When you send an email, do people open it?
As a freelancer, chances are you often find yourself firing out emails into the ether only to get…
…Radio silence…
Sending out emails – especially unsolicited ones – can be really challenging and feel very unrewarding. People are busy, and to get through to them, and capture their attention, is far from easy.
And it’s no good sending out clickbait either – that might get your email opened, but it’ll leave the reader feeling annoyed that you wasted their precious time.
So why bother sending Reach Out emails?
A Reach Out email is a bit like a cold email – the recipient hasn’t asked you for it. BUT the key difference is you’ve put the effort in to make it as relevant as possible for the reader.
This can drastically improve how effective this type of email is, and how likely it is that the recipient will open it.
There are a lot of reasons why you might send out this kind of email as a freelancer:
- Pitching for work
- Looking for new opportunities
- Offering your services
- Sending out quotes
- Asking for referrals
- Asking for advice or feedback
Some say sending out emails to people you don’t know is a waste of time – too spammy, annoying, and it doesn’t work.
Others say they have landed cool projects and amazing opportunities thanks to consistent outreach.
So who to believe?
I think it all depends on your approach.
We can all agree that cold emails don’t work.
But if you have a genuine intention to build meaningful connections and help out your recipients where you can, this kind of email can work.
So today we’re going to look at how you can start to reach out to more people who can help you to grow your business:
Molly Beck, author of Reach Out, has used this type of email to build her entire business – and in that book she shares everything you need to know to craft your own reach out roadmap.
This is not a summary of the book, though I do recommend giving it a read. Instead, let’s look at her strategies and how to actually implement them, along with other tips that can help you get results.
Disclaimer:
If networking and the exposure that comes with it is gives you anxiety, start with small steps every day. Megan Breneau, Canadian psychotherapists, says that one of the best ways to fight anxiety is to face it over and over again, until you get used to the discomfort. Once you are used to it, it won’t make you anxious anymore.
That doesn’t mean to go extreme overnight, but to make sure that you make small steps on a regular basis to edge outside your comfort zone.
Your network consists of strong and weak ties
Think about all the people you know – not as close as friends, but all the people who you loosely know of.
Based on how well you know them, the strength of the relationship you have with them, and if you know them personally or not – you can naturally categorise them into two groups:
“Strong ties” and “weak ties”.
Strong ties are your friends, family members, colleagues and coworkers.
Weak ties, on the other hand could be university professors, people you follow on social media, people you listen to on podcasts, authors, speakers you like – you get the idea.
Obviously, your strong ties are the people who are closer to you. These people will usually be happy to help you if you tell them about your business and what you do.
So don’t be afraid to reach out and ask these people if they can help you or give you some referrals.
But how do you make the most of the other category of people, the weak ties?
Well, put simply, the best way is to move more of your weak ties into strong ties. If you start to build real connections and relationships with them, you can really begin to grow how much exposure you receive.
So let’s look at how you can reach out to these weaker ties.
It’s worth the effort to do this. These are the people who can expose you to whole new audiences, markets and insights. Reaching out to weaker ties is also likely to be outside of your comfort zone – and as we all know well, that’s where the real growth lies.
Two main parts of any Reach Out Strategy
Every reach out strategy has two parts – a gift and a favour. The reason for that lies in the principle of reciprocity.
This essentially says that humans have an inbuilt need to repay any favour we receive.
When somebody does us a favour, we feel a natural urge to do something in return – we hate feeling like we owe anybody anything.
For example, if a friend buys you a coffee – you’re going to remember to get them one next time.
When it comes to outreach, it can really help to offer someone a favour first. This can be as simple as giving them something for free, offering them some great value, or providing helpful feedback on their work.
By giving the recipient this gift first, they are far more likely to want to help you out in return, and do you a favour – just to make sure you’re even stevens.
You really need to strike a balance here – this is a powerful principle and you don’t want to overuse it, or guilt trip anyone. Just aim to be nice and helpful, and you’ll find people tend to be nice and helpful in return.
The Principle of Reciprocity in Real Life:
If you have read “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Dr. Robert Cialdini, then you are familiar with this concept.
In the book, Robert explains this with the example of Hare Krishna members who gave out free flowers around metro stations.
This small gift, which people didn’t even want really, made it much more likely that the passersby would donate.
The flowers were mostly ending up in the bins nearby, but the Hare Krishna members knew that – that’s why some of them had a task to go around and collect them from the bins, so they can be reused again.
When you know about the reciprocity rule, it’s easy to understand why you need to give a gift in your reach out strategy.
By giving a gift – or a kind gesture – in your emails, you make it more likely that the recipient will want to repay you – and you make it harder for them to say no when you ask them for a favour.
However, because reaching out can be delicate, asking for a favour in return is an art form.
You really need to strike a balance here – don’t be manipulative, and don’t make them feel like you just want to sell them something or take advantage of them.
Don’t overwhelm them, but do be clear on what the favour you are asking for is.
You might not even ask for the favour in this initial email, if it doesn’t feel appropriate. You can wait until later in your exchange.
The four reach out strategies
Depending on who you are reaching out to, you will can use one of the following Reach Out strategies that Molly talks about in her book:
Re-RO strategy:
This is a strategy when you are reaching out to someone you know already, not necessarily well. But don’t confuse this as to reaching out to your strong ties – remember, these strategies are all aimed at weak ties. For example, this can be your ex-coworker that you haven’t talked to for a few years. In this case, you should make the email more personalised.
Follow-up RO strategy:
This is a strategy for reaching out to someone you have met once – twice, for example at the conference, in a co-working, an event, and want to keep the connection going. Try to email them as soon as possible, so it’s still fresh in their minds. Give them a reminder of your encounter too – you don’t know how many people they have met in a day.
Borrowed RO
This is a strategy for reaching out to a person you don’t know personally, but you share a mutual connection, so you are using that connection as a link to establish communication/connection. When applying this strategy, however, it’s important to always ask the mutual contact if it’s okay for you to use their name here as a reference.
Cool RO
This is a strategy for reaching out to someone you don’t know personally, but you admire – for example, a host of a podcast that you listen to regularly, an author of the book you’ve just read and liked, a speaker you just listened to at the conference. Here you should show that you know their work, and try to offer them value rather than just asking them what you want from them. And keep it short – they won’t read a massive chunk of text from a stranger!
Each of these strategies require a different approach. While there are components to what makes an email good and effective, you can’t rely on creating a template and reusing it.
Instead, master the elements in the next section.
Crafting a reach out email that gets a response
Testing and tweaking as you go is part of the process, so don’t waste time on trying to create the perfect email – you just need to have a good enough email to get a reply and open a two-way conversation.
First things first:
Let’s start with the subject line – it needs to catch attention without being spammy.
Long emails are a sure way to trash folders.
Nobody likes to read them, especially not from people who they haven’t heard from a while, or people they don’t know. So you have to master the art of writing concise emails that are on point.
You will start with greeting the person, of course. Whether you use a formal tone or keep it casual will be for you to judge. But, my recommendation is if that person has a specific title, like Dr or a Professor, always use it.
Next, it you can explain a line about you – this is probably the most challenging part of the email.
It’s not about you!
We love to talk about ourselves, it’s in our nature.
But in this case, we often get carried away thinking we need to mention skills and accomplishments, or make ourselves sound important.
The hard truth is, nobody cares at this stage about you.
If they already opened the email, they do want to know who you are, but the reason they opened it is to see what’s in there for them.
So don’t scare them away with a big paragraph about your life.
A gift and a favour…
After you have introduced yourself in one line, offer your gift. In the book, Molly suggests you should always have two gifts, and ask for one favour, however I believe that quality beat the quantity.
The next part is the favour, and it’s something that you need to rely on your gut feel for. Depending on the situation, you don’t always need to include a favour in the first email. You should focus on the gift, build the connection and then ask for a favour.
But in other cases, there’s no need to wait and drag things out. Unfortunately, there are no specific rules here, it is something that you will get better at with time and practice.
Lastly, sign off and let them know how they can contact you in your signature.
Don’t forget to proofread it!
Once you have a draft, read it a few times.
This might give you an idea of how you can say some things more concise and shorten the email. However, don’t add anything – the final version cannot be longer than the initial draft you wrote, only shorter!
Don’t forget to proofread it before you hit the send button.
Find the right email address
You should always avoid sending reach out emails to general emails, like hello@website.com, and send them directly to your contacts’ email address where you can.
If you don’t know their email, tools like voilanorbert.com or hunter.io can really help you find the right one.
Generally you should steer clear from sending business emails to personal email accounts.
But if, for example, you are emailing a former colleague who you worked with a few years ago – and you’re unsure if they are still working in the same company – it is likely ok to use their personal address. If it’s someone you don’t know, most people will feel that this is too weird.
Be respectful, and only make this exception when it’s appropriate and really necessary. Alternatively, you can reach out on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Define what you want to achieve
As with everything, if you don’t have clearly defined goals and are not sure what you are trying to achieve, you’ll waste time.
Your reach out should be strategic. Think about what you’re trying to achieve – don’t just reach out to random people for the sake of it.
For example, at the moment I am preparing to launch my first Freelance Success course – Freelance Bootcamp – so my goal is to reach freelancers who would be interested and get exposure for the course.
So I’m reaching out to podcast hosts so I can do interviews and appear on podcasts aimed at freelancers.
Make it a daily routine
In freelancing, consistency is key for so many things – and this is no exception.
If you spend one full day reaching out to multiple people, then go silent for the next month – that is unlikely to do the trick. You need to commit to this type of strategic reach out and aim to do a little bit daily.
Create a 10-15 minutes routine that you can stick with. For example, reaching out to one or two people each day is doable and a good start. Don’t aim to do too much, because chances are you will give up.
If you prefer batching instead of doing daily tasks like this, block off some time and send out a few at the same time.
Just make sure you stay consistent
Keep track of it
Once you start reaching out, you need to keep track of your communications so you can see how effective it is. You need to know who you have contacted, why, and what the next step to take is.
This doesn’t need to be complicated, it can be a simple spreadsheet, or you can get fancy and use a CRM System. I use my note taking app – Roam Research to keep track of it all.
So that’s how to improve your reach out technique. As with most things, if you’re putting value out there, and genuinely helping people, chances are some of that good work will come back to you.
Building your network is rarely a waste of time, and you can find incredible opportunities come your way if you stick with this.
