This article will cover:
Understanding Outreach
Media Relations | Outreach is where you send off press releases and pitches to selections of media contacts or your media lists.
Outreach offers a number of features, including:
Creating re-usable templates
Drafting, scheduling and sending Outreach emails
Sending Outreach email previews to yourself or others
Selecting the exact recipients and/or media lists for your Outreach
Reviewing the Outreach email engagement analytics
Following-up with recipients of an Outreach email
Managing Outreaches and Templates with organizational tools
Prerequisites
Before drafting an outreach email, make sure:
you have set up at least 1 approved sender, and
You will be able to select specific recipients or add freely entered email addresses as recipients in the tool.
Note: If you intend to send the Outreach email, you will require the Administrator role for Media Relations. Viewers are only able to save draft Outreaches.
Drafting an Outreach Email
Follow these steps to begin drafting your Outreach email:
Click the Media Relations drop-down in the left-hand navigation bar
Select Outreach
On the Outreach landing page, click the purple Create button in the top right-hand corner
Select Create outreach
In the Outreach creator, select the approved sender from which you'd like to send the Outreach email
Provide a subject for your Outreach email
In the composer, start drafting your Outreach email
Formatting Tools and Options
Outreach offers a wide range of formatting tools, including:
choosing between 15 standard text fonts
modifying the text font size
modifying the text font color
applying bold, italicize, underline & strike-through
clear formatting
insert hyperlink
insert image
apply left, center and right-alignment
apply left or right-indent
apply bullet list formatting
apply number list formatting
undo / redo
insert emoji
modify HTML for the email body
Note: You can also copy and paste your desired formatting into the text editor directly from your preferred word processor. If you encounter issues, it may be because our text editor does not support the formatting in your word processor. In these cases, reach out to support for assistance cultivating the right HTML for your template, which you can re-use.
Attachments, Templates & Placeholders
Above the text composer, you will see three buttons:
Insert a previously created Outreach template from your saved templates
Add a placeholder for first name or last name
This is the mail-merge feature in Outreach
Note: Placeholders do not populate with anything when the recipient is a source newsdesk.
Selecting Recipients for your Outreach
In the Outreach creator, the Add Recipients panel is where you will specify to whom the Outreach will be sent. You have 2 main ways to add recipients:
Using the search bar
Using the recipient browser pop-up
Searching for Recipients
To search for recipients using the search bar, follow these steps:
Type the name of your desired contact or source to see suggested results in the drop-down
Alternatively, type the email address of your desired recipient to see suggested results in the drop-down
If there are no results that match your search query, the recipient may not be on any media lists. In this case, you can provide a freely entered email address to include as a recipient
Using the Recipient Browser
To use the recipient browser, follow these steps:
Click Add from media lists to open the browser
Here, you can use the label filter on the left-hand side to narrow your media list results down by label, alternatively you can search for media lists by name using the search bar
Either select the entire media list, or drill-in to the media list for additional options, like
Search within the media list by the journalist or newsdesks name
Filter by Journalists or Newsdesks on the list
Filter by Beat
Filter by Location
Filter by email Open Rate
You can multi-select recipients within a list with ease while drilled into a media list.
Click Ok when you're ready to apply your selection.
Note: unreachable contacts, like those who have unsubscribed from you, all of Meltwater, or do not have an email address on their profile, will be deducted from your selection upon clicking Ok.
Reviewing your Selected Recipients
We've made it easy to review your selected recipients, by indicating which have been individually added, and which media lists you've included in your selection. You may notice that a media list has less members included than were selected. This can result from you individually selecting less members on the list than the list contains, or because your media list contains unreachable contacts, which are not counted in the final recipient selection.
It's easy to quickly edit your selection by clicking on the pencil icon next to either the individually selected recipients, or your selected media lists.
Reviewing and Sending your Outreach
Once you've drafted your Outreach email and selected all desired recipients and media lists, click Review to move to the next step.
Reviewing, Sending or Scheduling your Outreach
In order to send or schedule your Outreach, follow these steps:
Review your Outreach to ensure it meets your expectations
Optionally send a test email by clicking Send a test email in the toolbar
Click the purple Send or schedule button in the toolbar
Send your outreach or schedule it for a later time
Applying a Label or Saving a Draft
Optionally, you may choose to apply a label to your Outreach email before it is send, or save the Outreach as a draft. Both of these options are found in the toolbar on the Review Outreach page.
Limitations to Know About
Like many services, there are basic limitations to Outreach that keep your emails from going to Spam folders or journalists from mass unsubscribing from our database.
Recipient Count Limits
All customers are limited to sending to a maximum of 1,000 recipients per Outreach email. This limit helps keep your emails out of spam folders, and it helps Meltwater's email domain maintain a positive and healthy reputation.
By default, all customers are limited to sending to a maximum of 1,000 recipients per day, but this limit can be upgraded upon approval. Please reach out to your account manager or support to learn more.
Attachment File Size Limits
To learn more about Outreach Emails Attachment Size Limits in Media Relations.
💡 Tip
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