With the world literally at our fingertips, International Outreach is a key part of the vast majority of almost all PR campaigns these days. The potential to promote our clients’ products and services on an international level is exciting not just for our clients but from a personal PR standpoint.
However, you need to keep in mind that if you are doing International Outreach you still need to consider the brand’s or client’s target audience and markets. Not every brand’s goal is international links.
Outreaching on an international level does not always come easy to some, and I have surprised myself on many occasions on how I seem to have developed a knack for achieving international link building.
What is Outreach?
Traditional outreach involves the process of reaching out to journalists, editors, website owners and people in different industries, with the purpose of building relationships and introducing clients via various campaigns with a view to promoting a brand’s product or service.
Of course, our ultimate goal is to generate press coverage, increase brand awareness and of course, build relevant and high quality links.
But how is International Outreach different?
International Outreach (or local market outreach) involves the same procedure really. But in this instance, we are dealing with the unfamiliar, countries/journalists that use different languages, work in different time zones, and have a different approach to what we are used to.
However, if we get these things right, the opportunity to promote our clients and build relationships can lead to great opportunities for us mutually.
So with this in mind, I thought it would be useful to share my top tips for international Outreach
To start your International Outreach, you need to be organised. I personally follow these simple steps:
- Break your campaign down (mind map is great for this, what are your angles, what are all topics/verticals you can target?)
- Make the pitch relevant to the country (think timezones)
- Pitch your campaign right, use subject lines that are going to grab attention. (A bit of a research on what your target country/publications use when it comes to headlines is always very helpful)
- Make sure you are targeting the correct country (no one wants an awkward moment when you send a pitch about a country/city to the wrong audience)
Furthermore, Ensure that the publication you are sending your campaign to are speaking the language you want to target. Going the extra mile and translating your pitch to the language the publication/journalists speak is always welcomed).
Search online for the countries/cities and their local and national publications and go through them one by one. Search the local websites for email addresses, use tools available to search for email addresses. Some great ones are, for example, Buzzstream or Hunter.io.
If you have access, use journalists’ databases (e.g. Roxhill or Vuelio), use their search tool and type in the destination’s name, this is good for bringing up regional publications.
If using journalists’ database; break your searches down, use keywords, countries. Then don’t forget to check journalists are relevant and would be interested in your client/campaign..
Check the news, search the topic or the area and target the publications that are talking about your topic.
And a reminder one more time, check your time zones, make sure you are not sending out campaigns to journalists at the wrong time of day.
In summary, International Outreach is a little more tricky than traditional outreach, language barriers, time zones and different cultures can affect the overall process.
But if we delve into this more and get it spot on, the potential to promote our campaigns on a global platform is not only a great brand awareness opportunity for our clients’ products and services, but also a great opportunity for our team to create relationships and contacts globally moving forward.
