9 Easy Email Templates to Save Time On Marketing Outreach

September 28, 2015

Brittany Berger

Email Template

Content marketers do a lot more than just content.

We wear our writer hat, yes, and our marketer hat, but that’s nowhere near all we’re responsible for. Depending on the day, and its to-do list, we’re also PR pros, managing editors, ghostwriters, link-builders, interviewers, and the list goes on.

It’s a lot of different projects to manage — and I’ll bet that most of that management happens via email. The key to juggling everything is developing processes and systems. Not only do those documents lay out everything so you never forget any important work, they can sometimes actually do the work for you.

Case in point: email templates.

About email templates

Templates have become one of my favorite email tools. You can save a ton of time with them if you write a lot of emails talking about the same thing. Instead of writing 10 individual emails that say almost the same thing, you just insert your template 10 times.

Of course, each email will have unique details that you can’t automate every time. For example, a template for a guest post pitch would need to be customized for the recipient’s name, the publication they work for, your post idea, a brief description of the post, etc.

So to make your email templates easy to customize, use either:

A fill-in-the-blank format where anything that needs to be altered is clearly called out.
Merge tags and custom fields in your CRM’s email tool.

The easiest way to create these templates will either be in your CRM’s template tool, or using your email client’s native features. In Gmail and Google Apps for Work, that will be Canned Responses. In Outlook, it’s Quick Parts.

1. Guest blogging pitch

Speaking from experience, you will use the hell out of this one, and it’ll probably be the simplest, quickest one to create.

Your guest blogging template will help you pitch editors and blogs for external publications. Whether you’re pitching your own post, one from someone else on your team, or a ghostwritten piece, the details will stay largely the same.

What to include:

A quick introduction, customized for each pitch.
Your credentials: where you’ve been published & why you’re qualified to write for them.
The main pitch: a working title for the post you’re pitching.
A brief description of what your post would cover.
1-2 alternate topics for the editor to consider.

Note: this is assuming the blog you’re pitching doesn’t have specific pitching guidelines for you to follow. Obviously, if the blog requests different information, give them that. :)

2. Guest blogging invitation

If you manage your company’s blog, you’re always on the lookout for contributors. One more great post written by someone else means a few more hours you can spend on a different project before tackling next week’s blog content.

Outreach to guest bloggers is time-consuming. Researching bloggers to reach out to is hard enough, you need to make the actual emailing as quick and painless as possible. Enter, the canned response.

What to include:

A quick introduction.
The quick “mission statement” for your blog (what you write about, who your audience is, what your primary goal for the blog is, etc.).
Why you think the blogger you’re contacting would be a good fit for your audience.
A link to or summary of any blog/editorial guidelines.
What the next steps will be if the blogger is interested.

3. Guest post notification

Now you did some guest blogger outreach and got a few awesome posts out of it. When you publish them, you need to let the bloggers know.

So you send a notification to them as soon as their post goes live. This was one email where I was always forgetting or leaving out something important. The post may be live, but guest bloggers are usually eager to help with promotion too, so you need to make sure they have everything they need for that.

What to include:

A link to their blog post (duh).
Links to any forums / communities you’ve shared the post with (Reddit, Facebook or LinkedIn groups, etc.) so that they can participate in discussions.
The permalink to your company’s first tweet promoting the post, so they can retweet.
A ClickToTweet link for easy additional sharing.
Next steps (i.e. invitation to write another post).

4. Link building outreach

If you’re involved in your company’s SEO strategy, you may also be sending outreach emails about gaining links to your company’s product or content.

This pitch is harder to make generalizations for, since what you include will depend on what types of sites you’re trying to get links on, and what type of page you want them to link to. But a few elements will remain across the board.

What to include:

A brief greeting, introducing yourself and your company.
How you found their website and why it caught your attention.
A summary of the page you’re trying to get links to.
Why their readers want or need to see your content.
A polite ask of whether the recipient thinks their readers will like the content.

Note: Link building can come across as spammy, so it’s up to you how aggressive or unassuming you want to be.

5. PR pitch

A lot of content marketers (this one included!) coordinate all content for the company - including earned PR coverage. It’s not always our forte, but assuming you have a few press contacts and a compelling story, the actual pitching should be pretty simple.

Don’t worry, your day will get hectic enough when a reporter accepts your pitch. :)

What to include:

A brief introduction.
A short (2-3 sentences) summary of your news.
Why the reporter’s audience will care.
Why it’s relevant & should be covered right now, instead of next week.
Next steps (sending media assets, setting up an interview, etc.)

6. Data pitch

Another great way to generate PR content is by sharing your stats. If you’ve conducted a survey or your customers or industry, or can share interesting internal metrics, you can suggest them to bloggers and reporters. The hope is that they’ll either write up something about the data-set, or may cite the stats in future pieces.

What to include:

A brief introduction.
A summary of the project the data was a part of (customer survey, analyzing public data, etc.).
3-5 of the most interesting conclusions or statistics drawn from the data.
Why the recipient should care.
Why this information matters right now.

7. Influencer curation

Imagine having 10 or more people, all with much larger audiences than yours, being invested in seeing your content succeed. Doing what they can to get eyeballs on it. Pretty awesome, right?

That’s why “influencer curation” is such a quick win. If you can reach out to some important people and get them to answer some questions or provide a quote to turn into a blog post, you’ll be able to borrow their readers and followers.

What to include:

A brief introduction.
A summary of the piece you’re putting together.
Why you’re reaching out for this piece.
What you would need from the influencer you’re emailing.
When you would need it by.

8. Influencer outreach

Influencer marketing is one of the most popular buzzwords this year, so curating influencer advice is nowhere near the only way you can work with VIPs. You can do interviews, live streams, webinars, events, etc.

Another popular, and more simple, option is trying to get relevant influencers talking about your content. And for that, you need to reach out and make sure they know it exists.

What to include:

An introduction.
A short (1 sentence) summary of your content.
Why it’s relevant to the influencer.
An offer to send over the content for them to check out.
The end goal (shares, submissions, views, etc.)

Note: It’s more important than ever when dealing with VIPs to respect the recipient’s time. Keep it brief, be polite, and don’t act entitled.

9. Customer interview

As a content marketer, you need to be incredibly in touch with your customer’s needs. Otherwise, you won’t know what content to create. Or where to create and promote it. Or a multitude of other things you need to know for your job.

Whether you’re interviewing someone for an official case study, to develop buyer personas, or just to gain informal insight, this template should make it easy to set up.

What to include:

Introduction.
Purpose & goal for the interview.
Anything else you’d need from the customer.
Suggested dates and times.
A link to book a time on your calendar (pro tip: use Calendly or Vyte.in).

Bonus: the follow-up email

There’s one more email template that every individual working in an office needs: the follow-up. We’re all busy, and email easily falls to the back-burner.

Create one blanket fill-in-the-blanks email template for following up the week after your original email.

Conclusion

It should only take about 15-30 minutes for you to sit down and write all these templates, or any others your department needs. And that time upfront will make it possible to: