10 Yetis Insight Blog – Seven Secret Tactics That Will Make You An Outreach Superstar

Outreach is a massive part of any PR campaign and is arguably the most critical component as to whether a story will sink or swim. Whether you’re inhouse, freelance or making your mark in an agency, here are seven secret tactics to set you on the track to success with your outreach…

1.Get Creepy With It – Research your audience
Yes, we all know that, when it comes to outreach, our motto is ‘the more, the merrier’; but this applies to coverage and links, not your media lists! Be sure to research journalists and target your comms to give you the best chance of getting the message out to people who are generally interested – and not those who aren’t.
If there are some contacts who you’ve peed off before, but really want to reach this time, there are ways to overcome the junk filters on their email. Have a nosey at the free tool, Bluenod – HazzaYeti has written a post about Bluenod before, and it’s well worth a read. This tool can help you reach the unreachable.

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2.Try Meeting People IRL
Real life… remember that? Face to face still has it’s place, but you don’t have to stomach the schmoozy networking sessions if you don’t want to. Instead, attend events that are actually interesting – workshops, behind the scenes tours, industry awards and the like. You could even invite your prospective new bezzies to an event of your own or your client.

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3.The Beginning? It’s A Bad Place To Start
If you’re sitting at your desk wondering where to start, don’t go for the beginning, whatever you do. Switch it up and start at the end. The method behind this oh-so-crazy madness, is that you think about the end goals you and/or your client want to achieve and work backwards to figure out how you can achieve it. This way, you won’t end up with content that, even though it could be the best thing since sliced bread, just doesn’t place where you want it to.

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4.Mail Merge Is The Enemy
Mail merge is not (always) your friend. That’s not to say you can’t use it to send out a quick general announcement or introduce a new client – we aren’t living in the dark ages, here – but tailoring a pitch makes all the difference. Seriously.
Journalists are not all one and the same; news outlets have different agendas and they prefer different content formats, as well as stories, so the same thing won’t spark all their interests.

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5.Remember Your Ps & Qs

Remember your childhood lessons here, because there’s truth in them – and they’ll pay off. Being polite and thanking a journo for coverage means they will be more likely to remember you, positively, next time. If you make a habit of it, it can start to build up your relationship with that contact – most PRs don’t do this, so you can stand out from the crowd by firing over a quick thanks and appreciative meme, if you’re feeling especially grateful.

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6.Reach For The…. Links
It happens all the time: you get that A* piece of coverage that were so desperately hoping for – but there’s no link. The piece is perfect, the placement is perfect, the timing is perfect; but without a link, the whole shebang is often seen as worthless in a client’s eyes. Too many PRs give up, hang their heads and write it off as one of life’s disappointments - don’t be this guy. Bite the bullet and give the journo a call or email, start off thanking them for the coverage (so you at least don’t look like an ungrateful scavenger, even if that’s exactly what you are in that moment) and then ask if there’s any chance they could pop a link in if possible.

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7.Don’t Be A Pain
Outreach can earn you a seriously bad reputation, if you don’t get it right. If you’re mailmerging every email, bombarding journalists who’ve already they aren’t interested and probably don’t even cover stories like that, then you’ll get a black mark against you quicker than you can say ‘junk mail’, Be careful about who and how you make your approach and be stringent in removing people who don’t want to hear about your story again. No means no, guys, there’s a difference between being persistent in the hustle and just downright being a pain.

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So here’s our top seven secrets to turn you into an outreach superstar; the main thing is to get out there and do it! It’s easy to spend too long pondering and strategizing, so when you’re ready – just get out there! Good luck!