E1194: Cold outreach is one of the most effective ways to build backlinks, earn media coverage, and get your content in front of the right people. But most outreach emails get ignored.
A Reddit user analyzed 6,337 cold emails and uncovered striking differences in reply rates based on email length, subject lines, follow-ups, and who receives the message.
I break down these findings, share advice from experienced link builders, and explain the cold outreach strategies I've personally used to get viral videos onto national television, earn coverage from major publications, and promote businesses.
What the data from 6,337 cold emails reveals:
- Emails under 100 words earned an 11.9% reply rate.
- Emails between 100 and 200 words earned just 1.9%.
- Emails over 200 words earned a 0.3% reply rate.
- The ideal email length fell between 60 and 90 words.
- One email earned a 4.1% reply rate. One follow-up increased that to 6.6%.
- Two follow-ups increased replies to 6.9%, with diminishing returns beyond that.
- Subject lines under 30 characters achieved an 83.7% open rate, compared to 69.5% for longer ones.
- Subject lines containing numbers performed particularly well.
- Tuesday and Wednesday outperformed Thursday and Friday.
How to get more replies to your link-building outreach:
- Personalize every message. Generic templates immediately signal mass outreach.
- Lead with something valuable to the recipient rather than asking for a favor.
- Keep subject lines short and make the first sentence immediately relevant.
- Find the right person. At larger companies, department heads and managers often make more sense than CEOs.
- Offer original research, useful statistics, corrections, or genuinely interesting content.
- Use broken links as an opportunity to suggest relevant replacement resources.
- Track positive replies rather than total replies to understand which offers work.
- Follow up once or twice rather than repeatedly chasing people.
- Use email tracking tools to understand whether recipients open your messages.
My own cold outreach experiences:
I've spent years pitching journalists, YouTubers, bloggers, and other content creators. I explain how I used concise, targeted outreach to get extraordinary results.
- 2012: My friends and I created a video where fake bodyguards and paparazzi convinced strangers in Times Square that an ordinary guy was a celebrity. I pitched the video on Reddit, reached the site's front page, and ended up on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and NBC's The Jeff Probst Show.
- 2009–2010: A crazy driving stunt video sat unnoticed on YouTube for a year. I pitched it to automotive publications, and Jalopnik featured it on its homepage for two days.
- 2018: We created an early blockchain video game and helped establish the play-to-earn genre. I reached out to major cryptocurrency YouTubers, and one of the largest channels covered our project.
The same principles apply to SEO link building.
Create something genuinely interesting, find people whose audiences care about it, and send concise, personalized messages explaining its relevance.
You don't need another generic guest posting template. You need a compelling reason for somebody to open your email, read your content, and share it.
⭐️ Reddit: What Makes Link Outreach Get Replies? - https://www.reddit.com/r/seogrowth/comments/1vqym2j/what_makes_link_outreach_actually_get_replies/
⭐️ Reddit: Breaking Into PR (6,337 Cold Emails Analyzed) - https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicRelations/comments/1u2f71l/breaking_into_pr_is_mostly_a_coldoutreach_problem/
⭐️ Short subject lines matter for newsletter open rates - https://read.first1000.co/p/things-matter-for-growing-a-newsletter
⭐️ Times Square fake celebrity video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYU1a0lTTTw
💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/
00:00 Why Outreach Gets Ignored
01:10 Value First Link Building
02:01 Templates Kill Replies
03:39 PR Data on Email Length
05:13 Target the Right Person
05:55 Follow Ups and Subject Lines
07:23 Tracking Opens and Deliverability
07:59 Going Viral With Smart Pitches
11:00 Make It Easy to Share
11:43 Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#linkbuilding #backlinks #searchengineoptimization #seo