A Systematic Approach to Managing Relationship &

Links

Who dis?• Co-Founder of Kerboo (Was LinkRisk)• Chequered past

* Hat tip Carly Wood / Nichola Stott via FB

Paul Madden Kelvin Newman Paddy Moogan

What the hell are we all doing anyway?

The current position

Content marketing

PR

More traditional SEO

Links are the signal

Its all about the people

Outreach

It’s a false economy

And we are addicted to it

Create the content outreach and pitch

Create the content and pray?

We all need to up our game in outreach and understand the

psychology of action

So how should we think about outreach and the people we interact with online?

Too much marketing is: -

Hey FNAME,

We have made something cool, you’re gonna love it so much, gimme linkage

Thanks

Random Dude

“There is NO action without reaction”

Reaction is prompted by emotion

What makes a site owner or editor or author or influencer act?

We have to know what our target will respond to

Cold hard money

Friendship

Do they have a need we can fulfill?

Link building isRELATIONSHIPS

Any outreach isRELATIONSHIPS

Sales isRELATIONSHIPS

PR isRELATIONSHIPS

Content Marketing isRELATIONSHIPS

RELATIONSHIPS

DEFINE

SUCCESS

Think about content promotion and coverage

The aim is to build a network of influencers in niches that can benefit

all future projects

Pick your most common broad niches

The Pareto Principle applies as it always has and always will

Its this top 20% of sites and people that make 80% of the difference

Why ?

Why market what you have with people you already

know?

The risk is far far lower

Some signals count for us

Some signals count against us

Marketing and by extension SEO succeeds today more than ever as a result of leveraging those people you know

So how do we define ‘Know’?

Make a connection

Once we have a connection we are free to ask questions

Once we can ask we can understand the motivations

And once we understand what motivates we can use emotional triggers to illicit action

Trust is something you have to earn

Give rather than take

Start from a position of trying to help them in some way

And you’ll stumble onto the emotional trigger naturally

Finding the right contacts

Find content and work upwards from there

Excellent interface (Slightly limited inventory)

100 Million websites searchable using 50 filters

Hunt down ANY deck by

Paddy Moogan

Stacey MacNaught

First contact

Emails emails.. And more emails

• Email is cheap easy

• Its simple to hide behind the inbox

• Its harder to make a connection

• You’re often not in control of their attention span

Social interaction• Hard to initiate• It’s a long game• Usually better to

augment an existing relationship

https://www.submarinecrm.com

Keep EVERY communication

You will need a CRM package

Notable CRM packages• https://highrisehq.com/• https://www.pipedrive.com/• https://www.submarinecrm.com/• https://kerboo.com/• http://www.sugarcrm.com/uk• http://batchbook.com/

Think like a salesperson

Every conversation brings you closer to the goal

The best way to have conversations isn’t always

email

Fear is the differentiator

Pick up the phone

Phone is scary… but when done well phone beats almost every other method

Learn how to use the phone.. Learn proper conversation direction

http://www.slideshare.net/spline/questioning-skills-training-materials

Two ears, one mouth

Set a goal for each communication

“I’ve really enjoyed some of the stuff you’ve published lately and I’m just curious on how you decide what to publish and when”

“Can you tell me a little more about how you plan what to cover”

“If I understand you correctly you say that each month you pick X themes to write about and then Y happens, is that correct?”

The question cycle• Open question• Listen• Ask closed question to qualify• Propose suggested help• Listen for objection• Open question to work round objection

Open question• A question you cant answer Yes or No to

• Can you tell me a little about…• In interested in how you do x…• What are the main things you consider

when choosing y…

Closed question• Normally a Yes No Answer

• Used to qualify… • If I hear you correctly you always look for

X, is that correct?• So its only Y that you consider?

Proposal of solution • The WMT method: -

• Because you do XWe do YWhich Means That you sort X

Objection handling 101

People say “no” because

• We haven’t understood the motivations

• We haven’t explained the value

• We haven’t ensured that value meets their need

• For ALL of the above you need to…

Go round our objection loop again

“OK so I may have misunderstood how you do that part of the research for your articles,

is it not correct that you spend X hours looking for resources to support the piece?”

“Umm well yes we do we just don’t take pieces from external people”

“OK so if I understand that correctly if we were to share the research that we had done for the similar piece that we did you would

find some value in that”

“Is that correct?”

Close….

However….

Probably just gonna stick with the emailing ok….

Cold email is less cold if they’re aware of you

Cold email is less cold when it comes from a contact form

Sent from my iPhone

Very brief often gets a response

• Look at the emails you respond to and why …

• Something in the first line or subject catches your eye

• 3 Lines of text and then close…

Short looks personal• Sacrifice detail to illicit response.. • Just do enough to get attention • Things like typical typing errors and ‘sent

from my iPhone’ make it look like a spur of the moment email rather than mass spam

And by common typing errors I mean..

Hi John,

Can you let me know if you’re the right person to takl to about X ?

Just got something I think might be of interest.

Thanks

Paul

Sent from my iPhone

Not… Poor grammarHi John,

Are you the person who looks after there content?

Making them know you exist• Share their stuff• Comment on their content• Write about them

To get the big fish you’ll have to work your way upstream

• Write about them elsewhere

• Include them in other content

• Slowly demonstrate value

http://charlieapp.com

https://www.crystalknows.com

Tools are fine but genuinely showing interest isn’t easy to fake

Showing that you remember them and therefore value them is actually key

That’s where a good CRM helps you

Process• Define what broad niches you want

influencers in• Find the people and the people connected

to those people• Make a connection• Foster that relationship over time• Become a resource for them • Understand their triggers and use that to

your advantage

Takeaways

Build inventory of relationships before the project

Placement is not the end of the relationship

Aim to foster such a relationship that they come to you

Unless you go the extra mile someone else will beat you

Thanks !

Paul@kerboo.com@pauldavidmadden@kerbooKerboo.com