How Hunter Got 100+ Mentions in 3 Months With Cold Outreach

Google排名因素正在不断变化，但是links remain one of the most critical factors搜索引擎使用。

如果您希望网站的页面在搜索中排名并吸引大量的自然流量，则无疑需要链接。

良好的链接就像“投票”一样，可以帮助搜索引擎确定最佳的内容，以显示特定的搜索查询。

There'retons of link building strategiesyou can try depending on your goals and needs. With some strategies, you can get those important "votes" and increase referral traffic and gain more visibility for your company.

AtHunter, we're constantly improving our link profile and getting more visibility for our brand. We've tested tons of link-building strategies, and there's one that showed us the best results — link building via "best" listicles.

In less than three months, we got96 new links from 54 domains, were mentioned in33 new product listings, and upgraded ourpositions in 17 listings.

How did we do it? Read this guide, and I'll show you how we implemented this strategy step-by-step.

First things first: What are "listicles"?

A "listicle" is an article made of a list — typically with some kind of extra detail below each item. This is a popular format to review products or services as it's easy to skim to find important information.

Titles tell you what to expect (e.g., each title could be the name of the product or service), and each paragraph/chapter has a similar format, making it easy to compare many items quickly.

Here is an excellent example of a listicle created by HubSpot:Sales Prospecting: 26 Tips, Techniques & Tools to Succeed.

This is a review of the best techniques and tools for prospecting, which has a similar structure and approach to each product.

为什么要在列表中获得特色对您来说至关重要？

列表是针对特定产品或服务的产品比较和独立视图的强大工具。

Just imagine: You're new to sales prospecting. You barely know anything about the popular tools on the market, and you need to find the best one for your team. To get some information about the topic you don't know much about, you typically go to Google and type in something like "best prospecting tools" or "best sales prospecting tools review."

您单击“搜索”，然后偶然发现一个类似的搜索结果页面，该页面主要由列表组成：

At Hunter, our key product is related to sales prospecting, and we wanted to be present in many listicles (especially those that generate high organic traffic).

通过出现在这些列表中，您可以得到：

• More visibility for your brand:Just imagine someone searching for "best [your product/service]." You appear number one on Google in the first independent listicle and are mentioned in all top positions in the listicles below.
• New backlinks:By appearing in those listicles in 95% of cases, you'll get one or a couple of backlinks to your website (only in rare instances do editors not include external links).

There are also cases when you can be already featured in the listicle of "10 Best [Tools/Products] for XYZ" as the #10 item that gets minimum visibility. So, your goal might also be to improve your position in that listicle.

现在，让我们直接跳入确切的步骤和策略，这些步骤和策略将帮助您立即在列表中获得数十个提及。

Step 1: Collect prospects for outreach.

该策略的第一步是找到与列表中提及有关的所有前景。

There are two approaches to do it: manual and automated.

Using a manual approach, you Google all searches related to your product or service with modifiers.

For example:"best + [your product category]"or"top tools for [your product category]."

查找列表的最受欢迎的修饰符是：

• Best
• 列表
• Tools
• Top
• bob电竞官方下载
• 审查
• 自由的
• Toolkit
• Services

You can use these modifiers in combination with your product or service category.

在Hunter，我们创建了一个简单的电子表格，列出了与我们的产品条款相关的所有内容以及可以与这些术语一起使用的修饰符列表。然后，最成功的组合诸如“电子邮件查找的最佳工具”或“验证电子邮件验证的最佳免费软件”。bob电竞官方下载

您可能更喜欢使用自动化方法，该方法使您可以在更少的时间内找到更多的潜在客户（与手动搜索搜索相比）。

You need anAhrefs解释它。如果您没有订阅，则每周有7美元的试用期，因此您可能足以找到所需的所有潜在客户。

In Ahrefs, enter your keywords into theKeywords Explorerand export the results in CSV.

重复您使用电子表格产生的所有关键字想法。然后，将您收集的所有CSV与AHRefs合并在一起。

In the merged CSV, make sure to remove duplicates (from this point, I suggest using Google Sheets).Here, you can find a quick guide on how to remove them.

在那之后，是时候做一些体力劳动了，这有点耗时，但最终非常有意义。

Open each URL you exported. Remove the irrelevant ones or those that are not listicles. Add a sequence tag for each email. You'll use it to personalize outreach.

In our case, we used four key tags:

• Hunter not mentioned (our product is not mentioned in the listicle)
• Hunter mentioned below (our product's position is below #1 in the listicle)
• Hunter mentioned #1 with no link (no need to pitch the product, only ask to add a backlink)
• 猎人提到的＃1带有链接（无需联系此网站）

Besides adding a sequence tag for each relevant listicle, you'll want to add a sentence of personalization to your spreadsheet that you'll be using in your automated outreach sequence as an icebreaker.

This is what it looked like in our spreadsheet:

I recommend exporting from Ahrefs monthly traffic and domain authority of the URLs you collected. That helps to set your team's priorities better. You should focus on the pages with the highest traffic and highestdomain authority.

Once you complete this step, it's time to find decision-makers in those companies and their emails.

我们注意到,反应率最高的listicle outreach was from the blog editors and content managers, so I recommend focusing on these positions. In small companies, it could be marketers and business owners.

You can easily find the full name of the decision-maker from a specific company just by checking the company's LinkedIn profile.

Once you know the full name of your prospect, enter it inEmail Finderalong with a company domain. You'll get a verified email address in seconds. With Email Finder, you can search 25 emails/mo for free.

Another quick way to find the email addresses of the listicle authors is to useAuthor Finder. If you install a free Chrome extension, you can simplify the email lookup process even more.

Just open the listicle URL and click on the extension icon. You'll get the email address of the listicle author.

Add columns to your spreadsheet, such as the prospect's name, company, and email address. You'll use it later to personalize outreach.

Note:If you find emails with other providers, verify them. Usingunverifiedemails may cause弹跳,which can hurt your deliverability rates.

Step 2: Prepare email copy.

现在，是时候为您的cold outreach.

这是必不可少的to segment your outreach sequences, personalize your emails on a high level, and provide maximum value to your prospects.

For our outreach, we created three sequences:

• Those who didn't mention our product
• 那些提到我们产品但以下其他产品的人
• And for those who mentioned but didn't link back to us

Here is an example of the email we sent for those listicles that mentioned other products from our niche but didn't mention us.

接触列表时，在您的电子邮件副本中包含一些关键因素：

1. Short and catchy subject line.如果没有人首先打开您的电子邮件，没有人会回应您。因此，开展新的冷电子邮件活动时要做的第一件事是创建完美的主题行。保持简短和吸引人，以免您的读者不知所措或丢失。相反，使他们感兴趣和参与。
2. Quick intro and catchy opening line.在主题行之后，开头是第二大句子在您的冷电子邮件中。因为您写了一条成功的主题行并使潜在客户打开电子邮件，所以下一步是让他们阅读您的消息。如果您从模糊，乏味和通用的东西开始，那么您将永远不会从潜在客户那里得到回应。在此步骤中，要添加个性化的破冰船至关重要。（这就是我们较早添加有关每篇文章的个性化行的原因。）
3. Personalize at scale with custom attributes.When you send dozens of emails simultaneously, it might be time-consuming to do it all manually. Here is where cold outreach automation tools come in handy. Create a spreadsheet with all data to personalize your emails and then add custom attributes to email copy. Your emails will be personalized on a high levelautomatically, and you don't need to do tons of manual work.
4. Provide value in return.You can't ask a stranger for an offer and not give anything in return. Offer them the option to participate in your affiliate program, or help with the content update or promotion. Think of anything that can bring them value.
5. 用强大的CTA结束电子邮件。这是必不可少的how you end your emailssince it directly impacts the response rate. Ask an open-ended question that requires no time to get an answer. Make it clear and straightforward.

Step 3: Set-up outreach campaign.

Cold outreach is a time-consuming process, but when you find the right approach to automate it, you won't need to spend that much time on your campaigns.

For our listicle outreach campaign, we knew two things we planned to do:

• We would need to send highly-personalized emails to our prospects.
• We would need to send follow-ups as they significantly increase the response rate (typically).

When you have hundreds or even thousands of prospects to outreach, the thing that you don't want to do is to write every single email from scratch.

Also, you might find it overwhelming to remember when you need to follow up with every prospect. When you have more than one follow-up for each, doing it manually may sound like a nightmare.

So, this is the point where you need to use intelligent automation.

对于Listicle宣传，我们使用了Campaigns, a free tool that helps to automate cold emailing directly from your Gmail account.

As I mentioned above, we used custom attributes to automate personalization at scale. You need to spend time collecting all data for personalization before the outreach. Then, you just import it from your spreadsheet and have highly-personalized emails in a single click.

Here is how the final email we sent looked: personal and relevant to the prospect.

We also added two automated follow-ups to the sequence that used the personalization from the spreadsheet. The rule was to send the 1st follow-up in three days to all those who didn't respond, and a 2nd in six days after the initial email.

在安排寒冷后续行动时，必须：

1. Not schedule too many follow-ups.Our crucial rule is to focus on writing irresistible emails instead of adding too many follow-ups. So we recommend limiting it to three follow-ups for your cold email campaigns. If you are sending too many follow-ups to someone who's never heard about you, you may seem like an annoying person and damage your brand reputation.
2. Use the same thread for all emails.这样，潜在客户很快就会想起上一封电子邮件中的报价。此外，在这种情况下，您可以使用后续行动继续讲述故事或提供其他好处。
3. Keep in mind a sending schedule.According to many studies，当您自动化外展活动时，您需要确保将周末和公共假期中的发送窗口排除在外。

Step 4: Be proactive in negotiations.

Your cold outreach campaign doesn't end when you hit "send." Yournegotiation skillsand proactivity determine how successful your outreach campaign will be.

In the perfect world, each answer you receive to the listicle outreach campaign looks like this:

The thing is that we don't live in a perfect world, and most of the prospects will try to get more benefits for you in exchange for a link, product mention, or position upgrade. So, be ready to negotiate!

这里有一些技巧，可以帮助我们在获得潜在客户的答案后获得最多的提及：

1. Be fast and provide what you offered right away.这并不意味着您必须过时睡觉并定期更新收件箱。只要看到电子邮件就可以回答。
2. Be flexible.If you contacted a DR 90 website and the traffic to the desired listicle is 1K sessions, be flexible in negotiations. You don't want to lose a "big fish."
3. Do something for them.You get more chances of being featured if you provide even more value in return. Offer to share content after the update or give free consultation on something you're good at.
4. Don't forget to follow up.Make sure toschedule manual follow-upsfor those who showed interest. Sometimes, people are just busy at the moment you send an email or can forget about the conversation. It's OK. Just make sure to follow up regarding your conversation gently. You can use Gmail functionality to snooze conversations and get a reminder to follow up on a specific date.
5. Track all negotiations.Update your spreadsheet regularly and keep track of all negotiations. If you have too many prospects to handle,use a CRM.

通过“最佳”列表的链接构建是一种有效的策略，可以帮助您为您的业务获得大量的提及和链接 - 如果您正确地做到了。

Make sure to spend enough time researching your potential prospects and collecting in-depth information on them.

Prepare email sequences that are unique and relevant to each segment, and add ice breakers and information pertinent to bring value to your prospects.

Automate routine work by using tools for cold outreach, and at the same time, spend as much time as needed on negotiations.

希望您几乎立即开始看到Listicle宣传的有力结果。