Common Mistakes to Avoid in Outreach Campaigns to Maximize Results

Just like there are no perfect worlds even in the multiverse, there are no perfect failures or drawbacks. 

If your outreach campaigns are falling short of the expected outcome regardless of how hard you work, there must be some reason behind it. More often than not, the reason is some common outreach mistakes that you make without noticing. 

These mistakes might seem small at first, but when added up, they can be a huge drawback for your outreach attempts. In this era of AI personalization, brand practitioners are leaning more towards authentic and organic outreach trends. 

Now, it’s critical to pay more mindful attention towards your outreach practices in order to identify mistakes and avoid them. Here are some common mistakes that you can start with.

Sending Generic or Mass Emails

One of the most common marketing outreach mistakes is perhaps using a generic template or sending the exact same pitch to a bunch of editors. 

Sending out a bland email is the worst possible way to make a first impression of yourself or your brand. On one hand, it brutally exposes your lack of effort and creativity, and on the other, it shows how little you understand the requirements of your target site. 

This results in a drop of response rates of up to 5%/. 

Why It Hurts: Editors receive tons of emails from companies and individuals. Generic emails don’t even reach them most of the time because they end up in their spam boxes. The ones that do reach are also ignored due to lack of originality. 

How To Avoid: Let go of generic templates and try to personalize every pitch. Address the editor by their first name (e.g., Hello Alan,) and move directly to the particular aspect of their website that you want to work on. 

Latest studies suggest that personalized emails can increase response rates up to 30%. Next, highlight how your service or post can benefit their business. 

Use latest tools like Hunter.io and Voila Norbert to find the names of the blog editors, and analyze the site’s top content using BuzzSumo to make the perfectly aligned pitch.

Targeting Irrelevant or Low-Quality Sites

You won’t find the right results if you’re searching for them in the wrong place. Pitching to sites that do not have any relevance to your services whatsoever will obviously end up with a mismatched collaboration. 

Also, low quality platforms that have a DA (Direct Authority) rate of less than 40 or have spammy directories will cause you to lose your precious time and increase the risk of ending up with SEO penalties.

Why It Hurts: Sites that are not relevant to your services don’t attract your target audiences, but rather decrease sign-up rates. 

Sites that are spammy or have a low DA might trigger Google’s SpamBrain into flagging and penalizing your website. This can harm your site’s DA and ranking in Google search.

How To Avoid: A little homework goes a long way.** Do proper research on niche sites. Keep a sharp watch on DA rates of the sites you’re targeting. 

There are tools like Ahrefs or MoZ for this task. Choose sites that have an audience matching the demographics of your email list. Avoid sites that have an unnatural link profile.

Ignoring Guest Post Guidelines

Abiding by the rules is a must when writing a blog post. Articles that do not comply with the site’s guidelines will get rejected instantly by the editor. 

These guidelines may include word limit or word count, backlinking policies, or topic selections. There’s no point pitching a 2000-word article when the site requires just 800.

Why It Hurts: Ignoring guidelines is a serious red flag, as it signals a dangerous level of unprofessionalism. 

Most high-DA sites abide strictly by the E-E-A-T standards and will never publish an article that goes against it. This might reduce your future collaboration opportunity rates with this client and the ones to come. 

How To Avoid: Always read the guidelines provided by the client thoroughly. If they do not provide any written instructions, then set up a meeting video call and note down every bit of detail you get about the rules. 

Ask them questions to make sure you’re covering all the aspects. Be constantly alert about the writing to ensure that it matches the guidelines. If you’re still unclear about anything, email them again. Ask for their certification to ensure you’re following all the rules. 

Over-Promising or Misrepresenting Expertise

This is just as dangerous as lying on your resume. You might get the job for the moment, but you’ll get stuck when it comes to actually doing the job. This will largely undermine your credibility and raise the risk of getting rejected.

Why It Hurts: Editors will cross-check and verify every claim you make. Unsupported boasts will instantly lead to rejection and will generate distrust towards you among the community. Overpromising your skills and expertise often leads to misaligned end results, often leading to decreased DA rate.

How To Avoid: Be honest and genuine about your expertise. It’s better to back your claims up using data and metrics from your previous endeavors. 

You can also add links to previous relevant guest posts to your portfolio to gain the editor’s trust. Highlight your genuine expertise instead of baseless boasting.

Neglecting Follow-Ups

You won’t believe how many collaboration opportunities you let slip simply because you hesitated to follow up. 

After sending a pitch, if there is no response within the next five working days, you might assume that your offer got rejected. But this is not the case most of the times. Editors are busy people. They often tend to prioritize the responsibility they are currently working on.

Why It Hurts: Not following up after making a pitch also indicates your lack of interest in the collaboration. You have to show the editor how keen you are to work with them. Persistence reflects that you have an effective drip campaign, and are likely to be professional. 

How To Avoid: Schedule your follow-ups. Wait for at least 5-7 business days after sending your pitch, then give them a gentle reminder about your pitch. 

Make your follow-up email shorter than the original pitch, as this is not a repetition, rather a reminder. Attach the initial pitch along with the follow-up. If you don’t get any response after sending a couple of follow-ups a week apart, then stop.

Focusing Too Much on Self-Promotion

This is especially applicable to product reviews. Remember, this is a review, not an advertisement. You’re supposed to be writing as a user who benefited from the said product and now you are sharing the experience with others. 

Don’t make it look like a sales pitch. Instead, value the host’s audiences and pay attention to what kind of reviews get the most reads.

Why It Hurts: Editors prefer content that are reader-focused. If the tone of your pitch is promotional, it will automatically reduce the trust of the readers. The more biased your review sounds, the less they will engage with your emails.

How To Avoid: Structure your review like a solution your audiences might be looking for. This will make the readers feel like you value their opinions and preferences. 

Make sure to keep a good balance between pros and cons of the product you’re reviewing. This will ensure objectivity. 

Poor Timing or Frequency

Timing is crucial when sending out business emails. If you want your email to be opened, read, and considered, then you better time it to match the editor’s convenience. 

For example, if you send it out on a Friday evening, the editor is most likely to be already exhausted having dealt with the week’s workload and now simply wants to go home and shut down for the weekend. 

Overwhelming editors with too many emails in the name of following up can also cause their annoyance and result in rejection. 

Why It Hurts: Bad timing will reduce the chance of your email being opened. They might even get buried under newer, better-timed emails. Sending too many emails can also get you flagged down for spamming.

How To Avoid: Best if you send out your pitches first thing on a Monday morning, around 9 AM. If you can’t, then try to send them between Monday-Wednesday, 9 AM-12 PM within the editor’s time zone. Monday-Wednesday are the three most active days of the week. 

And 9-12 are the most active hours. People tend to lose focus after lunch. Stick to 10-20 pitches per week to maintain frequency and track responses well. Schedule your emails and follow-ups to get best results.

Not Leveraging Social Platforms

In this era of social media, it’d be foolish not to make use of it for your business. Not just for advertisements and paid promotions, social media can also be a useful tool for building connections and hunting for new gigs if you know how to. 

Do not ignore social platforms like LinkedIn and X, or it might cost you more than you assume.

Why It Hurts: Social media hosts the biggest sanctuary for real-time guest post opportunities. If you fail to make a pre-pitch engagement with the editor, it might reduce their trust in you and your company. This lowers the acceptance rates for new pitches. 

Social platforms act as the ice breaker for business collaborations. 

How To Avoid: Get savvy on social media and learn all the nuances if you don’t already know how to use them. You can make direct searches and queries like “guest post for email marketing” to find keyword matches with any existing post on the platform. 

Comment on relevant posts or share their content to build connection and familiarity before making a pitch. Use tags and hashtags to maintain ranking and ensure views.

Failing to Track and Analyze Results

It’s crucial to monitor your pitch responses. Keep track of your referral traffic, email sign-ups, and so on to make sure you don’t miss out on any engagement opportunities. Lack of optimization can cost you DA rates and referrals.

Why It Hurts: If you don’t track the responses on your posts, you won’t be able to refine your content and rectify past mistakes. This will waste much of your precious time behind ineffective pitches. Leaving your posts unmonitored can lose you insights into email conversations. 

How To Avoid: There are Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools that are dedicated to tracking pitches. You can also use Google Analytics to track referral traffic. Another trick is to tweak your subject line slightly to align with your post while making it look like a different approach in case the original pitch fails. 

Some Final Words

Identifying, tracing down, and undoing mistakes is harder than starting afresh. Internet trends change fast, and there is no room for those who lag behind. 

The best way to make sure your pitches are free of mistakes is to constantly keep them at bay. Make the maximum use of tools and technologies, but remember, human intelligence is the best tool of them all. Make the best use of it to get the best outcomes.