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16 Email Outreach Templates for Every Situation

Let’s be real: Email outreach should be a core element of your marketing plan. Promotion, prospecting, guest blogging, influencer marketing, building your personal brand, soliciting reviews and ratings, link-building, and more can all benefit from the tactic.

Here’s more good news: you don’t need 100+ different email templates to win at cold emailing.

What you do need is one email outreach template that works. Something specific to what you’re trying to accomplish, and tested to be effective.

Craft that one powerful template and then tweak it for 16 different outreach situations.

These templates can help you send hundreds of emails in a fraction of the time it takes to type each one by hand – and all without sounding like a robot.

Whether you’re a marketer, a sales rep, a podcaster, or just someone looking to develop new relationships, you’ll find an outreach template to suit your needs.

Let’s dive in.

1. Land any guest post with this email template

Guest posts aren’t dead… far from it.

While they aren’t as strong for SEO as editorial backlinks, they still provide a benefit. And, if done right, they can drive plenty of targeted traffic to your site.

(Don’t believe me? Check out how Sol Orwell rocked his guest posts.)

But landing guest posts on high authority sites isn’t as easy as in the golden days. Bloggers are more aware now than ever before how a link is a valuable commodity.

With this template, however, you’ll be able to land spots on almost any site with relative ease.

Subject: “Really appreciate this post” or “Care for free content?”

It’s simple, straightforward, personal, and compelling. Fill in the blanks, and send it out.

2. Claim easy backlinks by fixing broken links

Backlinks are the pillars of SEO. Without them, you’ll never rank, no matter how good your content. (At least until Google’s algorithms change.)

Broken link building is a well-known strategy for getting relatively easy backlinks. It works by finding broken links on a site you’d like a backlink from, then emailing the site owner to let them know about the broken link.

(And, of course, suggesting they add your own, working link.)

There are a number of online and desktop tools to make finding them as simple as entering a URL. A few good ones to try include:

• Dead Link Checker – the free account checks the first 2000 links.
• Online Broken Link Checker – the free version is limited to “only” 3000 pages.
• Screaming Frog – this desktop application is a comprehensive SEO spider tool that includes checking for dead links amongst its many tricks. The free version is limited to 500 pages.

Once you’ve found a broken link or two, here’s a template to notify the site owner (part 1 of 2):

This is a two-parter because you want to see if they actually care enough to respond.

If they do write back, find excellent replacements for the links (even if they’re not from your site) and send part 2:

3. The perfect outreach template for resource page link building

Another relatively easy way to get backlinks is by reaching out to the creators of resource pages. You might even snag a few valuable .edu links.

The simplest way to track them down is a good old-fashioned Google search with a few advanced search operators:

• inurl:links AND keyword
• inurl:resources AND keyword
• “useful links” AND “keyword”

Once you’ve found a few good ones, use this script:

4. More easy links: The “Guestographic” method

Brian Dean of Backlinko coined the term “Guestographic.”

In fact, he used it to increase his organic search traffic by 175.59%.

It’s a method of combining infographics +guest posting = guestographic.

Once you create a high-quality infographic, you simply find some websites in your niche that might be interested in posting it on their blog. Easy. In fact, Venngage offers plenty of options when you’re looking for a professionally designed infographic template.

Once you’ve got a list of great blogs to contact, send them Brian’s template:

5. Promote your blog before you even publish it

The single biggest mistake I see new – and even established – bloggers make is that they don’t take enough time to promote their blog posts. In fact, many high profile influencers suggest promotion takes a bigger chunk of time than even creation. Derek Halpern of Social Triggers recommends an 80/20 split.
Are you doing that?

With this method, you can almost guarantee traffic before you even hit publish… or before you even type a single word!

It involves finding influencers who might be interested in promoting your content, then sending those influencers an email to determine their interest.

Pro Tip: A super easy way to find influencers is with a searchable influencer database. Just type in a name or category and start adding people to your list.

Once you’ve got your list compiled, it’s time to reach out:

If they say yes, boom. You’ve got yourself some heavyweight pre-promotion.

I also said you can use this method before ever typing a word. It’s a great way to see if a topic will be popular. If very few people get back to you, it could mean it’s a bad topic or they’re not interested.

Once you’ve published the post, send an email to the people who said yes:

I like to ask for a comment and feedback because, if they had a hand in sculpting the post, they’re likely to share. If you want, you can ask for a direct share instead.

6. Post-publish promotion made easy

What if you didn’t reach out to anyone before your post went live? Are you doomed?

Not at all. You can still ask for the share. It just might not be quite as effective.

On the plus side, you can send it to more people than just your initial influencers. You can also send this email to anyone who has an interest in your topic, like people and sites in “shoulder niches.”

7. Landing a podcast, guest spot or interview? Use this template

Becoming a guest on my first podcast was one of the most satisfying feelings I’ve ever had.

It makes you feel, for lack of a better word, legit. Like a hot shot.

Plus, it’s a great way to build brand awareness, be seen as an authority, drive traffic, and even get backlinks for SEO. Four birds, one stone.

Once you’ve found a few podcasts you’d like to be on, hit ‘em with this:

8. Find and land guests for your podcast? Try this

If you’re on the other end of things and want guests for your podcast, there’s an outreach template for you too.

First, compile a list of potential guests. (Pro hint: If you were a guest on a podcast, that podcaster would probably make a great guest for yours). Who are the movers and shakers in your industry? There are plenty of tactics and channels to locate quality guests if you know where to look.

Here’s your script:

9. Blow up your podcast traffic

There’s one thing every podcaster loves:
Traffic!

If you want more of it, we’ve got just the thing for you. Find yourself a list of influencers, then fire this off:

If they respond, listen, and comment, their numbers will inflate your numbers.

10. Get real survey data with this template

Data-driven posts are some of the most linked to and shared content on the web.

Even if you aren’t writing a post, survey results can help you learn a lot about your customers. They can improve your marketing, advertising, conversion copywriting, and the all-important customer experience.

The problem lies in getting people to take the damn survey. You have to find potential participants, then find a way to get them to donate a few minutes of their time.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way. Let thy will be done with this email:

11. Generate loads of feedback and product reviews

If you’re in the eCommerce world, product reviews are massively important.

They increase your sales, give you fodder for your social media ads, and boost your ego (we can all use that, right?)…to say nothing of the fact that 82% of Americans under 50 always, almost always, or sometimes check reviews before making a purchase.

Grab your email list of customers and fire off this email:

12. Warm your sales leads

The problem with cold emailing in sales is that it’s, well, cold.

These people probably don’t know you or your company even exist. Then you’re asking them out of the blue to buy something. Not an easy sell.

That’s why it’s good to start with a nice, lead-warming email. The kind that nurtures a relationship.

Use LinkedIn to see when a prospect gets a round of funding, a promotion, or some other accomplishment. Follow them on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram and take note of when they post about something interesting or amazing that just happened to them. Then, send them this:

It sets the stage to cultivate a closer connection. It engages. Even if they don’t respond to this first one, it makes your name that much more recognizable when you send the next one.

13. Be useful to be liked by your sales prospects

You typically wouldn’t ask someone you just met for a favor. So why come out of the gate asking for a sale or contact info in your first cold email?

This is another nurturing email to build rapport. Find some way you can help a potential client, such as web design advice, then let them know about it.

Like this template, courtesy of HubSpot:

Make yourself not just known, but invaluable. The type of friend we all need.

14. Warm ‘em up and sell ‘em

Now that you’ve warmed up those cold leads, it’s time to ask for the sale. Or for the contact info for the person who has the authority to purchase.

Here’s a template for that:

15. Get prospects on the phone with ease

What if your product or service is more intricate and can’t be sold in a simple email?

You need to get those prospects on the phone. And I have just the trick for that, too:

16. A phone call follow-up email to win clients

You got ‘em on the phone and they seem promising. Now it’s time to lay down the finishing touch. Send this email:

If you’re hankering for more sales emails, check out more here.

Parting Words of Advice

Cold email outreach is one of the best ways to get shares, interviews, and sales. They just work.

With these outreach templates, you’ll be WAY ahead of the competition in a fraction of the time.

One word of advice: make sure you customize your emails when you send them. Don’t sound like a robot and people won’t instantly hit delete.

Oh, and one last tip…

If they don’t answer your first email, don’t give up!

Always follow up. Always. Most acceptances happen in the follow up.

Sometimes people are just busy that week, or meant to respond and forgot, or didn’t see it in the first place for some reason.

What should you say?

Aaron Orendorff, a guest blogging master and founder of IconiContent, recommends you just resend the exact same email as if they never got the first one. This is because sending a follow up telling them they missed the last email is a little disrespectful.

While that’s not always the case, I do agree that simply resending the same email is a good way to go. If they’re interested, they’ll respond. Or, you can use these follow up techniques.

Aaron recommends you don’t follow up more than once… I’d follow up twice, personally. The choice is yours. Some advocate following up with value-added emails until you get the response.

Now go be a hustler, send those emails, and grow your business like never before.

(And, in case you need a tool to automate these templates and make your life easier, check out Mailshake. We’re pretty cool.)