Getting real work out of Outreach
The other Outreach articles cover which button does what. This one covers the part that decides whether anybody replies: who you send to, what you say, and when you chase.
Start with a list you can defend
Before anything else, ask one question about your list: would each of these people recognise your name in their inbox?
Past customers, people who asked for a quote, anyone who called you, anyone you met on a job or at a show. Those are the lists that get replies, and they are the lists you are allowed to email.
A list you bought, scraped, or guessed at is a different thing. It gets you complaints, complaints get you filtered, and filtering follows your address into the ordinary quotes and invoices you send by hand.
The tag and step filters in the composer are the fastest way to build a defensible list. “Everyone tagged past-customer” beats scrolling and ticking, and it is a list you can describe out loud.
One send, one job
The sends that work ask for exactly one thing. Book a spring service. Tell me if the quote is still live. Leave a review. Come to the open house on Sunday.
The sends that fail try to do three things at once, because the writer was thinking about everything they wanted to say rather than the one decision they want the reader to make.
If you cannot say what a reply would look like, the message is not ready.
Write it like one person to one person
Everything about a group email should read as though you typed it for the person reading it, because as far as they are concerned you did.
Use their name
Type {{contact.firstName}} and each person gets their own. Preview it before you send; a merge field that does not resolve is worse than no name at all.
Keep it under a screen
Nobody scrolls a message from a business they half remember. Four or five sentences is plenty.
Ask one question at the end
A question invites a reply. A statement invites nothing, and a reply is the only outcome that matters here.
Sound like yourself
Write the way you would speak on the phone. Formality reads as a template, and a template reads as a blast.
The follow-up is where most replies come from
A single message reaches people on the one morning it lands. Plenty of them were busy, and busy is not the same as uninterested.
Add a follow-up and RadiusOS chases only the people who stayed quiet, then stops the moment somebody answers. Nobody gets a nudge after they have already replied.
Three days is a sensible wait for most trades and service work: long enough not to nag, short enough that the first message is still in mind. A week is better for anything with a long decision, like a listing or a large install.
Keep the follow-up shorter than the first message and change the angle rather than repeating it. “Did the price work out?” beats sending the same pitch again in different words.
Send a number you can answer
This is the mistake that surprises people. A send that works generates replies, and replies are work. Emailing 200 past customers on a Monday means spending Tuesday answering them.
Start with a size you could comfortably handle if every single person wrote back. Fifteen or twenty is a real campaign for a small shop. If it goes well, send the next batch next week.
The pacing helps here too: messages go out over hours and days rather than all at once, so the replies arrive spread out instead of in a pile.
Read the numbers afterwards
Open the campaign a few days later. The counts across the top are the whole report.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Replied | The only number that matters. Everything else is a means to this. |
| Opened | Useful for judging the subject line. A good open rate with no replies means the message was read and did not ask for anything. |
| Bounced | Dead addresses. Worth cleaning out of your list; they cost you sender reputation. |
| Left out | People who were skipped and why: unsubscribed, no address, a shared inbox. Click it to see who. |
If almost nobody opened it, the subject line is the thing to change. If plenty opened and nobody replied, the message did not give them anything to answer.
A worked example
Say you run a two-person roofing shop and it is coming into autumn. You want the customers you worked for two or three years ago to think about gutters before the leaves come down.
The list
Filter to your past customers, and take the twenty oldest. They are the ones least likely to have heard from you.
The first message
Short: it has been a couple of years since we did your roof, autumn is coming, we are booking gutter clears now. One question at the end: want me to put you on the list?
The follow-up
Three days later, to the ones who stayed quiet. Two lines. Something like: still worth booking you in before the weather turns?
The schedule
Weekdays, morning. Homeowners read business email before work and at lunch.
Afterwards
Answer the replies the same day. Book what you can. Take the next twenty next week.
Ways this goes wrong
| Mistake | What happens | Instead |
|---|---|---|
| Emailing everyone you have | Complaints from people who do not remember you, which follows your address everywhere | Send to people who would recognise your name |
| No follow-up | You reach people on one morning and lose the ones who were busy | Add one, three days later |
| A long message | It gets scanned and closed | Four or five sentences and one question |
| Sending at night or at weekends | Reads as automated, gets opened less and reported more | Set your days and hours once in Sending limits |
| A big send you cannot service | Replies go unanswered, which is worse than never writing | Send a batch you could answer in a day |