reply rate — from 28% up to the magic 34%.
After we had proved that our new format worked, then we got to have some real fun — taking this killer system we built and scaling it up!
But that's a post for another day.
Takeaways
So what have our reply rate tests taught us? The more personal you are and the more segmented your approach, the more success you'll see.
2017 is going to be the year of relationship building.
This means that for each market interaction, you need to remember that the user's experience is the top priority. Provide as much delight and value to your user as possible. Every blog post. Every email. Every market interaction.
That’s how you triple reply rates. And that’s how you triple success.
Any other psychological tricks or innovative tactics you use to get more responses? I'd love to hear them :)
How many emails are we talking about? We have 92% reply rate to cold emails on our home turf, but that's only 13 recipients. And a 27% reply rate on the new market with 72 recipients. Both campaigns are for bloggers and are about publications: https://i.imgur.com/I8F5HDe.png
We're using mention.com to find relevant blogs and reply.io for setting up the campaigns and tracking results. Once you setup everything it pretty much works on its own :)
Hi there Igor,
Those are some awesome stats! We use Pitchbox in tandem with Growbots ourselves. Our 34% reply rate was actually before I automated or scaled up the process. I was sending about 20 emails per segmented vertical (so almost 160 total) and was maintaining my 34% reply rate. But once we automated and scaled up our email outreach our reply rate actually kept climbing!
Hey Igor & Sean - thanks for the insight on what software you guys are using. I am taking a good hard look at your toolsets right now.
No problem Brendon - as a general rule when checking out marketing and email automation tools I've noticed one of two trends:
1. A lot of big name automation tools like Marketo and such market themselves as the superior software because of their granular tracking and multi-touch lead scoring. But for the most part what I've noticed is the only thing they can guarantee is a really high price...
2. The other tools are usually less sophisticated (pitchbox is no lead scoring monster like Marketo) but by combining smaller more focused tools (like combining pitchbox with growbots) usually gets you a more customized system AND is usually going to be drasticaly cheaper than going with a comprehesneive automation software.
Just some tips to keep in mind when checking out different tools - hope it helps :)
PIcked a trial of Pitchbox 3 days ago and love it so far. Will look into Growbots, thanks for sharing!
Some words for Rogerbot here, he's probably jealous I mentioned Growbots but not him and put the comment on hold :)
Hey Sean,
Great article! I believe you should also add "Follow-ups" as a very important factor. As most editors are super busy, a short email even a "Hey John, Have you had the time to read my previous email" helped me raise my response rate by about 10%.
And a question, I got a response rate of almost 40% and been doing some of the advice you have given (btw the image with your bio is pretty innovative I would have never thought about it), but what if my branding or previous published work is not on Moz or such major websites and we are talking about approaching bigger websites? The rate changes drastically, any specific advice on that?
I will be waiting for your next piece and bookmarking this one :)
Nick
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the kind words of praise :) I actually added a second and third follow up email to the sequence once I scaled up and automated our system via PItchbox (see the above comment for clarification). The second email bumped our reply rate about the same as it did yours. But what was really surprising was how effective the third follow up email was - but that's a post for another day I hope :)
In terms of our brand already being recognized as a Moz partner - while that's true, we've used the same system in email outreach for our clients who don't have the same authoritative brand and you'd be surprised to see that they also have massive response rates. While authority is important, what is really impressive in a cold outreach is how personalized your offer is.
But authority and name dropping always helps!
Hello Nick. I also add another email after a while. When do you send it exactly? After a day or two? Days, weeks? Thank you|
Same question than Juan Luis? How much do you wait til you send the new email?
Thaks!
I think if you have a targeted audience you can send more often by making personalized campaigns
When I send a remembrance for proposals I usually send the second one after a week, mainly wednesdays or thursdays.
Hi Sean, I have to tell you something... my average reply rate with guest blogging campaings is nearly 50% percent, and isn't only because the mail itself, it's, of course, because the datamining I do before that first email ;)
What do you think about it?
Congrats Segrio! Those are some crazy stats - I'd love to see how you are mining your outreach data! Your stellar performance proves that success comes from killer segmentation ;)
Thanks Sean, the trully points are:
- Of course, killer segmentation, manual if it's possible (and always it's possible).
- And then, the first email structure and message.
If you add to this some conections, you can reach up to 50%, but without this connections you can reach 50% easily on the first email response ;)
A few months ago I started including the sentence 'you have nothing to lose' or simmilar sentences with both customers or collaborators, and a reason why they have no risk if they answer the email and accept our company. They can even skip paying if they dont get what we promised them.
For example, we are bad writters and they dont like the post we prepare for them (they dont know us so it would be a normal thought). But they are not commited to publish the post, and will be totally free to reject it.
In this case, it would be a reason why there's no risk if they accept a post from us in the begginning , because they can reject it if they don't like it. As human beings we are afraid of losing and risk, so if you can tell people why you can help them and they don't risk anything, we will get better (and probably more) answers.
Hell yeah!
You guys made it. I tried some of these tricks myself -not as pro as you- and I can tel they work. They also increased the response rate from 2-3% to at least 25%, and only by customizing the topics and involving the target.
Another trick is to close the e-mail letting them know that you are already waiting for the response. That can be done for example with a question encouraging to answer or even asking for a phone call or skype conference (if the collaboration is worth it).
Totally agree. It actually helps involving the reader with answers. It creates the need to answer them. For example, asking 'Shall we schedule a meeting next week to see which topic suits you best?' improves the answer rate. But it also gives you the opportunity to talk to them, avoid a negative answer through mail and try to change to a positive answer in the phone call.
Completely agree, if you involve the other part in the process increases by far the answer rate.
One of the best and most useful posts I’ve read in months. Clear, clever and effective.
Many times we are focused on quantity: a lot of visitors, a lot of traffic, a lot of leads, a lot of mails… but this simple technique can be much easier and effective for our objectives.
For the image creation and customization, Canva can be a great and easy to use tool.
I just created my own image with my professional photo and some action calls, and will apply every technique with collaborators and customers. Thank you for this information.
Hi Juan - great to hear that you loved the post so much! And Canva is a great tool for quick and easy creatives - I use it myself for creating helpful infographics when I feel screenshots aren't quite engaging enough.
I'm just waiting for somebody to email me with one of these letterheads - that'll be an exciting moment :)
Sean,
Really appreciate your approach to these tests! A 26 percent increase is no joke! I'm definitely in agreement about the need to refine topic suggestions into industries. There's no easier way to sink your response rate by providing irrelevant recommendations.
I'm not able to invest as much time into pursuing guest posting opportunities as I once was, but I'd like to make a point to segment topics suggestions into categories as you did (primary vs. focalized). I can see how this extra step in giving the recipient a choice would help with engagement and ultimately your response rate.
We'll be sure to put to your ideas to test. Thanks Sean, this was a great read, cheers!
Hey Paul,
I'm glad you're going to be testing out these implementations on your own - great to hear! I've found that it usually pays off - even for those of us that are slammed - to invest an extra day or so in initial set up and prospecting so that once we automate or formalize a system we can consistently rely on a certain number of opportunities coming in each week.
I think there's a lot of psychology and philosophy behind these tests that can be expanded on by other optimizers and other tests. There's always more room for customization and oprtimization after all !
Dear Sean,
This is a beauty, I loved it man. When it comes to GP (Guest Post), I always email to the point. I always mention that I would like to post on these topics & I need one link back to my site , also I appreciate and welcome their suggestions.
I believe, if you read their guideline properly, then the chances will be high to get your blog published. Because, they have mentioned everything on their guidelines. Even maximum sites mention blog topics on which they accept blog posts.
Now regarding your experiments, I would love to try "Because". However, I had a question - I guess, the response rate increased on your emails because of the title "Moz and Unbounce" , also you have published blogs on Moz, Kissmetrics, CrazyEgg, Ahrefs, Wordstream, etc. That's the main reason of getting more responses & get your blogs published. But what about those, who are new in the industry and want to publish in such big sites? Because, as per my experience, it's hard to get approval in such big sites without previous experiences, sample blogs, etc.
Would love to see your thought on this.
Hi Shubham!
I love your question:
"But what about those, who are new in the industry and want to publish in such big sites?"
The awesome part of all this is we started as just a couple 22 year olds who had no connections or knew anything at all. But...we started to go to all the conferences and tweeting at all of our search heroes. We started to build relationships.
The relationship that started it all was when I accidentally called Miriam Ellis. Unbeknownst to me, she was in charge of the MozLocal newsletter. I told her about a post I wrote on local SEO that I was excited about. She said to send it over so she could read it. Next thing you know, I am in the MozLocal Newsletter.
I finally had my break :)
From there, I emailed all the other blogs letting them know with a screenshot of the post in the MozLocal newsletter that MozLocal had featured me and I'd love to write for them.
Sometimes hard word and a little luck is all it takes!!!
For all the details of how we got started and how you can guest post for your own industry you can find more info here: https://directiveconsulting.com/heres-how-to-guest...
Hello Garrett,
Thanks for the detailed answer. This is something really interesting to check out, good to know about your try and success. And yeah, "little luck" always plays an important role on your path to bring success on your feet.
Keep it man.. !!
Thank you very much for all this tips, Sean! The correct use of email is undoubtedly a very important way to grow a project. One tip I would like to add is to avoid introducing too many links within the email, because these types of emails are usually detected as spam. Great post, Sean!
Thank you very much for sharing your technique !! One thing that I find very important and that is very simple to do is to personalize the mail simply by putting the subscriber's name in the beginning. We all like to be addressed by our name and not as a spam. I think this simple echo invites to continue reading, click ...
Great post! I couldn't help but wonder if you also tested writing the content from the image (the "header" image with your photo) as plain text?
I like the thinking behind the image but wouldn't this be unreadable on mobile devices? I guess editors may be more prone to reading email on their laptops/tablets and thus, this wouldn't be an issue, but I'm sure some (many?) read emails on their phones, right?
I also noticed that you changed four variables in the initial "personalisation" section, which were:
- New/improved subject line;
- First name personalisation;
- Slight rewording of the "I would love the opportunity..." line;
- Replacing the first line of the email with the "header" image
Did you change each of these variables independently or all at the same time?
I ask because, personally, I'd guess (yes, not very data-driven, I know!) that the first name personalisation would be the #1 reason for the reply-rate increase here. If someone reached out to me with "Hi there to the [SITE NAME] content team" as the first line in their email, I'd almost certainly ignore them.
I, therefore, can't help but feel this had more of an impact than the header image (although I'd love to see data proving otherwise, if you have it?)
I also noticed that the "I am emailing you because..." line was actually present in your initial, baseline email - did you include the wrong screenshot, or was that not actually changed?
--
But, anyway, this was a really great post. I think too many people see 8-10% as "good" response rates when doing guest post outreach (or any outreach, for that matter), which is a shame.
I haven't personally done a huge amount of testing on this, but one of the things that's worked well for me in the past is telling people I have a very specific idea for a post that I think would be perfect for them, and leaving it at that.
So, for example:
"...I'm emailing you because I'd love to write for you.
I actually have a (pretty specific) idea for a post that I think would be a PERFECT fit. It's something you haven't covered yet, but I've seen a few other similar blogs (e.g. [COMPETITOR NAME]) writing about it.
If you're still accepting guest posts and would be interested in hearing the idea, let me know and I'll send a quick outline.
-- [YOUR NAME]"
I've found this is usually enough to pique their interest + the notion of a "specific idea" gives the impression that it's tailored to them. In reality, I simply wait for that initial response before coming up with a tailored post idea for them (this saves wasted effort coming up with a bunch of semi-related post ideas).
I've only sent a handful of these so far so more testing is required, but results have been promising thus far.
Hi there Josh - and thanks for the repost on Inbound by the way ;) I really love how much you engaged with the piece - I'm glad you got so much out of it.
In terms of those initial variables that we changed I actually tested each of those changes one at a time (but on smaller time scales). For the sake of making the post more reader friendly I jumbled each of those into their own "test" focused on a macro solution. For the most part we were already using the first name insertion whenever we could (but because I was scraping email and contact info manually, I wouldn't find a name for every opp, so I would default to "Hi there to the {COMPANY} Content Team!" if I couldn't find anyone).
So in terms of actually improvements the header actually made the biggest personalization impact, given that I was already using (or trying to use) a first name address in I'd say about 70% of my emails.
To your second point: yes, you caught me using an inaccurate screenshot - I didn't always use the "because" sentence in isolation but it looks like I pulled an email screenshot that was in between tests instead of one from before I ever started testing.
--
I really like your point about offering a super specific blog post and providing the context of how it's new and relevant to their site - that's an awesome tactic! And I like how cheeky it is by not actually having the topic in mind until you get a positive response.
What this post doesn't address is our continued testing after we hit the magic 34%. I actually automated these outreach emails and added second and third follow emails to the cadence - which continued to increase our response rates. But because of the automation I found it easier to keep the outreach scaleable by having a list of topics prepared and outlined. This way once we got a positive reply we could get straight to writing the piece instead of having to pitch new topics once we get our foot in the door.
I really like your idea - it's time efficient and value-oriented, but I think at scale it might start to slow down your actual production once the positive replies start flooding your inbox. I mean - heck - I had to freeze our campaign because we had too many guest posts opportunities coming in and our content queue was backed up for the next 3-4 months. I'm only one man and can only write so much after all ;) haha.
Thanks again for the awesome comments and repost!
Thanks for that comprehensive reply, Sean!
I think that's really interesting about the header; I'm probably going to give that one a try myself at some point. I'll let you know my results if I ever do.
And I completely agree with your point(s) surrounding my "tactic"; I do usually have a rough list of ideas when doing outreach, but I prefer not to offer "generic" titles whenever possible. That's mainly because I like posts to be as tailored as possible. I can see how that would affect things when trying to scale, though.
I think I'll be trying a lot of the pointers you gave in this post, so thanks!
PS. I don't mean to keep asking questions, but would I be right to assume this study was performed in the "marketing" niche? Have you tried it in any other niches and, if so, did you see similar results?
Edit: I have no clue why I'm asking if this was in the marketing niche; just re-read a bit of the post and, obviously, it was! It's been a long day!
Good article !!! Thank you :)
Really good tips, Sean!
Personalization goes a long way. No excuses for not doing it these days. So many modified searches you can do to find the people you want to reach. If they aren't on professional networks like LinkedIn, chances are they are on Facebook or Twitter.
Too many people think this is about volume and skimp on the detail. Totally agree it's better to send 5 high-quality outreach emails and convert 3-4 of them than send 50. I think your email says a lot about the respect you have for the integrity of the people you are reaching out to. So make it count!
Hey Anthony - thanks for the comment!
So true - we all want to scale up our systems to maximize our growth opportunities. But the quality over quantity rule always wins.
The simple truth is that receiving cold emails can be annoying and harassing. We want to change this process to make it far more about relationship building and continued partnerships. After all, each guest post opportunity we win is a chance to better myself as a writer and a marketer - I owe my prospects more than respect for these growth opportunities alone! Not to mention the backlinks ;)
Nice post on improving email reply rate. In short we have to have a great subject line, keep it interesting and offer value to the person for whom the email is intended for.
Thank you for the insight, Sean!
I heard of the magic behind "because", and personalized subkect lines rule by all means. I was a bit confused by the length of your initial email (looks too-o-o-o long for me, I doubt I would finish reading it if found in my inbox), but the final version is more inviting to the eye :)
One question: your email gave them about 10 topics ideas to choose from. Isn't it too much? I mean, won't it look obtrusively and overwhelming to read and value them all? Or, it's that very moment when the more is better? I usually give 3-5 topics ideas...
Cheers,
Lesley
I appreciate these email tips. Small adjustments that should be easy to implement.
Great read Sean, think i'll have to start using these tips and tricks as soon as i can, sometimes you can get caught up in trying to get everything across at once, but most of the time the simplest ways are the best!
Email marketing is time consuming, and can be really confusing for a beginner.
Your idea of taking care of every single detail like subject line, personalized opening, customized body etc. can really help in getting better results.
I myself got poor results during a campaign of backlink building.
I emailed around 150 niche-relevant blogs for backlink request to my 3000 word long authority article, but even after a stunning 50% open rate, i got only 6% clicks and 2% replies.
And backlinks, they were ZERO.
Can you just provide a hint ? Where i might have made a mistake ?
Poor selection of websites , poor email copy, or ordinary content.
OR, plain link request don't work for a new website.
I hope that i am not the only one who is struggling with it
But, your article is really helpful. Though, i don't think that 34% can be possible for me at present, but i will try to learn.
As someone who sends a lot of email campaigns in a ton of niches, let me say that reply rate is probably the last thing we look at.
However, this article needs a new title to make it actually apply.
How We Increased Our OutReach Email Response Rate to 34%
With that title, it actually addresses the target audience of the post and I am willing to bet that it will get a lot more traffic as a result.
Anyway, Sean offers a very detailed guide and breaks down his process for link outreach that you certainly must try.
I always follow personalized introduction, offer customization, but didn't get any good amount of reply. I really in a confusion about the SUBJECT line. What should I write in the subject line, if I send an email to an athlete offering some effective skill improvement tips?
Hey Paul !
Really, I have enjoyed this post thoroughly. I am surly going to implement your tips.
Thanks for sharing such a nice post.
Keep Writing !
Interesting article, I am sure to apply these tips. Thank you.
Bookmarked! I cannot wait to do these tips on my own marketing. This is very timely as I have been testing our different email templates for the past weeks!