Question About Outsourcing

[Tcwiggins03]

I have a site in the skincare niche and I've created a nice piece of content 10k+ words w/ infographic, and I want to pitch it to dermatologists, aestheticians etc as a guestographic.

This is my first time doing this and I have come to the realization that I will go crazy if I have to sift through thousands of dermatologist websites collecting contact info.

So I was looking for any advice on the best way to outsource this. I want to pay someone to find all these websites and collect an email address, name, facebook, twitter, etc.

What's the best way to go about this. Mechanical Turk? Something like UpWork, Elance etc? Looking for cheap as possible and quick.

Should I break the job up into a bunch of chunks? Say, create like 10 separate jobs of 100 cities each to search through and put them all up on Mechanical Turk.

Or maybe someone knows of some service that does this sort of thing exclusively?

Thanks!!!

 

[Concept]

At first, do it yourself, however, while you are doing it take note of what you are doing. As you go through the process, you will find the best way to do things, and refine the process. Keep note of all these things. Maybe even create a checklist. You will also find software that can automate or speed up parts of the process.

Yes, this sounds like a lot of work at the beginner, but in the long term, it will save you a heap of time, money and headaches. Also by doing it yourself, you will answer many of your questions above specific to your needs and situation.

Finally, when you are ready to hire, take all these notes and checklists write a Systems Manual that is very easy to follow. I always do it step by step as if a two-year-old was following it.

When you hire, you can have the person go through the manual. By having a simple step by step guide, you can use it to check if they are doing the task correctly. It is very easy to show them what is missing in the process, or figure out what they were doing wrong.

By having it all laid out you can hire someone very cheaply to just follow the process.

This isn't a one-off solution. This is if you are planning to consistently put out content and need someone to promote it / outreach for you each time.

To find the person I would use Upwork.

 

[IngvarXH]

Concept's got the right advice above, do it yourself first. It sounds tedious and it is, but you'll have a much higher success rate than most outsourced people. You care more and you know your content better

My pro tip: do not use email to reach out and do not reach out to just anyone. Target businesses with active social media accounts and DM them on whichever they tend to use most. My success rate with email is about ~5%, while with social media it's ~20% (and depending on strength of content it can be even higher)

Good luck!

 

[Tcwiggins03]

Concept's got the right advice above, do it yourself first. It sounds tedious and it is, but you'll have a much higher success rate than most outsourced people. You care more and you know your content better

My pro tip: do not use email to reach out and do not reach out to just anyone. Target businesses with active social media accounts and DM them on whichever they tend to use most. My success rate with email is about ~5%, while with social media it's ~20% (and depending on strength of content it can be even higher)

Good luck!

Thanks for the tip, I wonder if anyone knows of a good program to automate social media outreach. Something like Pitchbox but for social.

 

[turbin3]

That's some great BuSo-style targeting strategy, @IngvarXH. Personally, I wouldn't completely eliminate email, though niches will usually determine which method might be best.

@Tcwiggins03, at first, I wouldn't even mess with trying to automate it. Automation usually works best when you've already found a strategy, an angle, etc. with good success, and then you scale it. Initially, what's most important is focusing on high ROI.

In cases like outreach, in my experience high ROI results usually happen from expert-level targeting a select few opportunities. They just end up being the most relevant and engaged ones. I'd highly recommend reading through @Steve Brownlie's guide to professional outreach on the BuSo Digital Strategy Crash Course. He is, after all, THE MAN when it comes to that subject!

It's definitely worth spending some time thinking of peripheral and indirect opportunities most of the competition didn't bother to consider. You might even think 1 or several steps removed from dermatologists and other providers that seem like the obvious choice. Like consumers.

Example
There are lots of parental support communities out there. I'd bet there's tons of Facebook groups as well. They love their kids, and certainly want to take care of skin-related issues. Maybe come at it from a tug-on-their-heartstrings angle. Maybe even just a dash of concern or fear added for good measure.

Consider seasonal trends. It's winter now, in most parts of the world. People's skin gets dry. Kids are clumsy, more likely to get cuts and scrapes. Dry skin + injury isn't a great recipe for healing without scars (<= insert {fear} here LOL). If possible, tweak the content and infographic to play to those emotions.

The Big Picture
That may or may not be a relevant example for your site/content. The real point is, you can email hundreds or thousands of businesses per day, in the traditional manner. Much of the time seeing a paltry few percent conversion rate, at the expense of a lot of PAIN!

On the other hand, throw the right image or a thoughtful few words at the right influencer, and you could have 1,000 "helicopter parents" link / like / share / retweeting your stuff to the Traffic Leak Hall of Fame!