How many follow ups before giving up?
-
What are your thoughts about the contacting process itself. I am targeting sites in relevant industries, with domain authority over 50, asking to be added to resources or comparison pages
1-How long do you wait before sending a second/reminder email?
2-Do you have a template for follow up emails? "Hi, I contacted you a week ago about...."
3-If domain authority is decent (50-60), how many times do you follow up before giving up?
-
Pick up the phone. Often solves the problem fast.
Sending an email is easy and requires no "on the spot" thinking.
Speaking to someone by phone does.
Calling just a few of those potential link prospects will have you quickly examining your value proposition (in a good way) since you will likely flub your first few attempts if your offer has no value.
-
If not by an unsolicited email or call, how do you approach a prospect with an infographic or content you might have for one of their specific pages?
-
These emails offer real business relationships: we ask them to become partners and get nicely paid per lead to a good quality product; or feature each others site as the preferred product provider in relevant pages. I use preciprocity principles, follow/like or link to them ahead of time but the response rate is still low. Until now, a follow up to an unanswered email has not resulted in more responses, so I was thinking about not following up at all and just move on
-
If the emails and followup are unsolicited then yes its spam, and my reaction is the same: to ignore, report as spam and delete.
Gyi is spot on about the overall tactic. Personally I very rarely send unsolicited sales or link requests. I agree those are a waste of time. But if there's already an established connection, then yes absolutely I am tenacious and will pursue the lead for a minimum of 5 times.
-
I refuse to deal with anybody who uses a robo-caller - insta-hang-up and the number is added to my phone's 'reject list'. What they are saying is that THEIR time is too valuable to waste on the call, but they have no problem wasting MY time.
-
You'd have lost it similar to I did once then... I'm always too polite to simply hang up, I just keep repeating politely that I'm not interested for various reasons until they accept it. However, not one time... a telesales guy who was calling to do a 5 minute survey refused to give up. I really was extra busy at the time and told him over and over that I didn't have time and would he please accept no as my answer.
This chap then told me that he would ring me everyday several times per day until I did his survey! He was actually threatening me with daily sales calls.
I went mad, I don't often do that but the damn cheek of it!!
High volumed expletives and frothing at the mouth... I'm not proud of it, but he didn't call back again
Mind you, at least he was human... lately I've been getting called by machines that ring me up and tell me to press button 1, then keep me on hold before passing me to a sales person (I had to go through to ask them to remove me from their list, which was pointless as there's always more).
What is the world coming to lol.
-
You guys are right... it's the "brute force" thing that really bothers me.
The "value to recipient" method would be better - but usually there is no value. lol
-
I totally agree with Gyi. If you are not getting any response, you are not presenting any value to the recipient, or you made it into their junk box. I would reply once and if you don't get a response, adjust your strategy and move on.
-
I think both sides of the earlier responses have merit. However, successful link requests are less about brute force and more about thinking strategically. First, in my experience, unsolicited emails of any kind are a total waste of time, or at least extremely inefficient (not to mention very annoying). Not a good way to start a relationship.
Think about your link requests more like business relationships and less like a sale. Would you spam your colleagues? Your boss?
How do communicate with other professionals? Use that as a template for thinking about how to contact link targets. And don't call them link targets ; ).
-
Thumbs up, Steve....
I report most link requests as "spam" and if I recognize a second request from the same site I block their email address or better their entire domain from my inbox. (Gmail allows an unlimited number of blocked addresses.)
Call me on the phone once and I will tell you nicely not to bother me... call a second time and you will not like what I say.
-
I think that's awful (no offense). I get tonnes of link requests, and other such emails every day. I don't have the time to reply to them and neither should I have to. Some of the emails state that "As they haven't had a reply from me... etc..." And then presume to suggest that I should take time out of my busy day to reply to their unsolicited emails.
Continuing to ask after no reply the first, or even second, or as you say 5th time is not getting the message and is little less than harassment.
A lot of people, like myself don't reply because:
a) It open the doorway to more such spam, and
b) Sometimes replies are little more to the sender than confirmation the email exists and responds so they can sell your data
I think it's rude to keep sending people emails. Why should I have to write "No" hundreds of times per week when I didn't even ask for the email in the first place.
So, what you're saying is that you're one of those people who hassle and bug people like me who are just trying to get on with my work, and you won't ever stop despite the fact that I don't reply?
It gives all of the industry a bad name when people do stuff like that.
Also, why should I have to unsubscribe, when I never subscribed in the first place? Not to mention that most of these requests don't have the option to unsubscribe anyway.
Sorry for the rant, nothing personal but I see it as pressure sales via spam... which I'm surprised works at all to be honest.
-
I think the same principle that applies to sales applies here. This stunning fact is something I've never forgotten once I learned it: 80% of closes happen after FIVE or MORE points of contact.
Most people fail to follow up that many times. Let's say one email, then maybe 1 or 2 reminders via phone/email? Up it to at least five and you'll have a better success rate. Personally for sales, I don't ever stop following up. I must either get a clear YES or a clear NO. (This could be as simple as "Unsubscribe.")
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
So many spam links that I haven't created are reflected in my domain
Around 500+ spam links got reflected in my domain. I actually haven't created them. Also, the links are not opening. These links affected my spam score. How can I remove them and reduce my spam score?
Link Building | | OrangeDigital160 -
I have just read an article that says no follows now leak link juice?
I have just been reading a really interesting article about link juice. The way I read the piece the author was saying that there has been a change in the way link juice is blocked with 'no follows.' The author seemed to say that there has been a change and now even if you add a 'no follow' onto a page that the page will still send link juice to that page. I may have read this wrong. I just wanted to check if anyone else had heard this at all? Many thanks
Link Building | | mblsolutions0 -
How to rank for many keywords
OK, so I've been diving into SEO pretty hard lately and learning everything I can. Something I'm not quite understanding is how to rank for a lot of different keywords. We're in the proofreading and editing space which can be broken down into many categories: general proofreading & editing essay editing book editing etc. If I consider the "essay editing" category, the main keyword I want to target is, in fact, "essay editing". However, I'd also want to target: essay editing service, edit my essay, fix my essay, revise my essay, etc. Basically, a lot of modifiers. I can easily target our main page for essay editing and essay editing service keywords, but how do I start ranking for those longer tail keywords? Is it simply building content that includes them? Is it getting links utilizing anchor text? Or is there something I'm missing? I don't see the point in building separate service pages for those other keywords; I think that's a waste and bad site architecture practices. I'm just looking for my "aha" moment on these longer-tail rankings. Thanks!
Link Building | | Kibin0 -
Is there a software to help me check whether the sites that i give link to, also place my link on their site (reciprocal link)?
When i exchange links with others, i usually put their link on my site hoping that they'll do the same. Since it's impossible to check all sites whose link i have placed on my page to see if they have put a link back to me, i was wondering whether there is a kind of software to help me do that!
Link Building | | isidora0 -
No follow - dofollow
Does the nofollow pass mozrank? Is useful or I am just loosing my time? I am trying to get links for a clients, but other blogs are very few so I can make guest authoring, and this what I can find 90% are nofollow. What I should do? i HSOULD BUY FEW SO i CAN ACHIEVE THE RESULTS?Thanks
Link Building | | nyanainc0 -
Http://angelasbacklinks.com/ can someone give me their take on this site and the packages? Thank you
http://angelasbacklinks.com/ can someone give me their take on this site and the packages? Thank you I am looking to get links to this url www.gunshotdigital.com
Link Building | | vijayvasu0 -
How Many Domain 301s Can You Have?
A client owns around 10 different domains, each a slightly different version of their company name. The main site is itself a new domain, therefore they'd like to know what the implications of redirecting the 10 other domains to the main one would be. Any thoughts? I have never done this before, so interested to know whether a) there's any benefit and b) if there is a penalty for implementing too many domain 301s. Thanks.
Link Building | | RiceMedia0 -
Follow or Nofollow outbound links to resourceful, related site?
As I am going through and redeveloping a website, I am trying to add some external links to resourceful information regarding this page. Should I put a nofollow or follow attribute on these? I am only putting 1-5 links per page to associations and other organizations that would be beneficial to the visitor. I am worried about the number of outbound links causing me to get penalized. Ideas?
Link Building | | TKIGWebTeam0