Hey BobGW,
Rand covered outreach emails in a recent Whiteboard Friday if you have not had a chance to watch it yet. Although not 100% applicable to the void you mentioned, it should give some good insight on how to get that friendly conversation going.
If you are going through steps 1-6 as you mentioned, you should have no problem getting personal in your email outreach.
You can view the Whiteboard Friday here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-separates-a-good-outreach-email-from-a-great-one-whiteboard-friday
If your email outreach is done along these guidelines, I believe it should help with your conversions from the get-go.
Hope this helps
