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
-
Do many nofollow links from one website will hurt my website SEO?
Do many nofollow links from one website will hurt my website SEO? Please let me know. I am getting about 20 thousand UGC links from a news website after I posted one comment on an article. Please suggest asap.
Link Building | | mikeeb_50150 -
Paid-for featured article on dailymail.co.uk with follow links
Hey Mozzers, Our PR team are paying for a featured article on dailymail.co.uk to increase brand visibility and coverage on a high traffic website. The article, however, is fairly thin content, and it has a couple of follow links back to our own site. From an SEO point of view, how do you feel about this?
Link Building | | RWesley0 -
'Too many links' on our pages.
This figure includes links that sit within our navigational menus. Is there a way to block this somehow so that Google and Moz do not read them as 'internal links'? Thanks in advance.
Link Building | | Ashley-Jacada0 -
Guest Blogging Question? How many links in an article?
I am being offered by a blog to have more than 5 links in an article that points directly to our money sites. The blog is in the same niche. This is the first time i am being offered more than 2-3 links in an article. Should i do it? How many links should be in an article so not to be penalized by Google? Does it look unnatural to have more links in an article that points to the same site but different pages? Thanks
Link Building | | WayneRooney0 -
Ranking Riddle: Too many anchor text links, or not enough of the right ones???
This question is about one of my ecommerce sites (www.BestDryingRack.com) which is ranking really well for one of it's money words, and not at all for the other. See the attached screenshot for a quick overview of the riddle we are facing.... Looking at the "Anchor Text" tab in my MOZ Campaign or in Open Site Explorer would lead you to think that I have WAY too many links with my #1 money phrase. (clothes drying rack, or laundry drying rack, as they are synonyms). And since my product page doesn't rank at all for that keyword, that's what I thought too. (My home page does show up on page 3 or 4 when Googling clothes drying rack) On the other hand, my #2 money phrase (umbrella clothesline, or outdoor umbrella clothesline) has it's product page ranking quite well in the middle of the first page of Google results. Digging deeper into the links spreadsheet from Open Site Explorer shows that most of the links are NOFOLLOW (which means they don't really count, right?) As the screenshot shows, here is the breakdown of links that count: FOLLOW links with Brand and URL anchor text totals 17 FOLLOW links with #1 money phrase anchor text totals 10, with only 1 to proper product page FOLLOW links with #2 money phrase anchor text totals 3, with all 3 to proper product page So the riddle is... Can we improve the ranking of the #1 money phrase by just getting a small number of matching anchor text links to the proper page? (making it like #2's situation) Or do we also need to get rid of some of the 9 links with the #1 anchor text that are pointing to the home page? (since the home is outranking the proper product page for this phrase) BDR-anchors-040614.jpg
Link Building | | GregB1230 -
Difference between rel="nofollow" and rel="no follow"
Does rel****=****"nofollow" mean the same thing as rel=****"no follow"? I mean written in one word or two words. Can Google feel the difference? Thanks
Link Building | | DDL0 -
How many backlinks on start up?
How many backlinks would you say is too many on a start up site. Assume about 300 visitors driven to the site via adwords.
Link Building | | JML11790 -
Do Follow- Social Media sites
Does anyone have a list of do follow social media network sites. I am looking to list some of my customers on social media network sites, but having the bonus of do follow to pass link Juice is an extra bonus. Most of my customers have Twitter and Facebook profiles- but these happen to be no follows. I am looking for more social media sites that are do follow. I did see an article on this- on SEM MOz I believe but I cant find it. Any suggestions?
Link Building | | WMA0