Something is brewing over in the outreach team as newcomer Daisy puts her tactics and outreach ideas to the test. Read on to find out what happened when Creative Director Kayleigh put her in the hot seat here at Seeker HQ…
——
Welcome to the team, Daisy! It’s great to have you here and you’ve certainly been a busy bee since you started. We’ve all enjoyed getting to know you and you’re already proving a ninja when it comes to conjuring up good outreach ideas.
Now, so we can get to know you even better, we’re going to ask you a few questions:
Can you tell us a little bit more about your professional background? Most importantly: why outreach?
Hi! It’s great to be part of the team and I cannot wait to get stuck into the Seeker lifestyle. I’m pretty new to the world of outreach. In fact, I’m pretty new to the world of work! I graduated from Swansea University in May 2017, after three years of studying for a BA in Media and Communications. During my time there I found a true passion for digital PR — although I had taken many voluntary roles in the communications sector, I was unsure of where I wanted my degree to take me.
After graduating, I moved to Abergavenny, a small — I mean, really small — town in Wales, and started the never-ending job hunt. I found myself working as a Marketing Executive for a screen-printing firm, then in February 2018 I came across the opportunity to apply for a role within an in-house SEO team, working on, you’d never guess it… outreach!
During my time there I was employed as a Digital Campaign Executive, working on outreach campaigns for a wide range of topics: home and garden, technology, car insurance, you name it! My role gave me the opportunity to work on creative campaigns from the start (researching and ideating) to the end of the campaign where I had the chance to pitch out my creative assets to top tier publications. Outreach excites me, allowing you to delve into so many different industries and topics, communicating with journalists from around the world and building digital assets that I take personal pride in.
When the time came at the end of 2018 to look for a new role, I knew that outreach was the area that I wanted to go into. Outreach allows you to create and build digital assets that are of true interest and worth, and then share them with the world – why would I want to step away? Since joining Seeker, I’ve been able to jump straight into outreach projects, and I can’t wait to share with the world what we have got in the pipeline!
Best outreach tools — and why you like them?
There are so many outreach tools out there, too many to name and far too many to use on a day-to-day basis. My top 3? Ahrefs, Buzzstream, and Google Trends (didn’t realise that this was an outreach tool, did you?).
Firstly, Ahrefs — A brilliant all-round outreach tool, used for research in ideation stages, competitor analysis and to keep track of campaigns that you’re working on.
Secondly, Buzzstream — The sole tool I use for prospecting; Buzzstream allows you to create prospect lists tailored to each campaign, and using the Buzzmarker tool makes this even easier.
Finally, Google Trends — This tool allows you to basically create any story you want through search trend data; using Google Trends has really proven helpful to me when ideating for campaigns.
Favourite thing about outreach?
Not one day is the same, the world of outreach is constantly evolving and becoming more creative. Working in outreach I know that every day I will be researching something new for a client or campaign, speaking and liaising with new journalists or ideating for a new campaign. I guess that my favourite thing about outreach is that that it allows you to be as creative as you want to be.
Why is ideation so important for outreach?
If you haven’t got a good idea, you’re not going to produce a strong campaign — simple. There have been so many times where I thought that I’ve had a good idea, I’ve gone to pitch it, and the room has turned to me and said “so what?”. Disappointing, yes. I would always think that I’ve got a strong idea, but looking back these ideas didn’t have legs, they didn’t have a strong story, and the best fitting response to these ideas was “so what?”. I quickly came to realise that to build a strong campaign, you have to ensure that you have strong ideas. Make sure that you put enough time towards ideation because this is the foundation for all your campaigns.
How can brands improve their own ideation processes?
Don’t just stick with one method of ideation, allow yourself to ideate in lots of different ways. Put together a mind map, and include every idea that you can think of. Look around to see what other brands are putting out, jot down notes of your favourite bits of popular content around the subject, and look for datasets that you might be able to develop a story from.
Once you’ve given yourself and your team enough time to sit down and ideate, gather together and test them; what headlines can you see coming from this campaign? What data will we use to make it unique? What angles are we pushing? What will the asset look like? You’ll find that you are presented with much stronger ideas.
How is outreach changing (for the better)?
Outreach and the whole marketing platform is changing. We’re finding that for campaigns to succeed, they need to be tailored specifically for the brand that it is for, staying relevant and somewhat informative. This is a positive step though, meaning that, fingers crossed, the spread of fake news will stop, and that only relevant content will be put out by brands.
The other main thing changing in the outreach industry is how personal we have to be, goodbye to the world of email templates! Journalists are real people, so stop speaking to them like they’re not. Outreach pitches are proving to have a higher success rate when they are personalised and bespoke for each journalist you’re contacting.
Any tips for brands looking to improve their own outreach?
I have two. One: make sure you take your time when it comes to pitching, allowing yourself to personalise each email that you’re sending out. And two: don’t focus on coming up with one strong idea, come up with 100 ideas which can be worked on to create 20 strong campaigns.
We cant’ wait to see what Daisy does next…
