Writing Outreach Emails That Actually Get Replies
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
Partnership outreach has a bad reputation because most of it is bad. The median email is a template, addressed to nobody, asking for a favour from a stranger. It is ignored, and it deserves to be.
The fixes are unremarkable, which is why so few people bother with them.
Write to a person
An email to info@ lands in a shared inbox that somebody checks between other jobs. An email to a named person lands with the person who can say yes. If you can find a name, use it — and address them by it rather than opening with "Hi there".
Prove you looked at their site
One specific sentence about their business does more than three paragraphs about yours. Reference the page you would link to, the service you would recommend, the thing you noticed. It takes ninety seconds and it is the single clearest signal that the email is not automated.
Lead with the thing you already did
"I have added a link to your booking page from our resources page — here it is" is a fundamentally different email from "would you consider linking to us". The first is a gift with an implied question. The second is a cold request.
Going first also costs you almost nothing. If they never reciprocate, you have one outbound link to a business you rate.
Make the ask small and specific
Do not ask them to "explore a partnership". Ask for one link on one page, and say which page. Vague asks require the recipient to design the work, and that is when your email gets postponed indefinitely.
Keep it under 120 words
Everything above fits comfortably. If your draft runs longer, it is usually because it explains your company at length — which the recipient will get from the link if they are interested.
Follow up once
One short follow-up after a week or so is reasonable and often works, because the first email arrived on a bad day. A third is pestering. Send it once, then move on to the next name on the list.